All Activities
History

Why Do We Celebrate?

Overview

Children discuss special days they know and explore why communities remember and celebrate particular moments in history.

Learning Objective
Children understand that special days and festivals often remember important events or people from the past.

Resources needed

  • None

Lesson stages

0 / 7 done
  1. 1 Ask: what special days does your family or community celebrate?
  2. 2 Children share examples — birthdays, festivals, national days.
  3. 3 Ask: why do we celebrate these days? What do they help us remember?
  4. 4 Introduce: some special days remember things that happened long ago.
  5. 5 Give one local or national example — an independence day, a harvest festival, a religious commemoration.
  6. 6 Ask: what would happen if nobody remembered this day anymore?
  7. 7 Ask: are there any special days that remember something sad as well as something good?

Tap a step to mark it as done.

Variations

  • Create a class calendar of special days and why each is remembered.
  • Children draw their favourite special day and explain its history.
  • Compare two different communities' special days — what do they share?
More information

Teach: celebrate, remember, commemorate, tradition, festival, special, honour. Connect to days children already know before introducing new ones.

Focus entirely on days the children already celebrate rather than introducing unfamiliar ones.

Can children explain why a special day is celebrated, not just when? Do they connect the celebration to a past event or person?

No resources needed. Children's own cultural knowledge is the primary content.

Children think celebrations are only about fun. Helping them see the historical reason behind festivals deepens their understanding of both history and culture.

Commemoration connects living communities to their past. Understanding why we remember is one of the most meaningful questions in history education.

Activity details
Early Years Easy 15 minutes no prep Whole Class Indoor & Outdoor
Topics
Commemoration Cultural Memory Tradition