For many of us, Labor Day marks back to school season. Our students often associate Labor Day with summer being over. However, Labor Day is more than just a sad signal that we have to get back to work. It is a day to honor workers across the country and the fight that people fought to create safer and healthier working conditions. Labor Day is the perfect opportunity to start meaningful learning during the school year. I’ll be sharing three easy, engaging classroom activities that require minimal prep but spark great, meaningful Labor Day conversations.

Build Background Knowledge

One of the simplest ways to build meaning in your classroom around Labor Day is by building background knowledge. Help your students understand the meaning behind this holiday. An activity I like to use at the beginning of the year to do this is my “The History of Labor Day Comprehension Passage for 5th-8th Grade.” This activity is VERY low prep. It includes a detailed comprehension passage, 5 multiple choice questions, 3 fill in the blanks, and 2 open response questions. While it is a great resource to give your students some background on this holiday, what I find even better is its ability to help with data. At the beginning of the school year, we are often not very clued in on where our students sit with their reading and writing skills. This is a great formative activity to gauge where your students are at. 

In addition, it is also a great resource to have students start interacting with one another. I often partner students up for this activity. Often, I will choose partners for the students so they experience talking to some new faces in the classroom. Otherwise, it is also nice to see who they would choose if you let them partner up. All in all, if you are looking for something easy for YOU, this is a great resource. Be a fly on the wall and watch your students work before you dive into the crazy stuff!

Put History In Order

The next activity (and probably my favorite) that I like to use around Labor Day is my “Labor Day Timeline & Cause & Effect Activity.” This activity is a 3-for-one. It includes a short passage on the history of labor day, 7 major events that happened, a timeline,  and a cause & effect graphic organizer. Students are asked to read about the history of labor day and to highlight all the major events that took place. Then, they check their major events and make sure they match with the 7 major events that the activity provides. Students are to cut and paste these major events onto the timeline in chronological order (you can also choose to have them handwrite the events if you aren’t feeling like busting out the scissors and glue sticks yet). Lastly, students are asked to fill out a cause & effect graphic organizer. Students are asked to go through each major event and tell me what caused this event to happen and what the effect of this event was/will be. 

This activity is my favorite because it includes so many standards in a short amount of time. You get insight on your students’ comprehension skills, you get to practice their critical thinking with the timeline activity, you get to practice cause & effect (which is always such a difficult topic for middle schoolers), AND you get to provide some historical background as well. Still a very low-prep activity, all you need to do is print out copies for each student, provide some scissors and glue sticks and let them go!

Let’s Argue

The last activity I have in my store that I like to use around this time is my “Labor Day Highlighting Activity – Argumentative Text for Middle School.” 

If you are starting the year off with argumentative writing, this is the activity for you. I find that starting with argumentative writing is usually a great idea for my middle school students for a couple reasons. The first reason is that it is usually one of my students’ favorite types of writing. What pre-teen doesn’t like to argue? Additionally, a lot of science and social studies classes practice argumentative writing year long. So, engraving the structure of argumentative writing at the beginning of the year is not only super helpful for your class, but also for the other classes as well. I find the CER format the most common, so I use this terminology in my class. However, whatever format you follow, whether that is triple/quadruple E or TIDE, or something else, this activity would work for you as well! 

This activity consists of an argumentative passage about Labor Day, specifically about Labor Day being more than just a day off. The students are given a key and asked to search for all of the argumentative elements (claim, evidence, reasoning/explanation, topic specific vocabulary, and transition words/phrases). Once they find them, they have to highlight the element in whatever color the key asks of them (you can also have them underline with colored pencils if you don’t have enough highlighters). Not only is this a low-prep, low stakes activity, but it is also something that I take with me throughout the ENTIRE school year. I use a “Writing with Color” method in my classroom to make both my students’ and my life easier. The students memorize the colors of this key, and then use it to annotate their own argumentative essays as the year goes on. That way, when it comes to self-grading, peer-grading, or teacher-grading, all we have to do is do a quick read through of the essays, and then search for the color-coded argumentative elements and make sure they are written correctly and placed in the correct spots. I can say “Count your greens and make sure you have AT LEAST three throughout your essay!” and the students know I am looking for evidence. I highly encourage you to try this method out this school year!

Teach to Celebrate

Celebrating Labor Day doesn’t have to take up a whole week – just one or two focused lessons can go a long way. I find that teaching is all about finding multiple values in activities. Yes, you are teaching engagement and history of a great holiday, but you are also gaining beginning of the year data and insight! I invite you to check out these activities. You can easily find them in the Labor Day category in my TPT! They are all $3 or less OR you can buy the bundle for $5 and save some money!

Happy Labor Day and happy back to school!

Thanks for reading!

Miss B