5 Activities to Celebrate Columbus Day
- 9 October, 2015 //
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The legacy of Christopher Columbus is a controversial topic, but the Age of Exploration that began with his voyage to America is a major turning point in history. Acknowledging that significance is important in the Social Studies curriculum, so here are five activities and lesson plans that celebrate Columbus Day and exploration more specifically.
Celebrate Columbus Day: What to Consider by Age Group
Elementary School
This great activity from the NEA teaches kids geography in a fun and exciting way. Treat your pumpkin as a globe, showing all seven continents. To make this Fall fun more relatable to Columbus, have your students paint Columbus’ route from Spain to the Americas.
Incorporate science into your lessons on Columbus’ voyage by crafting sailboats and monitoring their success. Students will love crafting the vessels and the trial and error involved in making them stay afloat.
Columbus Day Reader’s Theater:
Invigorate students’ imaginations with this play that includes roles of real life characters. Reader’s theater encourages students to interact with the script by rehearsing and mapping out their movements. It’s a terrific team building tool, and assists the audience in understanding the content.
High School
Columbus: Hero or Villain
High school age students can have a reasoned and informed debate about the role of Columbus in American history and cultural significance. There are various resources to engage in discussion about his legacy, such as this CBS News story or this Washington Post article. After discussing the controversy as a class, allow your students to post their thoughts on Debate.org which solicits comments from readers and archives them. This writing assignment forces their rationale to be brief, but pointed. This ABC News story suggests alternatives to Columbus Day. Ask your students to support or oppose each alternative and to create their own Columbus Day replacement to suit all parties involved in the debate. Help Teaching also has a free printable multiple choice test that examines all sides of Columbus legacy.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Many writings from Columbus’ voyage are available for use by teachers. The magnificent Gilder Lehrman Institute provides a unit of study for students to think like a historian in dissecting Columbus’ letters. This unit provides step by step instruction, as well as primary sources. Students become investigators, drawing conclusions from Columbus’ own words and actions.
Christopher Columbus’ voyage and legacy is a topic that fascinates students. Finding ways to integrate the history with interactive and challenging activities makes the history come alive. For more options for disseminating information on Columbus and other explorers, check out our post Graphic Organizers in the Social Studies Classroom.
