Red Nose Day Children’s Activities!

Well my friends, it’s that time of year again! Red Nose Day is May 23 this year and I’m so excited. If you don’t know what Red Nose Day is, HAVE YOU BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK?!? If you shop at Walgreens, you’re probably asked or reminded of it every 30 seconds. But I promise you, it’s for a good cause! Red Nose Day was created by Comic Relief in the UK to bring awareness to child poverty. In 2015, the United States decided to bring awareness to this issue. Walgreens is just one of many sponsors and they collect donations by selling fun items that everyone can wear on the special day! Each year the item designs change so it’s also something you or your kiddos can start collecting.

A great way for you to save money and let your students participate is by talking to a manager at your local Walgreens. Ask a manager if they would be willing to sponsor your classroom or if there are ever any customers that do not want the actual red nose or any other item, that they set it aside for your students. Walgreens loves to give back to their community and workers have a chance to sell more when they mention that the money goes to the foundation while the items are going to a local school! It’s a win-win and totally worth a shot!!

I celebrated last year with the classes that I was pushing into. I created red nose day children’s activities for Kinder and 2nd grade. This year, I wanted to include a lot more friends so I created activities for 1st and 3rd grade as well. All red nose day children’s activities are tied to common core standards. I worked with teachers in each grade to assure that the activities were appropriate and fun for students to do! Last year, my Kinder and 2nd graders were living their absolute lives celebrating and practicing their ELA and Math skills. We all took a class picture with our red noses on at the end of the activities. It’s a day that I have become very passionate about and hope you do too!

For each grade level pack, the red nose day children’s activities are both ELA and math. There are also grading checklists for quick and easy grading of each individual students’ work as well as bulletin display of the checklist for your academic bulletin!

For the red nose day children’s activities for Kinder, the ELA activity focuses on comparing and contrasting themselves to a child in poverty. My favorite part of this activity is when your students are asked to find a partner and compare and contract their lives! For the Kinder math activity, they are to take the red nose day items and measure them! As I explained earlier, the items change from year to year. So you’re going to have to explain that the pictures might look different than the items they are measuring but they are the same type of item (red nose, pin, pen, bracelet). I should also state the obvious here and say that you’re going to have to purchase enough of each item for your students to measure. So a suggestion is purchasing about 5-6 of each item and have your students measure in groups that rotate!

The Red Nose Day children’s activities that I created for 1st grade are focusing on comparing and contracting their lives to the life of a child in poverty through a Venn-diagram as well as a creative writing template that asks students to think about how they would end child poverty if they were king/queen of the world! The math activities focus on their geometry skills. There is a page where students get a chance to take notes on what each items’ defining and non-defining attributes are. After they have made their observations, there are two T-charts that asks them to sort each item based on their observations. Lastly, students have a template to create their own Red Nose and describe its’ defining and non-defining attributes!

The Red Nose Day children’s activities that I created for 2nd grade are focusing on poetry and graphing! To help your second graders write their poem about life of a child in poverty, there is a poem organizer. There is also a Red Nose Day Reflection page that asks them to think about what they are grateful for. I think it’s so important to teach empathy and compassion at this age as they are become more aware of the world. The second grade math red nose day children’s activity starts with an informative page about the states in the mid-west and their child poverty percentages. They are to take those percentages and create a bar graph of the information. When they are all finished, there is a reading and data comprehension quiz!

The Red Nose Day children’s activities that I created for 3rd grade are focusing on narrative writing and geometry! For ELA, your students will be asked to create a narrative that illustrates the day in the life of a child in poverty. To organize their thoughts and assure that they jot down experiences that children in poverty may have, there is a narrative organizer. For math, your students will be finding the area of Red Nose Day items. Another fun activity is for your students to create their own Red Nose then find the area of their design. It’s a great way for your students to be creative while you get to see which students are grasping the procedure of area because all students should have the same area!

All these Red Nose Day Children’s activities are such a great way to celebrate and bring awareness to a huge problem that should not exist. Child poverty breaks my heart and needs to continue to be talked about. Let’s celebrate this day together and continue to bring awareness in a fun, engaging and thoughtful way! Happy Red Nose Day everyone!