5 Activities to Celebrate International Day of Families

Celebrate this special day in your classroom with our range of hands-on activities that will show learners how wonderful their families are.

Books are an excellent tool to help learners focus on particular themes and bring them to life. Held on the 15th of May every year, International Day of Families is a great springboard to discuss families as a topic and as part of your curriculum. 

With lots of the Ladybird Readers series featuring families within them, these books can help cover this special day alongside some fun, hands-on activities in the classroom.

1. Make a family tree

A family tree is a fun way to get learners to think about their family and how everyone relates to each other. It can easily be adapted for higher and lower-level learners, too. 

For lower-level learners restrict to three or four family members and extend for higher-level learners. Download our template or, for extra creativity, ask learners to create their own tree. To create personalised trees, ask each child to draw or paint a picture of a tree. When complete, give them a selection of sticky post-it notes to allow them to write their family members’ names.

2. Sing ‘We are Family’ together

Songs are an effective way to help consolidate a topic or a grammar point, while engaging pupils through mediums other than books. The song We are Family is an ideal way to celebrate this special day – there is even a version by children’s favourites The Chipmunks which is bound to make them laugh a little in the classroom! You can play the song to introduce the topic and idea of families, and ask your pupils to write out lines from the song.

3. Play Guess Who

This family-favourite game is a great interactive tool to get students talking. Allocate everyone a family member and ask them to describe them in as much detail as they can to a partner, a group, or the wider class. Take it in turns to ask the other learners to guess who the family member is from the description.

4. Write a story about families

In many Ladybird Readers, the topic of the family is evident and central to the story. Peppa Pig always has adventures with her family, and while reading these books you can ask learners to make up their own adventure through creative writing, using their own family members.

These other great books can also be used to talk about the topic of families:

Topsy and Tim

Use Ladybird Readers to focus on the relationship of siblings in general. Ask students to discuss their own siblings and find out if anyone has a twin, just like Topsy and Tim.

Hansel and Gretel

This classic tale also focuses on the relationship between siblings and the adventure they have together. Read the book and use it as a starting point to talk about how Hansel and Gretel take care of each other throughout the story.

Download and print a PDF of these activities here.