Best Mother's Day Activities and Lessons

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Updated May 6, 2024

Celebrate Mother’s Day in your classroom with these fun, free, and modestly priced resources. Whether your students are making personalized cards for the special moms in their lives, or looking for some fun coding and STEM activities, the ideas and tools here can be enjoyed by kids of all ages. 

Best Mother's Day Activities and Lessons

Science Buddies: How Does a Chick Breathe Inside Its Shell?
A chicken’s egg is so familiar to most of us as to seem unworthy of inspection. Yet, like motherhood, it’s actually a remarkable state of being that we should strive to understand. This fine biology lesson guides students in investigating the inner workings of an “ordinary” egg, using commonly available materials.

Plant Evolution WordSearch Puzzle
Given the season, plants are a natural gift for Mother’s Day. Use this well-known association as a starting point for a word search focused on plant anatomy terms. Want to dive deeper into plant biology? Check out the history of the American rose and the Plant Parts and Functions lesson plan for grades 6-8.

Mother's Day Painting
An art lesson based on the intimate portraits of mothers with their children by the famous American painter Mary Cassatt. Using paper or canvas plus acrylic paints, students will create artwork illustrating the unique bond between mother and child.

Animals and Offspring
A lesson to delight every preschool child, Animals and Offspring consists of a free downloadable PDF that includes learning objectives, explicit instruction, differentiation, baby animal matching images, and more. Perfect for kids learning to identify animals, the lesson also serves as social-emotional learning and can be expanded to include art and literacy.

A Celebration of Famous Mothers in Art
From Google Arts and Culture, this stunning assemblage of great works of art featuring mothers invites the viewer to observe closely. Each work of art is accompanied by a description and related links. An excellent starting point for a Mother’s Day art lesson.

The 15 Most Memorable Mothers In Literature
While real mothers may receive heart-filled greeting cards, the same cannot be assumed for mothers from literature, many of whom were difficult, absent, mentally ill, or otherwise human. Perfect for an advanced literature class, this potentially provocative collection of literary mothers is sure to engender opinions and lively classroom conversation.

Mother’s Day 2024
The history of Mother’s Day is not all rainbows and butterflies. In fact, founder Ann Jarvis was appalled at the commercialization of Mother’s Day and worked against it in her later life. Learn how Mother’s Day history touches on the Civil War, the early peace movement, women’s suffrage, and other crucial topics of the 19th and 20th centuries. High school lesson idea: Ask your students to research and write about different societies’ attitudes toward mothers over the past two millennia. 

10 Mother's Day Celebration Ideas for School
Mother’s Day offers the chance to bring the expressive arts into your classroom. Ranging from reading and writing assignments to decorating vases, these activities are aimed at primary and middle school students, and are easily implemented.  

Teachers Pay Teachers: Mother’s Day Computer Activities
An outstanding collection of classroom-tested Mother’s Day resources created by educators. Search by grade, standard, subject, price (always modest), and resource type. Not sure which is best? Sort by rating, and find out what your fellow teachers think are the most effective lessons. 

Mothers In The Movies
Mothers in the movies have been at times lionized, at times demonized—and at times portrayed as the complex humans that they are. Peruse this article to find excellent material for discussions in high school social studies and psychology classes. 

Mother’s Day Online Quizzes, Games, and Worksheets
Ideal for youngsters and English Language Learners, these activities include picture vocabulary, word jumble, Mother’s Day crossword puzzle, and more.  

Crafty STEM activities for Mother’s Day
18 super-fun Mother’s Day-related activities that students will enjoy. Tell a story with a homemade flip book, create a family portrait mobile, or make an edible gift for Mom. Ever heard of a thaumatrope? Learn how this unique toy from the past was used – then make your own. 

Mother’s Day And Father’s Day In The Inclusive Classroom
Not every kid has a mother in the home, so it’s crucial to make sure all students are included in Mother’s Day activities without causing them shame or distress. This article by educator Haley O’Connor offers lots of good ideas for creating a meaningful, inclusive Mother’s Day lesson, and links to her digital Mother’s Day resources. 

Tynker Celebrate Your Mother Using Digital Storytelling
Have kids hone their coding skills while creating digital stories and cards for Mom. What's better than combining STEM and SEL?

Digital Mother’s Day Cards that Kids Can Create
Step-by-step directions guide teachers and students in creating adorable digital Mother’s Day greetings. This highly rated digital resource is only $3.50, a small sum to compensate the teacher who created it. 

Mother's Day Fun Facts and Teaching Guide
You may have never thought of the U.S. Census Bureau as a curator of Mother’s Day knowledge, but as one of the most prolific U.S. government data collectors, the Bureau serves as a vast repository for facts and data about U.S. residents. While students peruse the downloadable Fun Facts, teachers can employ the accompanying Teaching Guide to create engaging Mother’s Day lessons.

Story Corps Stories to Celebrate Mother’s Day
A genuine and touching celebration of the relationships between mothers and kids. Consider offering credit to students who record their own Mother’s Day conversations on the StoryCorps website

Best Digital Resources for Teaching Poetry
Use these top poetry resources to quickly devise a lesson combining poetry writing with the celebration of mothers. Students can write original poems or research published poems about motherhood. 

Code.org Customizable Mother’s Day Cards and Music Quiz
These customizable coding activities from the reliable and free Code.org offer something for every kid and every mother, from flowers to Teddy Bears  to a music quiz for moms  


Diana has been Tech & Learning's web editor and contributor since 2010, dedicated to ferreting out the best free tech tools for teachers.

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