Leap Day makes a special appearance this February 29th. Whether your students are old hats at having 366 days in the year or this is the first time they have experienced the day in the classroom, it is a fun occasion to celebrate. The 12 ideas below will help get students motivated while keeping you on track with your standards.
Leap Day Lesson Ideas and Activities
- Discuss the History of Leap Year – Have students hypothesize what the world would be like without the additional day every four years. Would be notice? Would seasons shift?
- Around the World in One Day – Students create a travel itinerary listing where they would spend the extra day and why.
- Leap into a Frog Study – Kick off your frog (or rainforest) unit study on Leap Day.
- How Far Can You Leap? – Have a leaping contest to see who can jump the farthest. Graph the results.
- Leap to Conclusions – Use the day to talk about and reinforce writing effective conclusions. You might also want to discuss inferring and drawing conclusions.
- Leap Into the Future – Using their creative writing skills, have students write about what they think the world will be like four leap years from now.
- Leap Into Good Behavior – Discuss bullying and bullying prevention with your students. If you have a staff in-service day, this would also be a good topic for adults!
- We’re Taking Off By Leaps and Bounds – Create a class bulletin board dedicated to student achievement and upcoming standardized testing success.
- Who Leaps? – Spend the day talking about animals and how they get around. Make a K-W-L Chart, a word web, and more as you discover interesting traits and information about animals on the farm/in the rainforest/in the desert/etc.
- Write an acrostic poem using “Leap Year” as the backbone.
- What Have I Done? – Create timelines of things your students have accomplished in the last four years. Their accomplishments can be everything from learning to ride a bike to reading a chapter book to visiting another state. They will be amazed at how much they have done.
- On Leap Day, I would… – Have students write about what they would do on Leap Day if there were no restrictions. Would they visit a theme park? Stay home and read a book? Play with their friends? Display their creative stories and accompanying pictures on a class bulletin board.
How do you plan to spend Leap Day? Will it be a normal day or will you be planning something fun for your students? Share your ideas below!
Kimberly Russell says
love the idea of a timeline, I have second graders so having them think about what they have accomplished in the last 4 years is great. they were 4 years old so this should really make them think
Kathy Douglas says
I have never in my 19 years thought of doing a leap day activity. I think my kindergartners will enjoy many of these ideas. I will integrate them with my math and measuring activities.
Crystal Forro says
I can’t wait to use these with my third graders this week. I think the timeline will be wonderful because they would have been in Kindergarten 4 years ago.
corinne says
I love number one as a science and social studies connection. Perfect this week while we are doing standardized testing for our district