HISTORY

Labor Day is a national legal holiday that is over 100 years old. Over the years, it has evolved from a purely labor union celebration into a general "last fling of summer" festival.  It grew out of a celebration and parade in honor of the working class by the Knights of Labor in 1882 in New York. In 1884, the Knights held a large parade in New York City celebrating the working class. The parade was held on the first Monday in September. The Knights passed a resolution to hold all future parades on the same day, designated by them as Labor Day.

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Labor Day Movement    Click Here!
 

LESSONS
Multicultural Lesson Plan Aligned : Labor Day

Overview
This lesson explores the culture of the community. It helps students become aware of the diverse jobs in our community and understand that on Labor Day we celebrate the different jobs people have.
Assessed Standards and Benchmarks-Jefferson County
MATH STANDARD 3:Students use data collection and analysis, statistics and probability in problem-solving situations and communicate with appropriate mathematical language the reasoning used in solving these problems.
Addressed Standards and Benchmarks: Language Arts Standards 3 and 7
Assessments
Each student will participate in creating a graph, which shows the different occupations of their parents. Each student will
share (in writing or orally) their interpretation of the graph.
Prerequisite Skills
*Have 1-1 correspondence
*Experience in interpreting graphs
HOMEWORK: Students bring in lists of occupations of parents.
Instructional Strategies
 Before the activity, create a class list of different jobs and careers.
 Have students come to school dressed in a costume of what they want to be when they grow up. Students then share about their choices and the importance of that job. Have children guess what holiday celebrates the different jobs people have. Afterwards give a brief history about Labor Day. Read stories about different jobs such as Mothers Can Do Anything by Joe Lasker. Discuss the various jobs in the story and how they are like any jobs the students chose. Create a classroom graph for the assessment using the information children brought in for homework. This can be a bar graph, pie graph, etc. Discuss the results of the graph.
Transfer
Make a graph of only dads’ occupations and one of moms’. Compare the two graphs.   How are they the same?
What differences do you see? Why are there these differences?  Why do you think that?
 

Additional Lesson  : Using the Newspaper
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ACTIVITIES, GAMES AND PUZZLES

Labor Day Picnic Ideas
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Activities:
Assembly Line Production Race -.This is a fun activity for developing a basic understanding of how an assembly line operates.
This race will be done in groups of 4-8 "workers"  depending on the number of steps for assembling each craft or other item
hat you choose to make. (Some workers can perform more than one task if necessary)   Each group is given identical tasks
to perform and the first group to complete their work is the winner. Let the kids know that when they are all through with the
races they will each be receiving the items that they make as prizes, so tell them that they will need to work with speed and
accuracy to produce a quality product just like in a real production line.

Crossword Puzzle
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Recipes
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

John Shepler's Writing Article
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First Labor Day Parade
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HOME PAGE
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