Homemade American history games for Labor Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, 4th of July, Veterans Day lesson plans

Here's homemade fun for Labor Day, Memorial Day or 4th of July. Host a red white and blue backyard waterpark. Set up 10 activity stations and play American patriotic outdoor games. Party guests, young and old can play, but make a safe zone for those who want to stay dry. Guests should wear bathing suits or play inside in a pool. You can also make up dry versions of games.

Uncle Sam Sponge Toss. For this station, you will need a lawn chair, three large, soft clean sponges, a bucket of water and an Uncle Sam Hat (paint an old hat red, white and blue). Players take turns sitting in the 'hot seat' with the hat on. Players get to toss three wet sponges at "Uncle Sam." The object is to knock his hat off.

All American Splash Ball: Fill a bucket with water balloons. Divide players into teams of two. Players take turns lobbing balloons at each other and trying to hit with tennis or badminton racket, Nerf bat or recycled cardboard paper towel tube. Players should name presidents as they throw.

Memorial Day Bash Ball: Fill a bucket with water balloons. Give each player a butterfly net, colander, sieve or plastic butter tub. Balloons are tossed and caught without touching, as in "Hot Potato." Make it more difficult by introducing several balloons into play at once. Or make players name states and capitals as they play.

Stars and Stripes Shooting Arcade: Paint red and blue stars on white plastic containers of assorted sizes. Thoroughly rinse recycled squirt bottles and fill with water. As in a carnival water shooting gallery, players try to knock down as many bottles as possible in a limited time. Or place a waterproof map on wall and have kids aims for certain states. Winner gets to squirt the person of his choice.

Lady Liberty relay. Players take turns donning basic Lady Liberty costume (dress, crown, torch, book) as fast as they can and performing tasks.

Lady Liberty spritzer. One players dresses as Lady Liberty is blindfolded and gets a hose to spray with. Kids try to get past her, taking one step at a time, like Marco Polo.

Labor Day limbo: Hold hose up like limbo bar. Drop in lower and lower as players try to go under without getting wet. Or use a regular limbo pole. Each time, they must name a famous American.

Fireworks Sprinkler Golf: Make clubs from recycled wrapping paper tubes and balls from wadded up recycled paper or Styrofoam. Set up a small nine hole golf course, putting one hole in the middle of the sprinkler and another in the wading pool. You can also make a huge US map golf course with holes in each state.

Old Glory Obstacle Course: Arrange baby wading pools or shallow pans of water, colored red and blue in an obstacle course. Players must complete tasks like "hop on one foot to blue" or "crawl through red." Along with physical tasks students must name famous events in US history.

Patriotic Apple Bob: Fill a wading pool with apples and water. Winner gets an apple pie for the grand prize.

Award prizes for trash pick up. Be sure to collect all balloons.

Free Printable Labor Day Coloring Pages and Lesson Plans

Spring is a poignant time in labor history. March 25, 1911 remembers 146 workers, mostly women, lost in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. April 16 mourns Ireland's Easter Rising of slain Feinians. April 28 marks Workers' Memorial Day, on which the organized labor movement pays tribute to the fallen in workplace accidents or in organized labor struggles. May 1 is May Day, honoring International Workers' Day. May 4 commemorates casualties at Chicago's Haymarket riot at a 1886 labor rally. May 19, 1920 is a day when the organized labor movement grieves the Matewan and Mingo County massacre of coal miners. On May 26, 1937 those who would from unions were assaulted at Ford's River Rouge plant "Battle of the Overpass" in Detroit.

Organized labor history is taught as part of American history, but there is no American (or world) history without labor history. Unions, collective bargaining--the fight for workers' rights impact every industry, occupation and person. Teachers and homeschoolers, you can educate students about unions with these free printable May Day and labor history lesson plans. These links include websites, activities, worksheets, movies and books on the organized labor movement.

The American Labor Studies Center offers a gamut of free printable organized labor movement lesson plans. It covers history, events, strikes, lockouts, workplace injuries, child labor, working conditions, collective bargaining, 8-hour workday, sweatshops, slavery, organizing, indentured servitude, socialism and labor, women's rights, African American labor issues, minority discrimination concerns, ULP (unfair labor practices). Lessons cover the Triangle fire (the worst workplace accident in history), West Virginia labor, Pullman Strike (1894), Lawrence Textile Strike (1913), Lowell Strike, Paterson Silk Strike, agriculture strikes and other events. Get free printable union labor worksheets, fill-ins, puzzles and study guides. There are links to films

Explore famous labor leaders: Noam Chomsky, Joe Hill, "Big Bill" Haywood, Pete Seeger, Jimmy Hoffa, Caesar Chavez, the Wisconsin 14 and others from the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), AFL-CIO, Teamsters and more. This site has biographies of women labor leaders including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Mary Harris "Mother" Jones and more. To use in lessons, print the list of names on one side and short bios on the other side (mixed up). Students match person with details. Print photos and pin to a map at places they are associated with. Or make a time line along the wall. Plot images in history.

The National Endowment for the Humanities offers two companion lessons in its series The Industrial Age in America. "Sweatshops, Steel Mills and Factories" and "Robber Barons and Captains of Industry" define the problems faced by workers in labor history and the reasons for the organized labor movement. Use the worksheets and activities with middle school and high school students.

The Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University in Detroit maintains the largest organized labor history archive in the U.S. It has an impressive collection of images in physical exhibits and digital archives on The Labor Movement and Organizations. Walther Reuther who was one of several injured at Ford's Rouge factory "Battle of the Overpass" in Detroit.

The United Farm Workers is the union begun by Cesar Chavez that tends to itinerant and agricultural labor issues. Along with labor movement, the UFW educates people about food safety, immigration, deportation, earth and green initiatives, pesticides and more. An important piece is the youth activism page. UFW seeks to take union and agricultural awareness beyond the classroom walls and into real life.

In honor of May Day, here's a quote from the Albert Shanker Institute. "Imagine opening a high school U.S. history textbook and finding no mention of-or at most a passing sentence about-Valley Forge, the Missouri Compromise...Benjamin Franklin, Lewis and Clark. Imagine if these key events and people just disappeared as if they'd never existed...That is what has happened in history textbooks when it comes to labor's part in the American story." Use these lesson plans to keep the May Day stories and message alive.