Wanna know some cool Grandparents Day celebration ideas for your language lessons? Then stick around! Just like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, Grandparents’ Day 2025 is an excellent opportunity for your students to practice their language skills, because the topic is very familiar to them. I love taking these days that are already meaningful and making them meaningful in a new language too!
Ever since I’ve had a kid, I’ve felt this day, and celebrating grandparents, is very important. I only ever had a grandma when I was young, and she died when I was 12. I really missed having them, and I already know that my little boy loves all his grandparents so much! And my students do too, judging from their stories. That’s why I think it’s fun to do something in class for grandmas and grandpas on the Grandparents’ Day date!
Wanna skip ahead and just download my Grandparents Day activities PDF? Click here to grab it now!
When is Grandparents Day 2025?
It’s 7 September, 2025, and normally it’s celebrated on the first Sunday after Labor Day in the US. And it’s actually different in the Netherlands, because we celebrate it on June 4th. It’s wildly different for each country, so check out how it is for your country.
What to make for Grandparents Day?
Let’s get to the point. Let me list some fun things to make for Grandparents’ Day with your students:
- Of course, getting students to write a Grandparents’ Day card is an obvious one. Get them to write about all the things they love about their grandparents. What’s more, encourage them to give good reasons and explanations for why they love them. Get them to make their own cards, or provide them with the cards.
- For my older kids, a great activity is to get them to write a Grandparents Day speech. They need to convince their grandparents why they are amazing. I tell them to use figurative language and figures of speech, as well as rhetorical language to make the speech persuasive.
- My youngest students will do a Grandparents’ Day drawing. Give them a sheet of paper and get them to draw a fun moment they had with their grandparent. Then have them write a few sentences at the bottom as to why they enjoyed that moment so much. Or if they don’t have the language yet, get them to only write some words.
- Another fun activity, also for older kids, is to have them write Grandparents Day song lyrics! Choose a song that is well-known and have your students write their own song lyrics to that melody. You could provide them with a word list of words they might find useful, like adjectives, or character traits.
- For younger kids it’s fun to fill in a flip book with writing prompts about their grandparents. I made this flip book that contains all the fun things to talk about related to grandma and/or grandpa. There are 3 versions: One about the grandparents together, one for just grandma, and one for just grandpa. You might want to ask which one each student wants to use, since some might only have one. Click here to check out this flip book!
Want to save all these ideas in a handy Grandparents Day activities PDF? Click here to grab it now!
Other Grandparents Day celebration ideas
Other things I do with my students is have small group discussions with them about their grandparents. It’s a great warm-up activity, and it will get them thinking about the importance of their grandparents. I use a set of cards for this and get students to discuss them in small groups. This set contains 16 question cards with fun questions.
If you want to do some listening practice with your students, try this fun video about grandparents talking to their grandchildren about their favorite food. Or read this text from National Geographic Kids about what is celebrated on Day of the Dead. You could also have them look at these pictures of grandparents and describe them.
For these and more activities, I like to give my students a choice board. This way, they can choose what language skills they want to practice. Check out the choice board I made by clicking here.
Give these Grandparents’ Day lesson ideas a try!
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