Grandparents Day activities for classroom teachers work when they give students more than a craft. The strongest lessons help students think about family roles, intergenerational relationships, and identity.

This year, National Grandparents Day falls on Sunday, September 13, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prep for it in the classroom! Use these ELA and STEM activities to connect the holiday to reading, discussion, and genetics without dropping in an extra disconnected seasonal lesson.

[Explore Grandparents Day ELA activities about family relationships](id-ela)

Key Takeaways

● Keep the lesson inclusive. Students can reflect on grandparents, grandparent figures, family friends, or fictional characters without needing one specific family structure.
● Choose the text length that fits your time. A short article or poem works for a single class period, while a novel study lets students explore family relationships over time.
● Connect celebration to analysis. Grandparents Day activities can move beyond appreciation by asking students to examine character relationships, point of view, memory, and identity.

Use Grandparents Day to help students explore how family stories, memories, and relationships shape identity. These ELA activities give students flexible ways to access those ideas through short texts, poetry, and novels, while keeping the topic inclusive for different family structures.

What makes grandparents and grandparent figures significant?

Grandparents and grandparent figures often show students other aspects of family, memory, care, and identity they don’t get from other family members. For this Grandparents Day classroom activity, start with a low-pressure reflection that lets students think about a grandparent, another older relative, a family friend, or even a fictional grandparent character.

The choices matter because not every student has the same family structure or celebrates Grandparents Day. Giving students options keeps the focus on meaningful relationships rather than expected experiences.

Mini Lesson: What makes grandparents significant?

Use this ELA activity to help students reflect on grandparent figures, read closely, and support their thinking with text evidence.

Lesson goal Students will describe what makes a grandparent or grandparent figure significant, then use text evidence to explain what makes intergenerational relationships meaningful.

Materials

Text set: Grandparents’ Day
Fiction story: Something Strange in Grandpa’s Woods
Student notebooks or a digital response document
Optional writing support: Thank-you note resource

Setup

Give students two reflection options: Describe a grandparent or grandparent figure in their life, or describe a fictional grandparent character from a book, movie, or show.

Student task

Have students read the fiction story “Something Strange in Grandpa’s Woods”, highlight details about Alex’s relationship with her grandpa, and annotate words that describe their relationship.

Discussion prompt

Ask students to use specific details from the text to answer: What makes relationships with grandparents special?

Wrap-up

Invite students to write a thank-you note to a grandparent, grandparent figure, family friend, or another important person in their life.

How can poems help students explore family relationships?

A short poem gives students a shared text for talking about memory, aging, care, and connection.

Invite students to choose one poem from the family relationships collection and read it twice. On the first read, they can mark words or lines that show a relationship. On the second read, they can annotate what the speaker seems to feel about another person.

Then, ask students to answer a question with text evidence: How does this poem show the importance of relationships in someone’s life? They can discuss their answers in pairs or use the poem as a mentor text for writing their own creation about meaningful relationships.

ELA poetry resources

Poems about family relationships

Use these poems to help students explore how writers describe memory, friendship, care, and connection across different kinds of relationships.

Poem	Grade Level	How To Use It
When You Are Old By W.B. Yeats	6–12	Ask students to identify words that show memory, admiration, or change over time.
The Pasture By Robert Frost	4–8	Have students discuss how a simple invitation can reveal warmth, trust, and connection.
My Grandfather’s Typewriter By Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer	4–8	Invite students to analyze how an object can hold family memory and meaning.
On Friendship By Kahlil Gibran	4–5	Use the poem to broaden the discussion from family relationships to trusted, supportive relationships.
A Time to Talk By Robert Frost	2–8	Ask students to explain how the speaker shows that relationships are worth making time for.
The Arrow and the Song By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	2–5	Have students trace how kind words or actions can carry meaning to other people.

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Which novels feature grandparents and intergenerational relationships?

Novels with grandparents as main characters or significant secondary characters can help students explore family relationships over time. These stories give students room to discuss identity, belonging, cultural traditions, and the ways older generations shape younger ones.

Use these Newsela ELA Novel Studies for independent reading recommendations, literature circles, or whole-class novel units. Each one gives students a different way to think about what grandparents and grandparent figures can represent in a story.

ELA novel and book studies

Novels with grandparents and grandparent figures

Use these Newsela ELA resources to help students explore how grandparents and grandparent figures shape character, conflict, identity, family history, and belonging.

Resource	Grade Level	Grandparent Connection	How To Use It	Sample Content	Teacher Note
As Brave As You By Jason Reynolds	5–12	Two brothers spend the summer with their grandparents. Their grandfather’s ideas about courage, fear, family, and growing up sit at the center of the story.	Build background knowledge before or during a coming-of-age novel unit. Ask students to make text-to-text connections and cite evidence in a paragraph response.	How to understand your emotions “My Grandfather’s Typewriter”: A student poem by Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer Jason Reynolds
Becoming Naomi León By Pam Muñoz Ryan	3–7	Naomi and Owen are raised by their great-grandmother, Gram, who works to protect them and keep their family together.	Discuss family structures, belonging, identity, and healthy relationships. Use the Identity Wheel or Evidence-Conclusion organizer to connect character analysis to theme.	5 parenting styles and their effects on life Mystery about family roots inspires writer in first novel Why siblings can have surprisingly different DNA ancestry	This novel includes family separation and custody conflict.
The Birchbark House By Louise Erdrich	3–7	Nokomis lives with Omakayas’s family and serves as a grandmother, storyteller, cultural teacher, healer, and source of knowledge about the land.	Explore Ojibwe history, cultural traditions, healing, identity, and relationships with nature. Use nature, birds, and circular imagery to support theme analysis.	Native Americans and traditional plant use Opinion: Traditional Chinese medicine brings me closer to my heritage Tribal Fever	This novel includes illness and loss.
Brown Girl Dreaming By Jacqueline Woodson	5–12	Jacqueline’s grandparents shape her childhood in South Carolina and influence her understanding of family, home, history, religion, race, and the South.	Connect family relationships with memoir, poetry, civil rights history, and storytelling. Have students create a mini-memoir or visual that shows the power of family support.	Jacqueline Woodson Autobiography and memoir Jim Crow and the Great Migration
Bud, Not Buddy By Christopher Paul Curtis	5–12	Herman E. Calloway becomes a major figure in Bud’s search for family, and the revelation that he is Bud’s grandfather reframes their difficult relationship.	Explore family, poverty, trust, jazz, the Great Depression, and Bud’s search for belonging. Ask students to compare themes in the novel with a poem or short literary text.	“My People”: A poem by Langston Hughes Facebook group raises more than $15 million to help reunite immigrant families The Great Depression	This novel includes foster care, family separation, and poverty.
Clean Getaway By Nic Stone	3–7	Scoob and his grandmother, G’ma, are central to the story. Their road trip reveals family history, racism, segregation, and the barriers Scoob’s grandparents faced.	Connect family history with civil rights, the Green Book, and multiracial family experiences. Have students compare past and present experiences of multiracial families.	Book Review: “Clean Getaway” explores a multiracial family’s travel adventure Green Book Helped African-American Tourists Navigate a Segregated Nation “See me as I am”: Kids discuss what it’s like to be multiracial in Seattle	This novel includes historical context from the Jim Crow era.
Dreaming in Cuban By Cristina García	11–12	Celia del Pino is both a grandmother and a central character whose relationship with Pilar connects three generations and Cuban and Cuban American perspectives.	Explore memory, love, betrayal, storytelling, language, and transnational identity. Use timelines, paired texts, or alternate endings to connect family history to national history.	Family visit to Cuba inspired girl to become a poet How We Have Turned Memories and Stories into Histories Countries of the World: Cuba	Best for upper high school. This novel includes mature family dynamics and historical context.
Homecoming By Cynthia Voigt	7–12	The Tillerman children travel to find their grandmother, Abigail Tillerman, and the question of whether she will accept them drives the story.	Explore home, family, human connection, homelessness, and support during difficult times. Use the paper mulberry metaphor to help students connect family, home, and resilience.	Human connection bolsters immune systems; that’s why it’s important to be kind Why tough times can create better neighbors “Invisible” homeless kids challenge states	This novel includes abandonment, homelessness, and survival themes.
The Latehomecomer By Kao Kalia Yang	7–12	Yang’s grandmother is one of the memoir’s emotional centers and is described as someone who held the family together through war, refugee camps, and resettlement.	Discuss refugee experiences, cultural identity, home, family memory, and Hmong stories. Have students create artwork, a book review, or a cross-cultural comparison of mourning rites and rituals.	The professional mourners of Mani, Greece Countries of the World: Laos Ukrainian refugees find jobs, kindness, as they settle in new countries	This memoir includes displacement, refugee experiences, family loss, and mourning traditions.
Mañanaland By Pam Muñoz Ryan	3–8	Max’s grandfather, Buelo, is a mentor and storyteller whose stories help Max understand family, courage, and guardianship.	Discuss folklore, symbols, journeys, hope, courage, friendship, and family stories. Have students connect symbols like bridges, compasses, and birds to character development.	What are folktales? Symbolism The difference between empathy and sympathy
Midnight Without a Moon By Linda Williams Jackson	5–7	Rose Lee lives with her sharecropper grandparents. Her relationship with Ma Pearl is painful and powerful, affecting Rose’s daily life, identity, and hopes.	Explore a more complex grandparent relationship alongside racism, colorism, civil rights, and family conflict. Use source comparison, PSA writing, or timeline work to connect the novel to historical context.	Handling conflict in relationships Parents who lash out at children can stunt brains, researchers say Primary Sources: Chicago Defender supports the Great Migration	This novel includes difficult historical events, harsh family treatment, and violence.
Pachinko By Min Jin Lee	11–12	Sunja becomes the matriarch and grandmother of a four-generation family, making the novel useful for exploring how grandparents carry history across countries and generations.	Discuss family perseverance, imperialism, identity, belonging, and generational history. Have students build a family tree that connects characters, relationships, themes, symbols, and quotations.	How to find the theme of a book or short story Opinion: From embarrassment to celebration, accepting a bicultural identity Issue Overview: Why Japan and South Korea still spar over history	Best for upper high school. This novel includes mature themes related to family history, identity, and discrimination.
Walk Two Moons By Sharon Creech	5–7	Sal travels across the country with Gram and Gramps, whose stories, humor, and presence shape the journey.	Explore storytelling, grief, nature, empathy, and the way families pass stories between generations. Use journals, poetry connections, or empathy maps to deepen character analysis.	Storytelling and cultural traditions How to deal with the death of a loved one Joy Harjo is the first Native American named U.S. poet laureate	This novel includes grief and loss.
The Witches By Roald Dahl	3–7	The unnamed boy’s grandmother raises him, protects him, teaches him about witches, and helps him act with courage.	Examine character motivation, fairy-tale elements, fantasy connections, stereotypes, and setting. Ask students to compare the novel with “Hansel and Gretel” or analyze how fantasy reflects the real world.	Hansel and Gretel Authors: Roald Dahl How fantasy reflects our world	This novel includes scary imagery and fantasy peril.

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[Use Grandparents Day STEM activities to make gifts and teach genetics](id-science)

Key Takeaways

● Make the gift the evidence. Students can create something meaningful while showing what they understand about reactions, design choices, or inherited traits.
● Choose the science angle first. A bath fizzer fits chemical reactions, a toolbox fits engineering design, and a genetics activity fits identity and inheritance conversations.
● Handle heredity carefully. Keep genetics lessons focused on evidence and patterns, not assumptions about students’ families or biological relationships.

STEM gives students another way to connect Grandparents Day to classroom learning. Start with hands-on gift projects that teach design and chemistry, then move into genetics lessons that help students examine inherited traits.

What Grandparents Day STEM projects can students make?

Students can make Grandparents Day gifts that double as STEM lessons. Instead of just making a craft, use these projects as a way for students to apply science and engineering ideas to something tangible they can give as a present to an important grandparent or grandparent figure in their lives.

Two classroom-friendly options are bath fizzers and recycled-material toolboxes. Bath fizzers can show students chemical reactions in action, while the toolbox project asks students to design and build a usable structure from everyday materials.

Bath fizzers: Connect gift-making to chemical reactions

Bath fizzers are great Grandparents Day STEM activities because they let students make a small gift and explain the science behind it. The fizzing happens when baking soda and citric acid react after you add water. That reaction produces carbon dioxide, which creates the bubbles you see.

Have students make the bath fizzers using the instructions below, then pause before they wrap up the gift. Ask them to explain why the dry ingredients don’t react right away and why adding liquid too quickly could start the reaction before the fizzer is ready.

Then, connect the activity to a short reading about chemical changes, chemical reactions, or mixtures. Students can use the readings to add a science note to their gift or the gift tag.

STEM Lab Sequence

Bath Fizzer STEM Build

Use this Grandparents Day gift project to help students make a bath fizzer and explain how water starts a chemical reaction between baking soda and citric acid.

Investigation question

Why does a bath fizzer bubble only after water is added?

Quick materials check

1 cup baking soda ½ cup citric acid ½ cup cornstarch ¼ cup Epsom salt 3 tablespoons coconut oil Essential oils, optional Food coloring, optional Large bowl Small bowl Whisk Mold Cookie cutters, ice cube trays, or plastic muffin liners

Build and explain

Build the bath fizzer

Have students follow Activity: Make a fizzy bath ball to combine the ingredients and press the mixture into a mold.

Predict what starts the fizz

Before adding water, ask students why the dry baking soda and citric acid do not react right away.

Explain the reaction

Help students connect the bubbles to carbon dioxide produced when water starts the reaction between baking soda and citric acid.

Add a science note

Before students package the gift, have them write one sentence explaining the chemistry behind the fizz.

Pair it with Newsela readings

Choose one short reading to help students connect the gift project to chemical changes, chemical reactions, or mixtures.

Resource	Reading Level	How To Use It	Spanish Available
Activity: Make a fizzy bath ball		Use this activity as the build instructions for the bath fizzer gift project.
What is a chemical change?	550L–1110L	Use this reading to help students decide whether the bath fizzer shows evidence of a chemical change.
What is a chemical reaction?	500L–1180L	Use this reading to help students explain why the fizzing starts only after water is added.
What is a mixture in science?	390L–1190L	Use this reading to review how ingredients combine before students discuss when the reaction begins.	✓ Yes

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Toolboxes: Connect gift-making to engineering design

A toolbox creation activity gives students a simple way to connect Grandparents Day gift-giving to engineering design. Instead of starting with a kit, students have to think about the materials they have and how each part of the structure should fit together.

Have students build a toolbox with recycled materials, then ask them to explain one design choice they made. For example, they might describe how they shaped the sides, attached the handle, or decorated the toolbox for the person receiving it.

Pair the build with a short reading about the engineering design process so students can connect the project to planning, building, testing, and revising.

STEM Lab Sequence

Toolbox Engineering Build

Use this Grandparents Day gift project to help students repurpose recycled materials, design a simple structure, and explain how their design choices help the toolbox work.

Investigation question

How can recycled materials become a useful toolbox?

Quick materials check

Shoe box Cereal box Paper towel roll Glue Decorations, such as paint, craft paper, or markers

Build and explain

Start with the design problem

Tell students they are engineering a toolbox from recycled materials for a grandparent, grandparent figure, or another important person.

Plan around the shoe box

Ask students to use the size of the shoe box to plan the sides, handle, and decorations before they build.

Build and revise

Have students follow Activity: Build a toolbox to assemble the toolbox and adjust their design as needed.

Explain one design choice

Before students give or display the toolbox, have them write one sentence explaining how one material or design choice helped the structure work.

Pair it with Newsela readings

Use the activity instructions and engineering design article together so students can connect the finished gift to the design process.

Resource	Reading Level	How To Use It
Activity: Build a toolbox	630L	Use this activity as the build instructions for the recycled-material toolbox project.
The engineering design process	430L–1040L	Use this reading to help students connect their project to planning, building, testing, and revising.

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Where do our genes come from?

Genetics lessons can connect Grandparents Day to family traits, inheritance, and variation, but they need a thoughtful setup. Keep the focus on scientific patterns rather than asking students to compare themselves directly to relatives.

Start by asking: “Why don’t siblings always look exactly the same?” From there, students can read about Mendelian inheritance, dominant and recessive genes, and Punnet squares.

These resources also help you find a way to discuss inherited traits without assuming every student knows or is biologically related to the people they call their grandparents.

STEM genetics resources

Genetics readings for Grandparents Day STEM connections

Use the Where do our genes come from? text set to help students explore inheritance, variation, dominant and recessive genes, and reproduction.

Resource	Reading Level	How To Use It
Where do our genes come from?		Use this full text set to introduce genetic variation, inherited traits, Mendelian and non-Mendelian genetics, and reproduction.
How can children from the same parents look so different?	890L	Start here to help students connect inherited traits to the everyday question of why siblings can look different.
Mendel and the inheritance of traits	490L–970L	Use this reading to introduce Gregor Mendel and the basic patterns scientists observed in inherited traits.
An overview of Mendelian inheritance	650L–1500L	Use this article when students are ready to connect inherited traits to Punnett squares and probability.
Types of non-Mendelian genetics	570L–1270L	Use this reading to show students that not all traits follow simple dominant and recessive patterns.
Why are some genes dominant and some genes recessive?	620L–1300L	Use this article to clarify vocabulary students may need before discussing dominant and recessive traits.
How an asexual lizard procreates alone	600L–1360L	Use this reading to compare asexual and sexual reproduction and connect reproduction type to genetic similarity or variation.

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Standards connection

MS-LS3-2 Develop and use a model to describe why asexual reproduction results in offspring with identical genetic information and sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation.

Make Grandparents Day learning feel connected with Newsela

Grandparents Day activities for the classroom don’t have to stand alone as a holiday craft. When you connect the day to reading, discussion, and science, students get a meaningful way to explore relationships and family stories.

Use these Newsela Learning Suite resources to choose the path that fits your class best. Not a Newsela customer yet? You can create an account to start your free 45-day trial of our premium products.