Need activity ideas and themed products for your program each month? Download and print our daily holidays and observances calendar! See the link below for our May 2023 Calendar.

Refer to the calendar when you need inspiration, whether you are planning activities for the entire month for each holiday, or you need last minute ideas. Be sure to visit our Daily Holidays page to find related items that can help you celebrate each observance.

May 2023 Daily Holidays & Observances – Printable Calendar

How to Use the Calendar For Your Program

We have listed the daily holidays or observances that fall on each day of the month. Some days have multiple holidays, so you can choose to focus on just one, plan an activity for each one, or combine them if possible.

Star Wars Scrapbook

For example, May 4th is Star Wars Day and Make-A-Book Day. Plan a themed Makerspace activity for your classroom, where kids are challenged to build their own characters, create a lightshow, and more. Provide them with Star Wars cut-out and After they complete the activities, provide them with Star Wars cutouts and quotes from the movie for them to create a Star Wars Book. Be sure to also hand out blank sheets of paper, or sticky notes for them to add notes from their makerspace activities.

4 Star Wars Makerspace Activities for Kids

For another simple example, May 1st is Lei Day. Host a fun event where your classroom creates their own leis and wears them all day! You can even combine this with Teacher’s Day on May 3rd and have them wear their student’s creations!

You may choose to use the calendar to plan your activities each month and develop themes around each of the days or a combination of days.

Sensory Trays for May

The third and fourth week in May includes World Bee Day, Dinosaur Day, National Maritime Day, and World Turtle Day. Create sensory bins for kids with a new theme for each day. See below for ideas on materials.

Suggested Materials:

World Bee Day  bee shapes yellow and black pom poms flower beads bee erasers honecomb cereal National Maritime Day Beach Easy Pack colorful sand sea glass beads sea beads sea sponge

Dinosaur Day brown sand kinetic sand dino teeth dino shapes dinosaur puzzle pieces World Turtle Day rice painted blue  turtle squirters sea glass turtle beads green pom poms

If you are just looking for some filler ideas or last minute ideas, refer to the calendar on any particular day and come up with a quick lesson or activity related to the daily holiday or observance. Some of these can even be used for brain breaks.

Activity Ideas Suggestions

On pages 2 & 3, you will find an activity suggestion for each holiday and observance under the Activity Ideas section.

If you see a URL under the Activity Ideas section, that means the observance is listed on our Daily Holidays page. Visit that link (PDF includes clickable links) to find products and items that would work great for an activity.

We’ve also shared some specific ideas as a guide. For example, for National Paper Clip Day on May 29th, students can make paper clip bookmarks using green paper clips and felt flower stickers. These can then be used when you have story time.

View this idea on our blog > 

Weekly & Monthly Observances

Our printable calendars also include weekly and monthly observances. For the month of May, there are several weekly and monthly observances. We have shared several links in the calendar download. Be sure to view the printable calendar for the entire list of weekly and monthly holidays.

Monthly Observances:

• Get Caught Reading Month
• National Photography Month
• Older Americans Month
• National Tennis Month
• National Physical Fitness and Sports Month
• National Pet Month
• International Drum Month

Weekly Observances

• Children’s Book Week
• Teacher Appreciation Week
• National Backyard Games Week

We would love your feedback on how you plan to use the calendar for your program, and if you would like to see any changes in the template. Thanks everyone!