Father's day - reflexion

I've written about a Father's day activity which I'd developed with the kids.

All along the day, I was thinking about those activities and I think I'm having a problem.

Here in Portugal we celebrate father's day, mother's day Christmas (and a long list of special ocasions) at school. the problem is, what do we do when we are asking the kids to colour a "best dad's certificate" when his/her father doesn't live with him/her or has passed not so long ago?

I'm teaching at the very south of Portugal. There are kids from everywhere in my school. Polish, Bulgarians, Angolans...Many of them come from broken families or have different religious beliefs...

My questions are: Should we protect these students and not celebrate these ocasions ever??

Should we celebrate anyway but have special attention on these lessons? Or should we simply go on like if all the kids have just the same life stories behind them?

Father's day - suggestion

For the Father's day I've made this certificate with my 1st grade students. I would like to make something more elaborated or even use some recycling for the activity, but my lessons are only 45 minutes long which makes it hard to do some kind of crafts.


I found the original "Certificate" online by searching on google. Then I just made some changes on the text. Instead of a Portuguese "Best Dad's certificate" I made an English version.


Either way, I leave here both versions of the certificate. If you still have time, you can use it with one of your classes!