Mother’s Day is celebrated in the United States and in many other countries on the second Sunday of May. You can see a list of all countries and when they recognize Mother’s Day here.
I thought it would be an occasion for another “The Best…” List.
Here are my picks for The Best Sites For Learning About Mother’s Day (and are accessible to English Language Learners):
ESL Civics has a Mother’s Day Lesson designed for English Language Learners.
Heads Up English has a description of the holiday that provides audio support for the text.
Happy Mother’s Day, Dear Dragon is a “talking story” from Starfall.
The History Channel has an online video about the History of Mother’s Day.
ESL Holiday Lessons has A Mother’s Day Lesson with audio support for the text, and follows it up with an online sequencing activity.
Here’s an audio slideshow of a Native American celebration of Mother’s Day.
You can send Mother’s Day eCards (you can post links to them on a teacher or student website) from either Blue Mountain or Yahoo Greetings.
Who Came Up With Mother’s Day and Why? comes from How Stuff Works.
How Mother’s Day Works is an online video, also from How Stuff Works.
Here’s a video from ABC News of a group of Moms celebrating the holiday by skydiving together.
Here’s another video from ABC showing people giving tribute to their mothers in three words (written on signs). It’s cute.
The Orange County Register newspaper has an interactive quz on Mother’s Day (it might be hard for ELL’s).
Remembering Nana On Mother’s Day is a New York Times slideshow showing a Japanese comic strip (in English)
Here’s a printable cloze (gap-fill) on the holiday.
Without having to register, you can go to Outshouts, choose an appropriate Mother’s Day music video, and then record your own message. You can then email it to your mother, or post it on a website or blog.
MSNBC has a slideshow of cartoons about Mother’s Day.
Use this neat application that lets you type in your mother’s name and then incorporates it into a news video giving her a “Mother Of The Year” Award.
MSNBC has an interesting story about the founder of Mother’s Day.
Pink Bats For Mother’s Day is a CBS News video.
Bad Economy Can’t Stop Mother’s Day is an ABC News video.
Fed Ex Mother’s Day Deliveries is a CNN video.
“Amazing Moms Of The Animal Kingdom” is a cute slideshow from TIME Magazine.
Here’s a short piece on Mother’s Days from the Census Bureau that provides audio support for the text.
Mother’s Day By The Numbers is a great infographic.
Here’s an MSNBC video of a Mother’s Day event at the White House. CNN has a video of the the same event.
Meet The Founder of Mother’s Day is an interactive timeline from MSNBC.
A Mother’s Day Tribute to Moms is a video from ABC News.
Mothers Day Dates around the world is an interactive graphic.
Mother’s Day: Inside the Numbers is a neat infographic.
Send a video to your Mom naming her “Mom Of The Decade.”
Celebrate: Save a Mother is a column from the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristoff. He writes:
So if one way to mark Mothers’ Day is to buy flowers for that special mom, another is to make this a safer planet for moms in general. And since we men are going to be focused on the flowers, maybe mothers themselves can work on making motherhood less lethal.
Kristoff goes on to suggest ways to do that. The text isn’t accessible to ELL’s, but parts could be modified. It’s a good take on Mother’s Day.
The Dish On Mom is a New York Times slideshow where four artists draw the meal that reminds them most of their mothers.
Save The Children has developed a report titled “State Of The World’s Mothers 2010.” You see how countries rank by how they treat their mothers here. You can access the entire report here.
The Best and Worst Countries to Be a Mother is an interactive map showing the information.
Here’s an excerpt from a news article summarizing the report:
The United States has scored poorly on a campaign group’s list of the best countries in which to be a mother, managing only 28th place, and bettered by many smaller and poorer countries.
Norway topped the latest Save the Children “Mothers Index”, followed by a string of other developed nations, while Afghanistan came in at the bottom of the table, below several African states.
But the US showing put it behind countries such as the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; and eastern and central European states such as Croatia and Slovenia.
Even debt-plagued Greece came in four places higher at 24.
One factor that dragged the US ranking down was its maternal mortality rate, which at one in 4,800 is one of the highest in the developed world, said the report.
“A woman in the Unites States is more than five times as likely as a woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece or Italy to die from pregnancy-related causes in her lifetime and her risk of maternal death is nearly 10-fold that of a woman in Ireland,” the report said.
It also scored poorly on under-five mortality, its rate of eight per 1,000 births putting it on a par with Slovakia and Montenegro.
“At this rate, a child in the US is more than twice as likely as a child in Finland, Iceland, Sweden or Singapore to die before his or her fifth birthday,” the report noted.
Save The Children also has an eCard you can send.
How the World Celebrates Mother’s Day
Here’s an interactive map showing when Mother’s Day is celebrated in different countries around the world.
The New York Times has a neat interactive (and contest) where you can Share Six Words About Your Mother. It’s fun to see, even if you don’t want to contribute.
Beyond Flowers for Mom is a good article in The New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof.
Here’s a slideshow on American Mothers from CNN.
Top 12 warrior moms throughout history is a slideshow from The Mother Nature Network.
As always, feedback is welcome.
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