Name: Watching Fireworks Write a Story Activity - Memorial Day
SKU: 6832109b0b6cad0012c1a372
Price: 39.99 USD
Availability: InStock

About this resource

What's inside this resource

The Watching Fireworks Write a Story – Memorial Day Activities is a fun and engaging writing activity designed for kindergarten through 2nd grade students. It shows a bright, cheerful cartoon of kids watching fireworks in the night sky. Using five key words, students are asked to write a short story about what they see happening in the picture.

This activity is a great way to help young learners practice using new vocabulary and putting their thoughts into sentences. It also gives them a chance to think about how people celebrate Memorial Day in a fun and meaningful way. Kids will enjoy using their imagination while learning about an important holiday.

How You Can Use It:

Use it during writing time or as a warm-up activity
Add it to a literacy center or station
Use it as an independent writing task
Send it home for extra practice or holiday homework
Pair it with a class talk about Memorial Day celebrations

Why Teachers Love It:

Builds writing and vocabulary skills
Sparks creativity and storytelling
Makes holiday learning fun and age-appropriate
Easy to use with different skill levels
Encourages kids to make real-world connections through writing

Pdf file includes 2 pages.

Enjoy!

What's included

A one-page writing activity headed "Write a story: Watching Fireworks" with a name line and a cartoon picture
The instruction line: "Look at the cartoon picture, use all 5 words, and write a short story about what you see."
The five required words printed under the picture: night, boom, sky, light, flag
A solution page repeating the same layout and marked "(Solution)", carrying a five-sentence sample story
The completed story itself, one word per sentence: "At night, we watched bright fireworks in the sky. The fireworks made a loud boom sound. Colors of light flashed everywhere. I held a small flag in my hand. Watching fireworks was so much fun!"
A Teach Simple terms of use and licence page at the front of the file
A "Ponder Palette Plazza" credit on both working pages

Resource types: Worksheets & Printables, Writing Prompts, Activities, Centers, Teacher Tools, Assessments, Lesson Plans

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Write a short narrative from a picture prompt rather than from a written stem
Work five supplied words into a connected piece of writing without listing them
Describe what is happening in a scene using sound as well as sight, since boom is one of the required words
Finish a piece with a closing line rather than stopping when the words run out

Teaching tips

The five words are the only scaffold on the page — there is no sentence starter or frame — so a group that needs more support can be given the solution page's opening line as a shared start
The solution page puts exactly one required word in each sentence, which makes it useful as a worked example of sentence-by-sentence planning rather than only as a marking guide
Note that boom is a sound word among four visual ones; asking students what they would hear before they write pushes past a purely descriptive list
The solution page repeats the picture and the instruction, so it can be shown whole on a screen without any preparation

Skills covered

Picture-prompt narrative writing — students write a short story about a cartoon scene rather than answering a question about it.
Using supplied vocabulary in context — night, boom, sky, light and flag must all appear in the finished piece, which the solution page demonstrates by giving each its own sentence.
Writing in sequence with a closing line — the sample story runs from what happened at night through to a closing reaction, "Watching fireworks was so much fun!".
Describing sound as well as sight — boom sits among four visual words, so a complete answer has to describe more than what the picture shows.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

What does the solution page give?

A five-sentence model story, with the five required words distributed one per sentence: night, then boom, then light, then flag, closing on a reaction. That layout makes it usable as a worked example of how to build a piece sentence by sentence, not only as a marking reference.

What support is printed on the activity page itself?

The name line, the heading, the instruction, the cartoon picture and the five-word list — and nothing else. There is no sentence starter, no line count and no frame, so the five words are the whole of the scaffolding the page provides.