Bastille Day Activities 2016

The fourteenth of July each year is celebrated by the French as the Bastille Day or thele quatorze juillet. The day is also called the La Fête Nationale meaning the National Celebration. This patriotic day is celebrated with a lot of enthusiasm and fun by every French man inside and outside France.

What is Bastille Day?

Bastille Day is a day of French Independence, the day to commemorate the storming of the French prison Bastille, at Paris on 7th July 1789.  The storming of the French prison was important in the history of France as it marks the start of rebellion and rally rather than the act of defiance. The very next year after the storming, on 14 July 1780, a huge feast, Fête de la Fédération was held to celebrate the end of the French revolution and to commemorate the storming. Fête de la Fédération can be considered as the very First Bastille Day celebration. And on 1880 May 21, Benjamin Raspail, the politician of French third republic proposed by law to choose 14 July as a yearly national Holiday or thr Bastille Day. And it was after this that the Bastille Day started to be celebrated with much enthusiasm and pride.


Bastille Day is a day for patriotism, pride and fun. The day is celebrated with feast, parades and fireworks. The Bastille Day can be filed with lot of fun and activities to absorb the real meaning of the Day and celebrate the essence of it. Try to live the day in the real French way and enjoy the day to the fullest.

Plan a picnic

Prepare a great French meal with lots of herbs and vegetables and plan a day out. Take your children, friends and relative for the picnic and don’t forget to pack a basket full of activities for your children and everyone to enjoy the day. Let your kids help you to prepare the dish and games for the picnic.

Put on the music

Enjoy dancing to some traditional French music before you eat together the picnic lunch. Encourage your children to sing along with the music and let them learn some of those old little songs which their great, great grandparents enjoyed. The French National anthem can also be sung but make sure you pay respect to it and try encouraging everyone to sing along. You can also ask your guest to collect some of the traditional songs, dance and old stories about the French revolution and let your children know about it in an interesting way.

Organize a small play

You can even prepare a little and simple skit for your little ones so that they get to know why they are actually celebrating the day. Try dressing your kids up as French revolutionaries and let them present the skit before the guest. Try to include as many kids as possible but make the play more interesting, knowledgeable and meaningful.

Test their 'history' though interesting quizzes

You can even organize a quiz on the history of France at the picnic and give away a good prize for the winner. You can do a thing to make the quiz more interesting; firstly read out on thehistory, the French revolution including almost everything you will be asking for the quiz. And make sure to make the reading more interesting by adding colorful description and smallstories in between. And after the reading, you can conduct the quiz; this will ensure more participation and also impart knowledge in a fun way.

Hunt your way to knowledge and fun

That is not just it you can include activities like treasure hunt by hiding pieces of gifts in a few secret places. Read out the clues to the place where the treasure is hidden and if the children can find the treasure, they will be asked one simple question concerning thehistory of the country or any such thing. Let the little ones try to answer to this question and giving the correct answer will get them the gift. Hey, but don’t get them disappointed, give them the gift anyways but to make them feel that they have earned the gift you can assigning a small task like singing a song or something else if they could not answer the question correctly.

Engage the kids in fancy dress

On this Day, you can also encourage your kids to dress up as any historians or important personalities, by organizing fancy dress competition and let them speak on the person they have dressed up as. Keep the theme for the fancy dress as " Bastille Day' or something related to the country or its history.

Arts and crafts

Provide the children with activities like drawing, painting, making the national flag or preparing other simple craft work. Let them paint some important revolutionaries or make the cap of French army using colored craft paper.

The main this behind every activity you organize on the Bastille Day should be that the kids and everyone gets the maximum fun out of it. And not just it, they should get to know more about their country and the reason why they are celebrating such a day. Let all this fun help them to come closer to the country and have more respect and love for the country and all the people who sacrificed themselves to make it what it is today.

More Information About Bastille Day