I found a saying years ago that has stuck with me and, I think, my children too. “Find the fun in what needs to be done.” You see, there are always things that must be done and generally those things are not very fun in and of themselves but if you can find a fun way to do the mundane, you might just create some fun memories with your children.

One of the things I used to do was to give each child a job, like one empty the dishwasher, one, sweep the floor, and one tidy up the living room while I vacuumed. I’d then say, ready, set, GO! and we’d all run to do the assigned job and race to see who got done first. It put some fun into what needed to be done.

My main academic goals in educating my children were to teach them to read, write, do arithmetic, and how to learn. These goals can be achieved no matter what subject is used. So, why not include some fun topics.

Here are some websites that provide some ideas.

I have always loved Brownielocks because it is so thorough! This link is to the main page, on which you can see some major events for the current month. On the left hand column there are links to all of the holidays and observances for the month, as well as a link to a menu for all of the months. Here is the direct link for February.

Not too long ago I heard of a fellow homeschooler that makes a listing of some fun days, observances, and holidays. Her site is Confessions of a Homeschooler. Here’s the link to her listing for February.

If you sign up for CurrClick’s newsletter, they will send you a link for a Teachable Moments Calendar in pdf format. It is actually pretty nice and you could print it out and let your older children pick one of them to research prior to the day and share what they learned with you and their siblings.

Holiday Insights has a very good website as well. Click on more and unique days and it will bring you to a page with links for each month’s holidays and celebrations. Both are great pages. They have links to pages with more information about he holiday or observations.

Another site I have used in the passed is Holidays.net, which has been revamped since I visited it last.

I just found a new website that is very nice looking. It’s Days of the Year.com . But like I just said, I just found it so use at your own risk. The Holiday Spot is another site I just found that looks rather interesting, as well as 36tee5.com. Check them out at your own risk.

It is National Haiku Month.

Links to help you out:

• Kidzone which has examples and worksheets
• Teaching Haiku Poetry is a very plain site with links to help teach haiku to different grades.
• Poetry4kids has a useful page as well. Then there are word games that may be helpful to your children.

I won’t overwhelm you with links. I hope you have fun with Haiku throughout the month. For fun, there is a haiku level on the old Spyro: Year of the Dragon game for the Playstation.

I hope you will find these helpful. Enjoy a hot breakfast, since it is Hot Breakfast Month, maybe waffles with maple syrup, since today is Canadian Maple Syrup Day. Or maybe some Nutella, on this, World Nutella Day.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº