Make Every Day a Holiday This February with Kids!

 

Let's make every day a holiday this February with Kids! Discover fantastic ways to make learning fun and enjoy special moments in your homeschool.

 

Julie Lavender, a veteran homeschool mom of four, continues to share her fun and creative ideas with homeschoolers. One of her favorite ways to encourage a love of learning is celebrating fun holidays and more. Check out her awesome ideas to help you rock your homeschool this February with kids!

 

Enjoy Fun Holidays this February with Kids!

A short month to spend a long time creating family memories 🙂

One must wonder why the calendar month dedicated to love and hearts, desserts and chocolate, mushy sentiments and flowers has the fewest days of all. Remedy that colossal calendar calamity with extra-special quality time with family this month.

Plan intentionally to incorporate much fun and celebration, using the holidays below, or create unique ones to cherish this February with kids.

National Wild Bird Feeding Month

Try this fun, biodegradable way to feed the hungry birds this month:

• Pick one of the following fruits: orange, lemon, lime or grapefruit.
• Slice each piece of fruit evenly into two pieces.
• Hollow out each half of the rind, saving the fruit pieces to make a fruit salad to enjoy. Don’t worry about getting it all – the birds will enjoy that, too.
• View the circumference of the fruit as if it were a clock and plan to insert twine to hang the fruit with holes at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock. Don’t make the holes too close to the cut of the fruit because as the fruit begins to decay, it could rip through.
• Use a sewing needle with a really large eye (or wooden skewer and then push twine through) to insert a 20-inch length of twine through the fruit going from 12 to 6.
• Pull the twine through so that ends are touching and even.
• Repeat with twine at 3 and 9, pulling evenly again.
• Tie a knot at the four ends of twine; this forms the hanger.
• Now fill each piece of fruit you prepared with bird seed for wild birds and hang on the boughs of trees outside.

To make a snack for human consumption, add just a dab of sugar if needed, and other bits of sliced fruit to the meat you removed for your feeders. Refrigerate until needed. Eat a bowl of fruit one morning and watch for birds to snack on their breakfast, too.

 

National Weatherman’s Day

What are the chances the groundhog known as Punxsutawney Phil accurately predicted the arrival of springtime? Time will tell!

While awaiting the delights of spring, try your hand at weather predicting.

Study online the types of clouds and what each cloud formation says about upcoming weather phenomena.

Have some fun with cotton balls and blue construction paper: pull gently and stretch cotton balls to form various types of clouds. Glue the clouds onto construction paper and label the cloud formation.

Using the craft pages as a reference, tune into a weather update online or on a television station. Watch as a family the predictions for the day, then compare the cloud pictures you made with the sky outside. Do they match? Will the weatherman’s predictions for the day come true?

 

National Hero Week

Have some interesting conversations this February with kids about heroes. Do you have a favorite Superhero? How about a flesh-and-blood hero? What characteristics make a person a “hero”?

Line up a short, age-appropriate Superhero movie or show to watch. Talk about the movie or show and what characteristics made that superhero special.

Don capes – towels safety-pinned around the neck – and watch the show together as a superfamily! After the show, talk about the people you know that are true heroes – law enforcement persons, moms and dads, military personnel, missionaries, volunteers, foster families, the next door neighbor…the lists can be as endless as your imagination.

Decide to write a note to your “hero” and let him or her know why you feel that way.

Then, have some more conversational fun. Let each person pick a Superhero character to become. Describe your character and your superpower. Next, make up a story and decide how the family has to work together, with each superpower, to save the world! Record these stories via voice recorder app or in a notebook.

 

Valentine’s Day

Make this fun craft for Valentine’s Day for this February with kids:

• Use heart-shaped cookie cutters to trace and cut out construction paper hearts of different sizes and shades of pink and red and purple. You’ll need lots of shapes.
• Glue the hearts around the edge of a white paper plate, turning the plate into a picture frame. Let each person make their own frame.
• Glue a picture of each family member on the center of the plate, one person per picture frame.
• Use red or pink yarn to attach all of the plates to each other, in birth order, to hang vertically.
• Find a place in the house to hang the family portraits to admire throughout the month of February.

 

National Snack Food Month

Let each person in the family pick out their favorite cracker or chip to snack on. Then, make this appetizer recipe together to enjoy with the crackers selected.

• Chop fresh broccoli florets – you’ll need one cup.
• To the broccoli, add
  • two tablespoons of onion (chopped fine)
  • two tablespoons of chopped red pepper
  • ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • one clove of garlic (minced)
  • one cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese
  • ½ cup of mayonnaise
  • ½ cup of sour cream
  • salt and pepper to taste
• Stir the ingredients well, then spread mixture into an oven-safe dish. Bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees. Enjoy!

February may indeed be the shortest month and could quite possibly be the coldest one, too! That means you’ll need to work diligently to create warm, lasting memories with the ones you love! Find something to celebrate about each day and make every day a holiday!

What do you look forward to the most for having fun in February with kids?

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