Enliven Your Homeschool with Some Calendar Fun

Does that sound boring or what???! Actually, you can use a calendar to add some spice to your homeschool at the end of the winter or throughout the year.

I don’t mean just talking about what day it is. I mean planning fun little events to coincide with obscure and not-so-obscure national observances. This week, for example, is Montessori Education Week and the week to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday (yesterday was Dr. Seuss’s [would be] 107^th birthday)!

You could make a special unit study or celebration for the day or week. Today, March 3, according to Chase’s, you could study Alexander Graham Bell (it’s his birthday), the U.S. National Anthem (“The Star-Spangled Banner” was adopted as the U.S. national anthem in 1931, so it’s the Star-Spangled Banner’s 80^th Anniversary), or martyrs and Malawi (it’s Martyr’s Day in Malawi).

Or you could just have a fun observance every now and then. Today is also “I Want You To Be Happy Day” and “What If Cats and Dogs Had Opposable Thumbs Day.”

According to Chase’s, March is:

• Caffeine Awareness Month, Natl  
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Month, Natl
• Clean Up Your IRS Act Month, Natl
• Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, Natl  
• Craft Month, Natl
• Credit Education Month
• Employee Spirit Month
• Ethics Awareness Month, Natl
• Expanding Girls’ Horizons in Science and Engineering Month
• Eye Donor Month, Natl
• Frozen Food Month, Natl  
• Honor Society Awareness Month  
• Humorists Are Artists Month
• Ideas Month, Intl  
• Irish-American Heritage Month  
• Kidney Month, Natl  
• Listening Awareness Month, Intl   
• Malignant Hyperthermia Awareness and Training Month
• March into Literacy Month, Natl
• Mirth Month, Intl  
• Multiple Sclerosis Education and Awareness Month, Natl  
• Music in our Schools Month
• Nutrition Month, Natl  
• On-Hold Month, Natl  
• Optimism Month
• Peanut Month, Natl
• Play-the-Recorder Month
• Poison Prevention Awareness Month
• Red Cross Month  
• Save Your Vision Month
• Sing with Your Child Month
• Small Press Month
• Social Work Month, Natl
• Spiritual Wellness Month
• Umbrella Month, Natl  
• Women’s History Month, Natl
• Workplace Eye Health and Safety Month
• Youth Art Month  

There’s a fun resource for March events at Its Own Sweet Will.neebeep.This blog has one homeschooler’s ideas for the month with lots of links and fun comments. I don’t know about you, but each March 22, I might schedule National Goof Off Day for myself!

Here are some other helpful monthly calendar resources:

Days of the Year – lots of useful and just-plain-fun information

Finding Dulcinea: Librarian of the Internet

On This Day from the New York Times Learning Network (This site has newspaper articles – for example, articles about the 1991 incident in which Rodney King was beaten by LA police officers – as well as lesson plans and other resources.)

Creative Quotations with quotations by famous people searched by month and birthday

Holidays-and-Observances.com (holidays and observances categorized in a number of different ways)

Monthly Calendar Observances from Holiday Insights

Monthly Calendars from A to Z Kids Stuff

Monthly Calendars from The Teachers Corner

Monthly Calendars from Homeschool Share

A Smiley-a-Day from Spontaneous Smiley (focuses on a specific spontaneous smiley related to the day’s calendar observance)

UPDATE: I have a Monthly Themed Activities for Kids series, which includes information from the above sites and my related posts and unit studies for the month.

Have you had some calendar fun in your homeschool?

Photo Credit: “Seuss on the loose” photo by Cindy Seigle at Flickr Creative Commons