February Fun Month, Part One

One of my schoolteacher role models is Deana Swanson. I follow her blog, The Plain Professors, and I cob ideas she uses in her classroom, tweaking them if needed to fit my school of two. Deana suggests six months of school is long enough for winter doldrums to set in, so she implemented February Fun Month in which every day of the month has a special activity to do or something to celebrate. By adopting her idea, February became my favorite month of school. In late January, the children help me decide what activities we will do. Many ideas come from The Plain Professors or the National Day Calendar, but this month we added some of our own as well.

February Fun Days, 2021, Weeks 1 & 2:

Backwards Day
Traditionalists that we are, we usually study school subjects in the same order every day. But on Backwards Day, we reverse that order, starting instead with Science and ending with Arithmetic. 

Groundhog Day/Bring a Critter to School Day

We watched Punxsutawny Phil predict six more weeks of winter, a believable guess, considering the piles of snow all over town. We don't own a groundhog, stuffed or otherwise, so the children invited other stuffed friends to join them in school for the day. 

Mix-Up Day

In this favorite, the children pull slips of paper from a hat, shake them from a gravy shaker, find them in nooks and crannies, pop balloons to retrieve them, or unwrap them like gifts. No matter what system I use, they always love Mix-Up Days--particularly the extra activities I include like treats, extra breaks, or unexpected art projects. 

Popcorn Day

We usually don't have midmorning snacks, but this day, we ate our fill of flavored popcorn. 

National Bubblegum Day

Chew gum during school hours? Not here, except on National Bubblegum Day.

Green All Day

The children used green ink to write spelling words and ate salads for lunch. 

We made green collages.

Wore green

Drew green plants in our creative journals

Day 100

Another annual favorite happened to land in February this year. 

My children never saw candy bar
letters before--for a good reason--
but they enjoyed getting acquainted.

After receiving their letter, we had our regular school day with irregular activities mixed in:

--Measured 100 yards and ran the 100-yard dash. No Olympic records were broken, probably because we had six inches of crusty snow and six pounds of snow gear.
Oh, and because Tyler was carrying the measuring tape,
a detail he said definitely hindered speed.

--Put together 100-piece puzzles

--Learned to say 100 in French and Spanish

--Found out who was President, what stamps cost,
and what a new Chevy cost 100 years ago

Drew pictures using numerical
100's as the base

Traditional Day 100 lunch

Mismatched Sock Day

No-brainers like this one add interest to a school day without exhausting the mom. This year, I chanced upon cheap, silly socks in time to surprise the children with them on this unusual holiday.

No Desk Day

A day in which no child may do bookwork at their desk. 

Spelling Class

Chinese New Year

Another annual favorite. This year I learned about Chinese children receiving red envelopes with crisp money or notes of blessing in them. I found a template on this website and printed envelopes. To receive them, the children had to bow to me and say Thank you in Chinese. Well, sort of Chinese. We learned it from Google Translate and you know how reliable that is. My children didn't receive money in their envelopes, but found fun activities to do instead. 

Being low on red paper and not being superstitious,
I used a variety of colors.

Eating popcorn with chopsticks. 
Most of us were successful...

--We drew Chinese flags in our creative journals and made Chinese lanterns. 

I made place names for our Chinese dinner.

A delicious ending to a full week.

That brings us up to date! Next up for us is a Presidents' Day dinner made up of favorite foods of our Presidents. Guests have been invited and excitement is mounting. Speaking of that dinner, I have shopping to do and food to prepare.

Later, friends!