A Few Links for February

Liturgical Calendar -- February overview.

Activity Idea Place --February Themes
Teacherview Themes
ABC Teach themes for February


February Poetry, Sayings, Folklore

Character Education through Literature, for February and March (PDF) -- appears to be booklists for different levels, I haven't looked it through yet but it might be interesting.

Dawn's Notes for February

December Calendar

December Calendar in PDF
It is blank except for the pictures and the notations for the holidays.

I'm not going to list themes for December like I usually try to do each month because:

(1) Everyone probably has their own December activities already and
(2) I'll probably be listing them all month.

But here are a couple of nice Advent Calendar links

"a nice online Advent Calendar" HT: Lent and Beyond, and
Countdown to Christmas at About Homeschooling


Here's the Liturgical Year overview at Catholic Culture.



Oh, OK, just a few then:


I liked this Stocking Advent Activity at My Montessori Journey.
Advent Lapbooking at Squidoo
The Jesse Tree -- a unit study for the homeschool
Forms for an Advent Lapbook (PDF) -- not mine
50 Frugal Christmas Ideas
Nice Christmas on a Budget

not a freebie but has an Advent lapbook: Faith Folders for Catholics

November Calendar

Gathering for October

A little late in thinking about October -- we were travelling as the month changed, so I didn't have time to prepare much. But I found out this month that if you google "October Themes" you can come up with quite a bit of "teacher-y" stuff like these at:

• Education Place
• ABC-Teach
• Ed-Helper
• AtoZ Teacher Stuff
• Enchanted Learning

There are a whole bunch of October links at Mrs Jackson's page, some resources here, and Preschool October Themes here.

• October Poetry and Lore at this site.
• The October 2008 issue of Sparrow Tree Square is out.

Last but not least, the Catholic Culture Liturgical Year overview for October.

While looking for other things, I found this Our Elementary Homeschool Blog. There are links to a Preschool Blog, and a High School Blog. Wow, I like the way this blogger organizes!

Monthly Themes and Memos

Here is a form I made last year: Monthly Themes (pdf)

The form was based on Dawn's beautiful monthly themes at By Sun and Candlelight. Though it is a very inadequate representation -- she is an artist and I'm not ;-).

I always have struggled with temporal sequence. I don't have too much trouble with daily habits, but less regular things just don't happen if I don't keep a watch over them. So I have worked on forming a habit of planning by month. This form is supposed to help with that.

Some things I try to do or think of near the beginning of every month:

• Plan housekeeping projects
• Check the next month for the liturgical year and list topics and resources
• Make a library list or plan "baskets" of crafts and related books for the children.
• Make a list of seasonal activities and possible places to go.
  

I never do as well at keeping up with this as I would like to, but planning it out helps me be more intentional than I would be without the plans.