Celebrate: to acknowledge (a significant or happy day or event) with a social gathering or enjoyable activity.
One way to add joy to the education of your children is to be intentional about celebrating. Celebrating is educational. Educational and fun! A great combination.
You can turn absolutely anything into a celebration, but to keep celebrations special, don’t overdo it. Plan to have a celebration a month, or a celebration a week.
Here are some suggestions…
Celebrate the first day of school. After my kids went to bed the evening before the first day of school, I would wrap up a book for each child with their name on it and lay them at their place at the breakfast table. One day I saw something on social media that I added to this tradition. Wrap a Rolo chocolate bar in brown paper and stick on a Hershey’s chocolate kiss – looks like a pencil! A new book and a chocolate pencil to celebrate the first day of school – always a happy thing. Note: The book was NOT a “school” book – just a book for their leisure reading. (Secret: all reading is educational!) To add to the celebration, you could have a special breakfast and maybe a special activity that day as well.
You can plan to celebrate anything you are learning – planning a special ethnic dinner and presentation if you’re studying a certain people group and/or planning a celebration that ties into something you’re learning in math, or science or history.
You can have a “Water Celebration” day and get creative about water – have the children research (or if they’re young, read to them) various facts about water – do experiments with water, have water play…get creative, get joyful, get thankful for water!
You can have a “Bird Celebration Day” and learn about birds. Go on an outing where you can expect to find lots of birds. Watch them, draw them, listen to them, feed them if it’s allowed. If you can find bird-shaped cookie cutters, bake bird cookies and decorate them.
Celebrate books. Learn the history of books. Make a quiz about the books they’ve read.
Celebrate heroes. Celebrate neighbours. Celebrate each other. And always celebrate God, the giver of all these good gifts that you are celebrating.
