february days

February may be the shortest month but it's full of special days - the subject of this post.

I'm not sure where this falls in our elementary curriculum - but this is a really good reference for Black History Month. From the History Channel, it covers the history of the celebration, has video clips, the text of famous speeches, biographies of African-American icons, and much more. Go to http://www.historychannel.com/blackhistory/for this site about Black History Month.

You know those little candy hearts with the cute sayings on them? This site tells a little about their history and how they're made. It outlines the criteria for how the new sayings are chosen each year. Did you know every year there's a new category of sayings? Interesting nonfiction for your kids to read at The Valentine's Day History of Candy Hearts found at http://www.factmonster.com/spot/candyhearts1.html

Speaking of hearts, check out this one: The Heart: An Online Exploration is from the Franklin Institute Science Museum and makes for good nonfiction reading about real heart facts for Valentine's Day. Includes a pretty informative history of heart science. Lub-dub, lub- dub, click here - http://sln.fi.edu/biosci/heart.html.

There are lots of resources online about US Presidents and for President's Day. This site is actually a list of links to many of the other sites online. Visit Presidents of the United States at this KidsKonnect site at http://www.kidskonnect.com/Presidents/PresidentsHome.html.

Finally, here's a poem for Presidents' Day - with a monetary twist! Written in an upbeat manner specifically for kids, A Quarter and A Penny will give your students a brief account of the high points of Washington and Lincoln's tenure as President. Click on http://gilchriststudios.com/nlpf/archive/view.asp?presidents for the poem.