It's a good thing Grammy helps us decorate for each holiday because this is not my strong point and it definitely helps to make various occasions more festive.
With homeschooling, even more commercialized holidays like St. Patrick's Day create new learning opportunities and help to add some variety to the homeschool routine. Today we are cooking a traditional Irish meal for dinner, baking some festive cookies, spotting Ireland on our globe, wearing green, and listening to traditional Irish music-- when we're not enjoying lots of outside time on this beautiful March day.
As the kids get older, holidays like this one could be great opportunities to explore various topics such as Irish history, agriculture, and immigration. There's even a Boston Irish Heritage Trail tracing the city's Irish roots.
And since we're on the topic of the Irish in Boston, it's worth mentioning that Horace Mann, who is widely viewed as the founder of universal public education, sought free, compulsory schooling to educate the masses and "civilize" the largely poor Irish immigrants to Boston in the early 19th century. All this while his wife homeschooled their three children.....
