February Blahs

Hi Everyone, I thought I would post my Two-Lane Livin' February article today. My article, titled February Blahs, is in their print issue this month. (We have all rights to our articles, so I am allowed to do this).

Remember my articles are written for children. It may give you ideas on how to keep your children entertained during this snowy, dreary month.

February Blahs!

 Janet F. Smart

Why couldn't the pirates play cards?
            Because the captain was standing on the deck.

February is National Blah Buster Month!

It is easy to get the blahs on a weekend in February. It is cold and snowy outside and you are stuck in the house with nothing to do. Instead of watching the same television shows and playing the same video and computer games, try these seven ways to beat the blahs:

1. Grab your favorite book from the shelf and start reading. Imagine yourself as your favorite character in the story.  

2. Turn on your favorite music and dance.

3. Create a secret code that you and your friends can write with to each other.

4. Play a game of Simon Says. You are Simon and give the commands, such as, hop on one foot, clap your hands, sit down, stand up, etc. However, if you do not say “Simon Says” first and they do it, they are out of the game.

5. Hide something in your house and draw a treasure map to it. Give the map to your brother or sister and see if they can find the hidden treasure.

6. Stand in front of your window and observe what is going on outside. Write a poem about what you see. Better yet, pretend you are your school newspaper reporter and write an article about what is happening outside your window. Here is an example of what I might see outside my kitchen window:

The red cardinal swooshed by.

In hot pursuit, the neighbor’s cat chased him.

The bird squawked, the cat meowed,

and the dog ran barking behind them. 

7. Write a tongue twister using your name as the first word. Make three columns on your paper: one for adjectives, one for nouns and one for verbs. List words in each column that all start with the same letter as your first name. Pick words from your lists to write your tongue twister. To make it more interesting, draw a picture at the top of the page to go with your tongue twister.

Here is a tongue twister I made up using my name:

Jittery Janet jiggled a jar of juicy jelly.

A jar of juicy jelly, Jittery Janet jiggled.

If Jittery Janet jiggled a jar of juice jelly,

Where is the jar of juicy jelly Jittery Janet jiggled?

Share your list of Blah Busters with your friends. Read your poems, tongue twisters and stories to each other over the phone.

February 14^th   is Valentine’s Day.  Draw hearts on pink and red construction paper. Make up your own sayings and print them on the hearts with crayons or colored pencils. Cut the hearts out, punch a hole in each one, string yarn through the hole and hang them in your windows for decoration.

Here are some fun games you can play with those conversation candy hearts with sayings printed on them.

Stand around the kitchen table and see how many you can stack on top of each other. The person with the highest candy heart tower wins.

Place a pint-canning jar in the middle of the table. Take turns tossing the candy hearts into the jar. The person who gets the most hearts in the jar wins.

Have fun and I hope your February is not blah.

I hope you enjoyed my article. I love writing for kids. Maybe you and your kids can try out some of the activities I listed.

If you want to read some of my other articles, click on this Two-Lane Livin' link, it takes you directly to my list of past articles. I have lots of activities, poems, stories and kid friendly recipes in my posts.
I was Jittery Janet, if you wrote a tongue twister, what adjective would you choose to describe yourself?