President's Day
Titled Washington's Birthday, the federal holiday was originally implemented by the Congress of the United States of America in 1880 for government offices in the District of Columbia and expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices. As the first federal holiday to honor an American citizen, the holiday was celebrated on Washington's actual birthday, February 22. On January 1, 1971 the federal holiday was shifted to the third Monday in February by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. A draft of the Uniform Holidays Bill of 1968 would have renamed the holiday to Presidents' Day to honor the birthdays of both Washington and Lincoln, but this proposal failed in committee and the bill as voted on and signed into law on June 28, 1968 kept the name Washington's Birthday.
By the mid-1980s, with a push from advertisers, the term "Presidents Day" began its public appearance. Although Lincoln's birthday, February 12, was never a federal holiday, approximately a dozen state governments have officially renamed their Washington's Birthday observances as "Presidents Day", "Washington and Lincoln Day", or other such designations. However, "Presidents Day" is not always an all-inclusive term.
Source: Wikipedia.com - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington%27s_Birthday
President’s Day Fun - Tips to Help Language Development
by: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston
Many of us parents are lucky to have a holiday from work, but we feel compelled to do something constructive.
As a speech therapist, I am frequently asked about ways to help kids learn more, especially when it comes to language development. We can capitalize on this extra family time on February 15 and use it to help teach our kids in a fun way. Shake up your daily routine and do something different. Many times it can be free, and, even better, everyone can participate. Take advantage of your community resources. Go for a walk down main street and read the plaques marking historic sites, talk about the architecture of the buildings, or window shop. Check out a neighboring town or county and visit someplace you have never been. Even just a walk around your neighborhood can cause you to notice new colors, shapes, people, and nature. It is amazing the things you will notice when you visit familiar places with a different purpose.
No matter what you do or where you go, talk about all you see, feel, hear, smell, and taste. Use new words to describe and label things. Remember to take a camera to document your adventure in pictures which you can then put into a small photo album later. You can use this album over and over to talk about all the things you did on your special outing, reinforcing the vocabulary you used. By revisiting the album regularly, your child will remember the new words and eventually start to use them herself.
Spending time together, talking, laughing and playing all lead to learning. It is that easy.