Homeschool Ideas For May

Let’s Study Famous Folks – May Calendar Of Famous People & Fun Activities

May is one of my favorite months! Not too hot & not too cold. The days are longer and spring is in full swing. Evenings and weekends are full of fun family activities. Homeschool lessons are winding down, and moms are looking for ways to prevent boredom during the upcoming summer months. It’s a perfect time to learn about famous people born in May, right?!? The May calendar is full of ways you can say ‘Hello May!’ with creativity and curiosity! Homeschool moms are loving that they can hand it off to their kids and let them add it to their daily routine. Get your May Famous People Calendar of Activities at the end of this post.

homeschool ideas for May

How are you going to add some fun to your homeschool in May? Well, adding a creative activity that nourishes curiosity is a perfect place to start! May’s daily study gems are perfect for adding something special to eliminate boredom with your middle and high school student.

The Let’s Study Famous Folks – May calendar of famous people will enrich homeschool learning without overwhelming or stressing anyone out. It’s perfect for the season we live in. Trying to promote independent learning? This printable allows you to hand it off to your kids. It helps them learn how to learn independently – such a valuable life skill to learn.

Projects & Presentation Ideas At Your Finger-Tips

May’s Calendar of Famous People is a perfect tool of inspiration for presentations or final projects. It is full of learning every day of the month. There are typical holidays like Memorial Day & Star Wars Day and more unique ones like Memo Day and International Day of Families to celebrate. There are also 53 people that are famous who celebrate their birthday in May. So from the tops of Mount Everest to several space ‘firsts’, your middle schoolers and high schoolers are sure to satisfy their curiosity with this list of 53 famous people and 9 fun days to celebrate and learn about.

Here’s The List Of Famous People For May

Writers/Poets/Artists/Musicians

Niccolo Machiavelli – Italian politician and writer (The Prince).
Bing Crosby – American actor and singer.
Audrey Hepburn – famous actress.
Karl Marx – German philosopher.
Robert Browning -English poet who wrote The Pied Piper.
Johannes Brahms -composer of music from the Romantic Era.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Russian Romantic Era composer (1812 Overture, Swan Lake),
Phillis Wheatley – African-American poet who was both the second published African-American poet and first published woman poet in America.
Fred Astaire – famous American dancer and actor.
Irving Berlin – American composer and lyricist (God Bless America, White Christmas).
Salvador Dali – Spanish surrealist artist (Crucifixion).
Jules Massenet – French composer.
Claudio Monteverdi – Italian composer and pioneer in the development of opera.
Lyman Frank Baum – American children’s book author (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz).
Albrecht Durer – Renaissance painter/print maker.
Richard Wagner – German composer of the Romantic Era.
Arthur Conan Doyle – famous British author (The Hound of the Baskervilles).
Ralph Waldo Emerson – American essayist and philosopher.
Walt Whitman – American poet (Leaves of Grass) and a volunteer nurse during the Civil War.

Scientists/Explorers/Inventors

Robert Peary – American Arctic explorer who claimed to have 1st reached the geographic North Pole.
Sigmund Freud -Austrian neurologist and father of psychology.
Howard Carter – British archaeologist and Egyptologist who found King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Learn more about Egyptian mummies.
David Edward Hughes – British-American inventor of the microphone, & teleprinter.
Edward Jenner – an English physician, was considered the father of immunology and pioneered smallpox vaccinations.
Andrei Sakharov – Russian nuclear physicist and activist for disarmament, peace, and human rights.
Carolus Linnaeus -Swedish botanist, explorer, and the Father of Taxonomy.
John Bardeen – American physicist, electrical engineer, and co-inventor of the transistor.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit – Dutch-German-Polish physicist, inventor, and scientific instrument maker, who invented the thermometer and the Fahrenheit scale.
Igor Sikorsky -Russian-American pioneer of aviation in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.
Sally Ride – famous American astronaut (the first American woman to go to space).
Tenzing Norgay – Tibetan climber who was the 1st to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Alexei Leonov – Russian cosmonaut and the first person to walk in space.

Historical Leaders/Heroes/”Baddies”

Kamehameha I – King of Hawaii
Arthur Wellesley – Duke of Wellington and a former British Prime Minister.
Calamity Jane – Legendary woman of the Wild West.
Manfred von Richthofen [The Red Baron] – famous German World War I fighter ace.
Eva Perón [Evita] – famous Argentine First Lady, actress, suffragette, unionist, and humanitarian who was the inspiration for the musical “Evita”.
Harry Truman – the 33rd US President.
John Brown – American abolitionist and revolutionary (Harpers Ferry).
John Wilkes Booth – American stage actor and assassin of US President Abraham Lincoln.
Florence Nightingale – a famous British nurse during the Crimean War.
Nicholas II – last Tsar of Russia.
Malcolm X [Little] – African-American human rights activist.
Elizabeth Fry – English prison reformer, social reformer, and Quaker Minister.
Queen Victoria – former Queen of the United Kingdom and Ireland.
“Wild Bill” Hickok [James Butler] – American cowboy and scout.
Selim II “the blonde” – 11th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
George I – former King of England.
William Pitt the Younger – former British Prime Minister.
Charles II – former King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Patrick Henry – American Revolutionary and Founding Father famous for his “Give me liberty or give me death” speech.
John F. Kennedy – 35th US President.

Other Interesting Famous Folks To Learn About

Bono [Paul Hewson] – lead singer of U2 and humanitarian activist.
Stevie Wonder [Stevland Hardaway Morris] -famous American singer-songwriter.
George Lucas – American movie director (Star Wars, Indiana Jones).

Have Fun Celebrating These Special Days:

May Day
Star Wars Day – May The Force Be With You!
Cinco de Mayo – Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with music!
Thank a Teacher Day! Enjoy one of these thankfulness writing ideas.
Mother’s Day
International Day of Families – Learn how to write your family story.
Children’s Book Week – Learn how to write about a book.
National Memo Day – Learn how to write a business letter.
Memorial Day (USA)

Everyone Can Say, “Hello May!”

There is at least one person you can find in this month’s birthday list that will inspire your kids to learn just a bit more about something that piques their historical interest. Music & Literature are covered too with reading suggestions and resources to get the most out of the day’s activity.

Notebooking Ideas

If you are wanting to make sure your kids are doing active learning, incorporate notebooking pages allowing them to capture important details while watching videos, reading articles, and interacting with each person in this month’s calendar.

This is the perfect month to start using notebooking pages. Learn how to use them with virtual learning, and you will find they are welcome additions that allow you to step away from workbooks and teach your child how to listen, observe, and respond to what they are learning in a natural way.