Special Edition: Homeschool April Fool's!

Introduction

Hello there! Welcome back NEO Homeschoolers! Are you ready for some April Fool's fun? Because that's what this special edition post is all about. We're digging into some fun, harmless April Fool's pranks and lessons that you can do with your kids at home... or, if it's the kids reading this, you have some ideas for your parents. 😉 No matter who's doing the April Fooling, these jokes and activities are sure to keep a smile - or a giggle - on everyone's faces today.

April Fool's Day: Homeschool Style

All right April Fool's pranksters, let's get started! Below are some ideas of how you might encourage some April Fool's fun in your home. I'll include links to the websites where I found all this April Fool's fun at the end of each section.

Jokes for Harmless Family Fun

1. Breakfast Brain-Freeze: Place a bowl of your joke recipient's favorite cereal with milk into the freezer overnight. In the morning, you'll get your giggles watching your joke recipient's reaction as he/she tries to scoop up their cereal... unsuccessfully.
2. Soap Sans Suds: Ever wondered how someone might wash their hands if their soap doesn't suds up? Here's your chance to find out. 😏Take a bar of soap and paint it with a coat of clear nail polish. Let the clear polish dry and place the soap back in the soap dish. Then, prepare to answer questions about why the soap won't work.
3. Computer Screen Flip-Flop: Make your child's homeschool computer work - or your parent's beginning of the work day - confusing using this trick to turn all on their computer icons upside down.
   1. PC: Press CTRL + ALT + the down arrow to flip the screen upside down. Pressing the same combination with the up arrow will flip things right side up again.
   2. Mac: Open "System Preferences" and click "Display" while simultaneously holding down CTRL + Option. You should get a new menu titled "Rotation" with the option to flip & save the display.
4. Colored Waterfall: Want to create some colored bath water? Find a cotton swab and use it to coat the inside of the bathtub faucet with a gel food dye for a burst of color the next time the bathtub gets used.

Find these and other harmless jokes on AOP Christian Homeschooling's blog post about April Fool's jokes.

April Fool's Learning

Ready to find some educational content in the midst of all that April Fool's fun and pranking? Below is some lesson-worthy content that will enrich your homeschool student's knowledge - or wow your parents - while they're having their April Fool's fun.

1. April Fool's History: Celebrated around the world as a day of fun mischief, April Fool's Day has been a tradition for hundreds of years. The tradition is believed to have started in the mid-1500s. Did you know New Year's used to be celebrated on the first day of April? Yep, until the 15th century the first day of the new year fell on April 1st. Pope Gregory XIII changed the calendar in 1582 to the Georgian calendar, which moved New Year's to where we know it to be today: January 1st. After Pope Gregory XIII moved New Year's, anyone who continued to celebrate it on April 1st was considered a fool. Hence, April Fools! 😁
2. Famous April Fool's Jokes:
   1. 1957: To celebrate April Fool's, the BBC aired a film about spaghetti harvest in Switzerland, thus convincing many people that spaghetti grew on trees.
   2. 1698: The earliest known April Fool's prank involved people in London being told to go see the annual ceremony of the washing of lions at the Tower of London. However, when people showed up for this ceremony, they found that there was no such annual lion-washing ceremony.
   3. 1998: A fast-food chain advertised offering "left-handed burgers," and thousands of people visited the chain attempting to obtain one of these burgers for themselves.
   4. 1980: The BBC announced that the famous Big Ben clock tower was going to be converted to digital. Many citizens were outraged at the news.
   5. 2015: A supermarket promoted the idea that they were going to introduce trampolines in their aisles to help shoppers reach the high shelves.
3. Rules of April Fool's: Unlike Americans, people in the UK follow the "rule" that April Fool's pranks can only happen before noon. It is said that anyone who pulls a prank after noon in the UK is the fool themselves. They even have a saying about it that goes like this: "April Fool's has come and gone, you are the fool and I am none."

Reference for content above: Twinkl

Conclusion

A day for mischievous fun and plenty of laughs, April Fool's Day has both a rich history of pranks as well as a long history of being a worldwide tradition. The pranks and interesting tidbits above can help you continue the tradition of pranks and giggles while also learning something new. Thanks for checking out this special edition of NEO Homeschool Connections! If you like this kind of content, will you consider letting me know in the comments below? I love hearing from my readers and am always looking for feedback about the kind of content people want to see. 😄Thanks again, and see you next week!!