Author: Lisa Mungovan

Today is World Donkey Day. Male donkeys are called jacks, and a female is called a jenny. Wild donkeys are only found in North America, although domesticated donkeys live worldwide. Donkeys can hear other donkeys 60 miles away, with their long ears. They can remember donkeys they’ve met, and places they’ve visited, 25 years later!

Don’t you wish there was a book about your cat? Today is Make-A-Book Day, so create one yourself! You can make a simple book by folding sheets of paper in half, and stapling them together at the fold. Will you write a long story, or make a picture book with colorful drawings? Have fun!

Are all your favorite socks dirty? Who cares! It’s No Socks Day! Make sure you have clean feet. Take a walk and try to find some iris flowers blooming, for Iris Day. It’s also Coconut Cream Pie Day, and Have A Coke Day. Sounds like a super sweet, Coke-coconutty snack!

A second-grader in Kentucky, was playing with his mom’s phone, when he decided to order some lollipops. He maybe ordered a few too many, because 30 cases of Dum-Dums were delivered, with each case holding 2340 suckers. The order cost $4200, but luckily, Amazon agreed to return the purchase.

Old books are beautiful to look at, but may hold hidden dangers. Books published in the 18 hundreds, were often covered in green bookcloth, that contained arsenic, a deadly poison. The Poison Book Project also found led or mercury, in more than half of the colorfully-covered 19th-century books it tested.

Mosquito bites are itchy, annoying, and deadly if they’re carrying diseases. The mosquito’s proboscis looks like a needle, but it has blades, microneedles, and can vibrate and bend at a 90-degree angle, to get through your clothes. Entomologist John Beckman, is developing a stretchy fabric, that blocks mosquitos. It’s like spandex chain-mail!

Have you ever seen a Venus fly trap, a sundew, or a pitcher plant? Today is World Carnivorous Plant Day, and those are some of the plants, that eat meat. Carnivorous plants use different methods to trap insects, like slippery sides, sticky hairs, or jaws that clamp shut. Bugs don’t bug them!

The bottom of the ocean is mostly uncharted territory. Only 1/4 of Earth’s ocean floor has been mapped. In the last few years, scientists used satellite data, to discover 19,000 new seamounts. The underwater mountains are formed by volcanic activity. Some are more than 6 miles high, even taller than Mount Everest!

Someone in India parked their motorized scooter, but it didn’t stay parked. Instead, a big bull took the scooter for a spin!. Video captured the bull putting its front legs on the seat, and rolling it into the road, before crashing the vehicle into a gate. The bull walked away unharmed.

Today is Teacher Day. Take time to thank them, for doing such important work. It’s also Poem On Your Pillow Day. Write a little poem to leave on a someone’s pillow, to send them off to sleep or let them wake up with a smile! Write a poem for your teachers too!