Author: Lisa Mungovan

Did you wake up in a bad mood this morning? Go ahead and be grumpy; it’s Curmudgeons Day! A curmudgeon is a bad-tempered person. It’s also Puzzle Day, and Corn Chip Day. There are too many pieces in this puzzle! These chips taste stale! It can be fun to act like a curmudgeon!

Xīn nián kuài lè! That means “Happy new year” in Chinese. The Chinese Lunar New Year starts today, and it’s the Year of the Snake. The Spring Festival begins 15 days of parties, fireworks, feasts and parades. It’s traditional to wear red and avoid sweeping. You’d sweep out good luck that the new year brought!

Did you know it’s Snow Sculpting Week? If you have fresh snow, make some snow people and animals. Is your snow too old and crusty? Carve the mounds of snow shoveled from your driveway, into a giant caterpillar, or chisel a face into the mountain of snow in a parking lot.

How many passwords do you use? Are they secure? Today is Data Privacy Day, a good time to go over the basics of online safety. Never give out your personal information to anyone online, including online quizzes that collect details about your life. And use a string of words for a strong password phrase.

Today is Plan For Vacation Day. If you’re a 4th grader, you can make your summer vacation a little cheaper for your family. You can get into any US National Park for free! The Every Kid Outdoors program, lets you print a free annual pass, good for everyone in the car, at Every-Kid-Outdoors.gov.

Throw some blueberries in your pancake mix, because it’s Blueberry Pancake Day. After you finish breakfast, hum your favorite tunes, on an annoying instrument, to celebrate Kazoo Day! Play a song about daisies, like “Bicycle Built for Two,” because it’s also Daisy Day. There are 20,000 varieties, of the bright happy flower.

In 1949, the first set of automatic binding bricks were produced in Denmark. You may know them better, as Legos! Today is International LEGO Day, so see what you can create. Did you know, there are over 4,000,000,000 LEGO minifigures in the world? The LEGO bricks sold in a single year, would circle the Earth 5 times!

In the next 5 years, there could be an airplane on Mars. NASA is hoping to use a fixed-wing aircraft, powered by solar energy, to explore the planet’s surface. MAGGIE, short for Mars Aerial and Ground Global Intelligent Explorer, will be able to take off and land vertically, and cruise at a 3300-foot altitude.

The Cordova Iceworm Festival, started Friday, in Alaska. Iceworms live in glaciers, and function best at temperatures below freezing. Only a few centimeters long, they move between the ice crystals. The festival’s mascot however, is 150 feet long! The festival includes learning about iceworms, games, the Miss Iceworm Coronation, dances, a parade, and fireworks.

Did you know it’s Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day? The engineers who invented bubble wrap first tried to sell it as wallpaper, then greenhouse insulation. It wasn’t commonly used for packaging until 1961. But I’ll bet people were popping it from the very beginning! Have a popping party! The sound’s only annoying if you’re not participating.