Apps For Kids

It’s Manatee Appreciation Day! Manatees, also known as sea cows, are slow-moving aquatic mammals, that are vulnerable to extinction. They’re about 10-15 feet long, and have 4 rows of teeth! Manatees live in warm shallow waters, and graze on underwater vegetation. Here’s a fun fact: baby manatees drink milk from their mom’s armpit!

Today is Tolkien Reading Day. Settle down with Lord of the Rings, or The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Since Hobbits love to eat, enjoy a stack of waffles while you read! It’s also Waffle Day, as well as Pecan Day. Whether you say pea-can or pea-khan, the nut is delicious, especially in waffles!

Our Solar System is a tiny spot in the Milky Way galaxy, and the galaxy is pretty big. It’s an estimated 260,000 light-years in diameter! Remember, a light-year is about 5.88 trillion miles. But just as our Sun’s gravitational pull affects distant objects, the Milky Way’s gravitational influence stretches across 1.9 million light-years, or close to 12-quintillion miles!

Around the world, people are trying to stay home as much as possible. One way to interact with your neighbors, while still keeping your distance, is with music. In Italy, people come out on their balconies to sing together. You can have a mini-concert, by practicing your instrument from a porch or open window!

Many countries are on lockdown to prevent spreading the novel coronavirus. Vakis Demetriou, who lives in Cyprus, still found a way to walk his dog. He attached his pup’s leash to a flying drone, and piloted his dog’s walk by remote control! Luckily, his dog didn’t spot any squirrels.

A bear in California, must have woken up hungry. He spotted a box of dog food, on someone’s front porch, and swiped it! Video shows the bear dragging the 40 pound package away, 20 minutes after it was delivered. He wolfed down half the food, and left the rest for Fido.

Raisinets have been around since 1927. Every hour, more than 1,000,000 are produced. How many do you think you could eat in an hour? Today is Chocolate Covered Raisin Day, so indulge yourself! You can pretend they’re a healthy snack. After all, they are full of fruit!

I hope everyone is staying home, to stop the spread of coronavirus. If you run out of your favorite foods, try a new recipe instead of going to the store. SuperCook is a website, that helps you find recipes. You select the ingredients you have in your kitchen, and SuperCook suggests the meal!

The National Aquarium in Baltimore, is closed to visitors. But you can still watch the fish! Visit their aqua.org website, and watch live-cam videos of sharks, rays, wrasse, and jellyfish. Leave it on the screen all day, and you can pretend it’s your own aquarium! Just don’t try to feed the fish.

It’s Mo Willems, author of “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus”, and “Knuffle Bunny,” knows staying in the house can get boring. So everyday at 1:00 pm, Eastern Time, he’ll be live-streaming a drawing class! You can watch Lunch Doodles, on the Kennedy Center’s website or YouTube channel. Don’t forget your paper and crayons!