Ask Norman T Goldfish: Do You Like Nature?
Norman T. Goldfish answers letters from readers. Click on the link to read his reply.
Hey Kids! Wow! This one is a toughy! Especially for a goldfish who’s lived his whole life in a bowl. We looked nature up in the dictionary. Here’s one definition we found:
Nature (noun) the physical world and living things in their natural state; all things that are not made by people.
Scroll down to see Norman’s answer…
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Say kids: If you like mysteries & nature & goldfish check out this whole page of goldfish books—what’s inside each one is a mystery.
Do you have a question for Norman the Goldfish—about friends, school, pets, family, life in and outside the fishbowl? Send him a letter!
Poetry Challenge #188-Bulldogs Are Beautiful!
I was walking down the street the other morning (no joke) and was almost bowled over by a wrinkly, short, squatty, bowlegged creature so ugly it was cute…make that flipping adorable! His name was Hamilton, and as his proud human announced while straightening Hamilton’s cravat, “It’s his day!”
And while that was Hamilton’s day—because evidently it needed to be proclaimed— today (April 21st) is Bulldogs Are Beautiful Day!
Poetry Challenge #188
Bulldogs Are Beautiful
Think of the ugliest dog you’ve ever seen. Somebody loves that face. Somebody thinks the noises it makes are beautiful. Somebody loves the way it walks.
Write a poem from two points of view. One line from a person who thinks something (it can be a dog or something else) is beautiful and one line from a person who thinks it is the ugliest thing ever. You can make the two people speak to each other or one can speak and the other can be thinking.
Imagine the ugliest thing you can and get writing!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Get into the ugly mood with the Bulldogs Are Beautiful Playlist:
She Was Hot to Go by Lyle Lovett, if only to sing “She was ugly from the front” and call out: “You Ugly Too!”
Bob Wills’ Roly Poly sung by the Dixie Chicks: “Roly Poly, Daddy’s little fatty, fatty’s gonna be a man some day...”
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Ask Norman T Goldfish: What's With the Circles? Do You Get Dizzy?
Norman T. Goldfish answers letters from readers. Click on the link to read his reply.
Andy’s question for Norman came as two-parter—2 separate letters! Here’s the second part:
Hey Kids! Have you ever tried twirling around and around and around and around…either while swimming—like Norman? Or on land? Did it make your dizzy? Scroll down to see Norman’s answer…
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Say kids: Here’s a question for you: Would twirling circles in space make you—or Norman dizzy? Here’s Astronaut Tim Peake practicing a somersault.
Do you have a question for Norman the Goldfish—about friends, school, pets, family, life in and outside the fishbowl? Send him a letter!
Poetry Challenge #187-Look Up at the Sky!
Because, with all we do, it seems we need to be reminded, today, April 14th, has been officially declared Look Up at the Sky Day! in honor of Jack Borden a former news reporter and founder of For Spacious Skies.
This crocodile cloud was captured by Rob Millenaar, 30,000 feet above China.
During broadcasts Borden routinely reminded viewers—especially children—to look up and admire the sky and beauty around us. On his 92nd birthday, April 14th, 2020, the Day was officially declared. Jack passed on in December and now the link to the For Spacious Skies websites seem to be broken, but the Facebook page is live, with some glorious snaps. And the sky!
Poetry Challenge #187
Look Up at the Sky Day
Every time you look up at the sky, it’s different. Sometimes there are clouds. Maybe a flock of geese fly overhead. Or you might hear the sound of an airplane and see the trail it leaves behind. Maybe you see the moon or stars or…something else.
Look up! Describe what you see. Use similes (the ____ looks like ___) to create a feeling.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
HEAD’S UP!
Look Up at the Sky Playlist: Charles Kuralt reported on Jack Borden.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to launch playtime with words. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Ask Norman T Goldfish: What's Your Favorite Sport?
Norman T. Goldfish answers letters from readers. Click on the link to read his reply.
Hey Kids! Below is a scene from Norman One Amazing Goldfish. Can you guess from the picture what one of his favorite sports might be?
Scroll down to read Norman’s answer. . .
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Do you have a question for Norman the Goldfish—about friends, school, pets, family, life in and outside the fishbowl? Send him a letter!
Poetry Challenge #186-Books on the Move!
If readers can’t come to the library…
…we’ll bring the library to them! That might not be the official Bookmobile motto, but it should be! Bookmobiles, more correctly, book “wagons” have been making the rounds since 1850’s (at least), first in Cumbira, England. And here in the US, since 1904 when Mary Lemist Titcomb, a librarian in Washington County, Maryland, with the help of a $2500 Carnegie Grant, turned outfitted the country’s first library on wheels.
And later, in 1935 the Pack Horse Library Project providing reading materials to rural portions of Eastern Kentucky.
But communities need not be rural, or remote, poor, or needy to need a bookmobile.
Many schools, communities, children—even now, especially now when so many school libraries are being replaced with Tech Centers ahem—depend on bookmobiles, and mobile librarians to keep them reading!
Poetry Challenge #186
…We’ll Bring the Library to Them!
If the early bookmobiles were pack mules and horse drawn wagons, and today’s bookmobiles are buses and vans, what will bookmobiles of the future look like?
Write a poem about bookmobiles and/or a bookmobile librarian at the helm—past, present, or future.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Some 186 weeks ago we began creating prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Ask Norman T Goldfish: What's Your Favorite Book?
Norman T. Goldfish answers letters from readers. Click on the link to read his reply.
Hey Kids! Norman and his human love stories. What do you think his favorite books are? To read Norman’s answer? Scroll down . . .
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Say kids: What’s one thing all of Norman’s favorite books have in common? That’s right! They are all about fish! Can you think of some other fishy books Norman would enjoy?
Do you have a question for Norman the Goldfish—about friends, school, pets, family, life in and outside the fishbowl? Send him a letter!
Poetry Challenge #185-Color Our World
Crayola Crayons! Close your eyes, take a deep breath: Smell them?
My friends and I swore we could smell the difference between colors.* Remember breaking them? And/or trying to color so softly as to not break them? And when we did, which we always did, holding the broken ends together while gingerly easing the paper down to splint the break?
So many uses for broken crayons. Who knew? Thanks Little House Living!
The big boxes—48/64 pack came with built-in crayon sharpeners, but who had one of those? We sharpened ours the tried-and-true way, by angling the dull edge against the paper and shading while rotating until we had a nice point.
Turns out we have a pair of cousins Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith to thank for Crayola Crayons. Their company manufactured that first boxed set of 8, which debuted in 1903. And Alice Stead Binney (Edwin’s wife) who combined the French words for chalk and oily (craie and oleaginous) to create “Crayola.”
“The crayons were sold for a nickel and the colors were black, brown, blue, red, purple, orange, yellow, and green. ”
Here’s more:
Crayon Trivia
Crayola makes over 3 billion crayons a year.
Crayola crayons come in 120 colors plus “specialty colors”
About 50 shades have been retired including Dandelion, Maize, Blizzard Blue, Fuchsia. Want to know all the colors Crayola Makes?
The world's largest crayon was made by Crayola. It was 15'6" and weighed 1,352 pounds.
Since 1903 Crayola has made over 237 billion crayons.
The newest Crayola creation came out in 2020. It’s a skin-tone box set of 32 called “Colors of the World.”
Poetry Challenge #185
Color Your World
Celebrate National Crayon Day by taking a deep breath back into your Crayola Crayon memory box, back to one specific day, place, time in your childhood. With that memory in mind and its specific shades and smells, write a poem about it. It might be a poem about crayons or coloring, but not necessarily.
Choose one color from the poem, or an overarching color for your poem—from a Crayola Crayon box or all your own—to serve as the title.
Open your Crayola Box; Take a Sniff . . .
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
*Crayon smell truly is one of American adult’s most remembered childhood scents—and not only because I said so. Take a poll and see for yourself. Or take Bustle.com’s word for it.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1800 days ago! 185 weeks ago we began creating prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL