Author: Lisa Mungovan

Bats are amazing creatures. 1 colony of Mexican Free-Tailed bats eats up to 30,000 pounds of insects each night, including lots of annoying mosquitoes! Other types of bats eat fruit, like the giant golden-crowned flying fox. It has a wingspan of 5 1/2 feet! Bats are also pollinators, like bees and butterflies. Thank you bats!

Today is Wild Foods Day. Your backyard might be full of delicious food. Blackberries, apples, and other fruit are easy to identify. Dandelions, chickweed, clover, and wild onions taste great, as long as your lawn is pesticide-free. Black walnuts take some work, to get inside. Don’t eat anything, until checking with an adult.

Chocolate lovers, today is your lucky day. It’s Chocolate Day! People have been eating chocolate, made from the seeds of cacao trees, for 4000 years or more. Be sure to watch some cartoons while you enjoy your chocolate, because it’s also Animation Day. Create your own stop-motion video or flip-book animation!

138 years ago, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York. The statue stands in the harbor, and has welcomed millions of people from other countries, entering the USA on ships. National Immigrants Day celebrates all those who came to the United States from other countries, to find opportunity and happiness.

The weekend before Halloween, is full of awesome activities. Many local farms have haunted hayrides, or corn mazes. Enter a costume contest at a Fall Festival, or collect candy at a Trunk-Or-Treat, where the cars are dressed in costumes too! Have your own pumpkin-carving party, and serve spooky finger foods. Most importantly, have fun!

Election Day is drawing near, but one town in Saskatchewan Canada has a problem. No one is running for mayor. Kyle’s current mayor, George Williams, is retiring, but no candidates have applied for the position. An open spot on the town council, also has no nominees. The city hopes someone will step forward soon.

A prime number is a number divisible only by itself and 1, like the numbers 2 3 5 7 11 and so on. A Mersenne prime is a number found by multiplying many twos together, then subtracting one. Luke Durant found the newest prime number, M136279841. It’s 2 to the 136,279,841st power, minus one.

Yay and hooray, it’s Potato Day! Have some baked potatoes and hash browns and potato dumplings and French fries and potato chips and home fries and sweet potatoes and tater tots and mashed potatoes! Do you still have leftover potatoes? Give them away for Halloween. Some kids will choose a potato, over candy!

Today is Black Cat Day. They’re always dressed for Halloween! Black cats have a harder time getting adopted, so consider giving one a home with you! It’s also Cranky Co-Workers Day. Bring them a treat to make them less irritable. If you’re the one who’s always cranky, let everyone know it’s your special day!

5th-grader Eniola Shokunbi, led classmates in building her idea for a simple filter, to clean viruses out of the classroom air using only a box fan, 4 furnace filters, cardboard, and duct tape. The Environmental Protection Agency was impressed, and the filters may soon be used in schools across the United States.