Author: Lisa Mungovan

It’s Squirrel Appreciation Day! Over 200 squirrel species fit into 3 different types. There are ground, tree, and flying squirrels. The African pygmy squirrel is only 3 inches long, while the Laotian giant flying squirrel is 3 1/2 feet long! Squirrels are great reforesters. They plant thousands of trees every year by forgetting where they buried their nuts!

It’s Hugging Day! Hug your parents, your pet, or your pesky brother. It’s also Playdate Day and International Sweatpants Day! Dress casual, and have fun with friends. Stay 6 feet apart! Make sure you have some granola bars, for an after-school snack, to celebrate Granola Bar Day. They’ll give you energy, to play for hours!

Amanda Gorman will soon become the youngest Inaugural Poet, when she recites her poem at the Presidential Inauguration. The 22-year-old from California, is a National Youth Poet Laureate. Like Joe Biden, she grew up with a speech impediment, so her success is even more impressive. “Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem,” is Gorman’s first book.

Today at noon, the new President of the United States, Joe Biden, will be sworn into office. Kamala Harris will become the first female Vice President. Due to the coronavirus, attendance of the Inauguration will be very limited . Over 191,000 flags in front of the Capitol will represent Americans, while we watch safely from home.

Have you ever lost a game, you thought you should’ve won? You still have to accept the referees’ calls, especially if most of the fans and even some of your team, agrees. Losing is always disappointing, but don’t storm off the field, or start a fight. Congratulate the other team with a fist-bump!

Today is Penguin Awareness Day. Emperor penguins can grow to nearly 4 feet tall, while little blue penguins only reach 16 inches. Some people knit sweaters for penguins, to protect them from oil spills. There are no penguins at the North Pole. Except for the Galapagos penguin, they all live in the Southern Hemisphere!

Get your appetites ready, for Cheese Lover’s Day! Cheese is made from milk, and has been around since at least 5500 BCE. It comes in over 1400 varieties, so whether you like mozzarella on your pizza, bleu cheese on your salad, parmesan on your pasta, or American on your grilled cheese, cheese is really gouda!

In 2018, Patches the cat went missing, during the mudslides in Southern California. Her human, Norm Borgatello, never thought he’d see her again. Luckily, Patches was microchipped, and an animal shelter was able to reunite Patches and Norm, 3 years later! Make sure your pets have a microchip implant, in case they ever get lost.

Ginkgo Biloba trees are known as living fossils. The species has been around for 200,000,000 years, possibly thanks to mankind. Evidence suggests that ginkgo trees had disappeared from most of the Earth by 66,000,000 years ago, remaining only in China. Scientists believe Paleolithic humans helped them survive, by planting their seeds. Everything else went extinct.

Would you ever describe a planet, as puffy? An exoplanet in our galaxy, called WASP-107b, has an extremely low density. It’s known as a super-puff planet, and although it’s nearly the size of Jupiter, it has only a tenth of the mass. Most of the planet’s mass, is in its puffed-up gas atmosphere.