Fin Pals ask Norman: What If You Can't Sleep?
Norman T. Goldfish answers letters from readers. Click on the link to read his reply.
Say Kids: When you get tired, do your eyelids ever feel heavy? Do you rub your eyes when you’re sleepy?
Norman gets tired, too. But he doesn’t rub his eyes because he can’t. His fins are not long enough to reach his eyes.
Norman can’t close his eyes when he’s tired, either, because goldfish don’t have eyelids.
If you were a tired goldfish what would you do when you were tired? Hmmmmm….
Ready to read Norman’s answer? Scroll down . . .
Glug
Glug
Glug . . .
To learn more about how goldfish sleep, click over to this article by aquagoodness.com.
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 #209-Earth First
Think: Green
Think: Peace
Today, because it’s National Green Peace Day. But not just today. Think Earth First because it’s time. It’s long past time!
We can change and make changes to help our world.
AND because, if we consciously think “Earth” before we do whatever it is we have to do: before we go; before we toss; before we buy; before. . . before we ignore, we can change and make changes to help our world.
Poetry Challenge #209
Green Peace
There’s nothing quite like the color green, and everyone wants peace. For this poem, Today, think of as many words that can rhyme with green or peace and use them in a poem.
For an extra challenge, do not let the last words in lines rhyme.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Think Green Peace
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 1990+ days 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #208-Amp It Up!
The instant I learned there was such a thing as National Ampersand Day, Joni Mitchell’s song “Twisted” popped into my head:
& he thought I was nuts/No more ifs or & or buts, oh no!/They say as a child I appeared a little bit wild with all my crazy ideas/but I knew what was a jean-yuus . . .
But then I thought, why not? After all doesn’t it seem right & fitting to set aside time to celebrate a symbol that dates back more than 2,000 years; & was once the last letter of the English alphabet (before Z took its place);& stands for the latin word et, “and” in English as in the word etcetera; &is derived from an alteration of “and per se and,” meaning (i.e. ‘&’); & is arguably the most used lologram* in the English language? & so, without further ado:
Poetry Challenge #208
AMP IT UP
Let’s use these “how to celebrate ampersand day” suggestions to revise a poem.
#1 Select a poem to revise
Now: AMPersand IT UP…rather in the spirit of the day…& IT UP!
#2 Substitute an ampersand “& “ for every “and” in the poem.
#3 Throughout the poem, replace the “and” sound with an ampersand. For example: change Andrea to &rea; Alexander to Alex&er, Grandma to Gr&ma; etc. & so forth.
#4 If your poem doesn’t have enough ampersands to make it interesting—or &y at all—change & add words until it looks more interesting.
#5 If you dare, send your revised poem to a friend for decoding.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it! & Have Fun!
*A logogram is a character that represents a word or phrase commonly used in shorthand. Other lolograms include @, #, $, %… & numbers such as 4 . . . LOL (yep LOL is a lologram too, lol!)
& BTW: Amersand Day was declared “in 2015 by Chaz DeSimone, an author, designer, typographer & founder of AmperArt an initiative which considers the ampersand to be an art form.”
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
WINNER OF THE 1ST "WINNER-WINNER CHICKEN DINNER" QUARTERLY GIVEAWAY IS . . .
THE GRAND PRIZE WINNER of the 1st Quarterly Giveaway is . . . Fanfare please!
Wait! Before we announce the winner, huge thanks and fishbowl love to all of you who entered this quarter’s Winner’s Choice Giveaway by subscribing to my blog, “Kelly’s Fishbowl,” sending letters & drawing to Norman the Goldfish’s advice column “Ask Norman,” or sharing snapshots of “Activities” on social media. The good news is you made our fishy hearts flutter with joy. The better news is, there weren’t as many entries as their could have been—did you forget you could enter more than one time each quarter?—so all of you who did enter have a 1-53 chances of winning. Talk about great odds!
In the interest of fairness, we wanted choosing the winner to be completely random random drawing. To that end, first we asked this guy to pick a winner:
But he wouldn’t take the bait. So . . . We asked This Guy . . .
Oso was thrilled to help. And with complete impartial plucking—and a bit of potato chip juice, OSO selected the winner.
And the winner is: Maria Campbell!
Lucky Maria will win dinner with a chicken or her choice of any one of these fabulous prizes:
To all of you, There’s still next time! Enter now, enter often, even better—have your kids, students, second-cousin on your goldfish’s side enter. There is no limit to how many times you enter—or WIN the Quarterly Winner-Choice Giveaway!
Fin Pals ask Norman: What's Your Favorite Color?
Norman T. Goldfish answers letters from readers. Click on the link to read his reply.
Hey Kids!
Do you have a favorite color? Does Norman? Do goldfish even see colors? Hmmmmm….Ready to read Norman’s answer? Scroll down . . .
Glug
Glug
Glug . . .
As it turns out goldfish can see colors! Even more colors than humans. Most human eyes see shades of the 3 primary colors: red, blue and yellow (Norman’s favorite food colors).
Goldfish see those and 2 more! They can see infra-red, which is a color beyond red that we humans can’t “see” but we “feel” as heat. This helps goldfish detect other fish.
The other color goldfish see is ultraviolet, a shade beyond purple. It’s those bright color shades humans can only see if we use an ultra-violet light.
For more about how and what goldfish see, click over to It’s a Fish Thing website!
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 #207-Who Gives a Cluck?
Back when Buz and Tod were getting their kicks cruising Route 66, if their tummies growled all they had to do was look up in the sky, not at a bird or a plane, but west to the 22-foot-high Chicken Boy!
For more than 20 years, 1960-1984, Chicken Boy, a huge fiberglass statue a burly mannish “boy” with a chicken head clutching a bucket of fried chicken, “affectionately known as ‘the Statue of Liberty of Los Angeles’”, perched atop LA’s Chicken Boy restaurant. The restaurant closed after the owner died but Chicken Boy lived on—although buried deep in storage until 2007 when thanks to fundraising effort he was resurrected and re-erected in front of owner Amy Inouye’s design firm in Highland Park, CA.
Wondering if cruising to LA to see the Chicken Boy is still a thing? Bet your tail feathers it is! In 2010, then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger awarded it the Governor's Historic Preservation Award.
And today, September 1st, National Chicken Boy Day, commemorates that day. Who gives a cluck? We do!
Poetry Challenge #207
What the Cluck!?
Write a Chicken Boy poem. Whether it features that 22-foot-high statue, or a boy and a chicken, or the Chicken Boys band (out of Austin, of course.)
Bwalk-blwak-blawk, just as chickens don’t all look the same—
There are hundreds of different breeds of chicken distinguished by: size, plumage color, comb type, skin color, number of toes, amount of feathering, egg color, and place of origin.[1]. . . also roughly divided by primary use, whether for eggs, meat, or ornamental purposes, and with some considered to be dual-purpose.[1]
—Chickens don’t all talk the same talk. But, no matter how its written: bwalk, cluck, peekok-peekok or some other spelling from far far away, when it comes to chicken verbalization the one universal is that hard K sound at the end.
Sooooooooo…(or should I say “sawk”). . . Think “Hard K” as you craft your poem.
And then, after you have a draft, go back over through your poem and change words, change sounds, invent words with the sole purpose of making your Chicken Boy poem sound as clucky as possible.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
And for inspiration a Chicken Boy Playlist:
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Ask Norman: Do You Have a Friend?
Norman T. Goldfish answers letters from readers. Click on the link to read his reply.
Hey Kids!
Ready to read Norman’s answer? Scroll down . . .
Glug
Glug
Glug . . .
Here’s a snap of Norman with his buddy. They’ve been friends now for almost a year and “Buddy” still doesn’t have a name. What would you call it? If you think up a good name, send email it to us via the contact “Learn More” button below. Everyone who send a name will receive a prize!
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 #206-AS If We Need A Excuse to Split
It’s Banana Split Day! Think of that chocolate ice cream drenched in chocolate syrup, the vanilla covered with crushed pineapple, and strawberry ice cream drowning in strawberry sauce. Imagine a perfect banana, split lengthwise down the middle. Picture the swirly mounds of whipped cream on each scoop, each with a maraschino cherry cushioned on top, their candied stems like smiles. Add a sprinkling of nuts and…Yum!!!
Anyone who’s called Banana Splits addictive might be onto something. Pharmacist David Strickler ,a.k.a. Doc Strickler, the “king of the banana split” a soda jerk at Tassell Pharmacy in Latrobe, PA, concocted the first split in 1904.
Poetry Challenge #206
Make Mine a Banana Split
What ingredients do you like best on your Banana Split?
Pick two or three of your ingredients and SPLIT them into syllables. (For example banana in syllables would be ba-na-na.)
Write a line that rhymes with each of the syllables.
Between the lines, repeat the syllable as many times as you want. Make it sound as good as it tastes.
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 1900 days 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
