Poetry Challenge #211-Coffee? Tea? Or...
Coffee?
Latte? Americano? Cappuccino? Cold Brew? Espresso?
Why not? After all, it is National Coffee Day (Sept 29). While we’re on the subject:
Lore has it that in the 17th century, one Baba Budan, a Sufi Saint/Monk/Tourist, made the pilgrimage from India to Mecca, and while visiting the Yemen port city of Mocha, was served a drink called “Quahwa” which wowed him. So, even though it was illegal to take green coffee seeds from Arabia, Baba Budan hid 7 green coffee seeds in his beard and smuggled them back home to Mysore. He planted them, they grew, he shared the quahwa with friends, they grew some too, thus bringing coffee to India. Put that in your coffee mill and grind it!
Or… maybe, after all that, you prefer Tea?
Darjeeling, Earl Gray, English Breakfast, chamomile, mint?
or Hot Chocolate?
Raspberry? Mexican? with whipped cream? marshmallows? Fluff?
Rumor has it Starbucks Pumpkin Spice is back!
Poetry Challenge #211
Coffee? Tea? Or . . . What’s Your Pleasure?
Whatever you like to drink, it’s time to make up a new flavor. Write a poem about this flavor and give it a great name. Make us see it, smell it, taste it, and WANT it.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Once you've finished your poem, treat yourself to a cup of your creation and a movie. Here’s more about Baba Budan courtesy of Akara Coffee.
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 . . .
Fin Pals ask Norman: What Do You Want to be When You Grow UP?
Norman T. Goldfish answers letters from readers. Click on the link to read his reply.
Say Kids: Do you think Norman imagines what he’ll be when he grows up the way we humans do? Do you think he ever imagines what it would be like to be a human? Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be a fish?
Ready to read Norman’s answer? Scroll down past this fintastic drawing one of our finpals sent . . .
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Dolphins are super swimmers! To learn more about them click over to the Dolphin Rescue Center website. It’s Norman approved!
And Big Fat Zombie Goldfish is a really finny book. Check it out!
FINPALS Wanted!
Do you have a question for Norman the Goldfish—about friends, school, pets, family, life in and outside the fishbowl? Send him a letter or email!
Poetry Challenge #210-Engines Off!
Hide those car keys! Engines Off! Today is World Car Free Day.
Ever wonder why cars are also called “autos”? I’m thinking it’s to bless or blame one guy, Nicolaus Otto, who in 1876 “invented an effective gas motor engine.” Daimler and Benz may have built cars before him, but Otto’s 4-stroke internal combustion engine called the “Otto Cycle Engine” is what made the wheels go around…and around and around and around…
January 29, 1886 Benz was granted the first automobile patent.
…Which seemed to make everyone, especially the oil & gas industry, very happy. Until sometime in the 50s, when some folks poked their heads out of the exhaust fumes and realized that cars were changing our cities, neighborhoods, lives. According to the National Day Calendar website, “from 1956 to 1957, the Netherlands and Belgium held car-free Sundays.” On September 22, 2000, the European Car Free Day was held. It has since been an annual event for 46 countries and 2,000 cities all over the world—and now, here!
Poetry Challenge #210
Engines Off!
Take a moment to silence those noisy engines—if only in your mind—and imagine a day without cars. Any cars on the road, or buses, motorcycles, lawnmowers, too. What would you do? What sounds could you hear that you don’t usually? Where might you go and how would you get there?
If you can agree that the world—for this one car-free day—would be a quieter and probably slower place, challenge yourself to use quieter and slower sounding words.
“Quieter” words are those without hard-sounding endings: the hard K,G,T consonants.
“Slower words often have repeated vowel sounds and repeated soft consonants: double s, double m or n sounds.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Awwway weeeeee goooooooo!
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 . . .
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 . . .
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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 . . .
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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!