Hello everyone! We’re all done with hot air balloons (wasn’t it fun?!) and now we’re on to a new theme of the week. Get ready…
This week’s Theme of the Week is OSTRICHES!!! #bobbledyostrich
Ostriches are weird weird creatures. I mean, just LOOK at them!
Long skinny necks, big bulgy eyeballs, fluffy fluffy feathers and knobbly knees.
AND… TWO TOES!!!
Yes! Ostriches only have two toes. Well, two toes per foot, anyway. A two-toed creature is called a “didactyl” (pronounced DIE-dack-tul) – and ostriches are the ONLY birds that are didactyls. But only one toeNAIL per foot! That creepy little toe doesn’t even get a toenail! Scientists think that ostriches only have two toes because it makes it easier for them to run fast.
And ostriches have to run fast because they can’t fly. If someone comes chasing them to pluck out their lush feathers (ostriches were almost hunted to extinction two hundred years ago because ostrich feathers were used as decorations in fancy clothes and hats), they just have to run as fast as they can to get away. And they run pretty fast – up to 45 miles per hour – which makes them the fastest bird in the world! (Actually, that’s a misleading “fact” because there are lots of other birds which can fly much faster – ostriches are the fastest at RUNNING).
Here’s a video of a man trying to run faster than an ostrich. Not just any man, either. Dennis Northcutt, former wide-receiver for the Browns.
It turns out, 45 miles per hour is about twice as fast as the fastest human can run, so unless that ostrich happened to break its leg during the race, he was pretty much guaranteed to win.
Another reason ostriches have to run fast is because they aren’t especially smart. Believe it or not, their brains are smaller than their eyeballs!
In their defense, though, their eyes ARE as big as billiard balls.
Ostriches also make totally weird sounds. When they’re in danger, the male will warn the flock by making this crazy whooping sound:
And, you might have noticed from the videos that ostriches are pretty big – male ostriches can grow to be up to NINE FEET TALL. Between the giant eyeballs, the crazy tall-ness, the weird two-toes, the toenail-less nubbin of a toe and the crazy sounds they make, they probably don’t have to run away from anything after all. I’m pretty sure if I ran into a 9 foot tall ostrich somewhere going BOOOOBOOOOOOBOOOOOOO, I’D probably be the one running.
One last cool thing about this oversized crazy bird is that it also lays the largest eggs of any bird in the world. I mean, LOOK!
One ostrich egg is equal to about 24 chicken eggs! I bet that made quite an omelette! But still not quite worth chasing a 9-foot tall ostrich for – I think it would be much easier to chase down 24 chickens. Though, now that I think of it, it’s debatable. Maybe the next episode of Sports Science should have Dennis Northcutt trying to catch 24 chickens. We’ll see how he does on THAT one.
Okay, one last thing: if you don’t find ostriches totally weird after learning all this, then you’ll definitely find the ostrich dance totally weird. YES. All you need is a sweatshirt and some jammin’ trax, and you can do your own ostrich dance! Watch and learn:
Alrighty then – so that’s what I’ve learned about ostriches this week. If you find anything else interesting to share, please post it in the comments below!
And here’s a question for you: if you had to catch an ostrich, how would you do it? I’m sure you have some clever ideas. Enter them in the comments for a chance to be the expert of ostrich week!
Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed learning about George Washington last week (I sure did) but now it’s time to move on.
This week’s Theme of the Week is Hot Air Balloons #bobbledyhotair !!! I LOVE hot air balloons! They are so cool! Or should I say HOT?!
photo by DarlArthurS
If you haven’t seen hot air balloons in real life before, then you probably don’t realize just how gigantic they are.
Holy cow!! That is enormous!!!
Hot air balloons are able to float because hot air is lighter than cold air. I know – that’s weird, because how much does air really weigh anyway? Have you ever lifted air?
(OMG I just tried to find out how much air weighs. If you’re interested in how a simple question can have a very complicated answer, check it out here!)
Well, the fact is that even though air doesn’t seem heavy to US, it does still weigh something. And hot air is lighter than cold air. SO – if you heat air, it goes up. We don’t really notice this, because we can’t see it happening. BUT – you might have noticed that when you roast marshmallows over a fire, the air ABOVE the fire gets hotter than the air to the sides of the fire. That’s because the hot air is floating UP (not sideways, or down).
So what a hot air balloon does is actually catch the hot air and keep it inside. Then, the hot air will make the balloon itself float up, because the hot air inside is lighter than the cooler air outside the balloon. Apparently, if you know anything about flying hot air balloons, the best days to fly are ones that are cool and clear, because it’s much easier to get the air inside the balloon hotter than the air outside if the air outside is cool. Got it?
Hot air balloons have big burners inside, just above the basket. They heat up the air to inflate the balloon, and then keep the air hot while the balloon is up in the air. The “pilot” of a hot air balloon turns the heater on if he wants the air to get hotter (and float higher) and turns it off if he wants the air to cool off (and sink lower).
Here’s a cool video showing how the burners work. You can see how hard it is to inflate a hot air balloon!
Now, most of us are familiar with these great big hot air balloons, but hot air balloons weren’t always the big giant ones. The very first ones were quite small. They were invented in China over 1,700 years ago by a warrior named Zhuge Liang. He made his out of a very light paper bag with an oil lamp attached to it, and when he sent it up in the air at night, it glowed. He was able to signal to other troops fighting with him – and it also confused his enemies, because they couldn’t figure out what it was.
If you’ve seen Tangled, it’s just like the sky lanterns that Rapunzel wanted to see:
(and if you HAVEN’T seen Tangled, you MUST! Go do it RIGHT NOW!!!)
There are actually festivals in China and Taiwan and Thailand where thousands of people come together and send their sky lanterns floating up into the sky, just like in Tangled. And it’s even more beautiful in real life.
Of course, sky lanterns are kind of dangerous because what comes up, must come down. Usually the fire has gone out by the time the sky lantern comes back to the ground, but there’s also the problem that most people don’t go looking for their lantern after it falls to put it in the trash. (If you want to learn more about how much trash we’re generating these days, you can look at our Garbage Theme of the Week!).
It wasn’t until about 200 years ago that people started making the giant balloons for people to ride in. Before they figured out what the best way to make hot air balloons, they had lots of different ideas of what might work:
And, because they weren’t sure if it was safe for people to travel by hot air balloon, the very first passengers on a hot air balloon were a sheep, a rooster and a duck. Yep! As part of this first flying experiment, the balloon designers wanted to test the effects of flying on animals that were already able to fly as well as an animal that would never be able to fly. They picked a sheep because apparently back then, they thought sheep were the most similar to humans. (In case you’re worried, the animals all survived the experiment without any problem.)
So that’s it! That’s all you need to know about hot air balloons!! If you learn anything more interesting, please add it in the comments below. And also answer this question: if you could take a hot air balloon ride, where would you go and who would you take with you?
Stay tuned on Monday for Matthew’s story about hot air balloons!!
okay, andd if you aren’t totally tired of hot air balloons by now, check out this craziness:
Hello everyone! Well, as much as I was inspired by Matthew’s [made-up] story about George Washington being second president of the moon (if you haven’t read it already, then have a read HERE), I decided not to draw George Washington on the moon with his alien friends.
Instead, I was inspired by a sentence I read when I was doing research on George Washington. I read it in a bunch of different places, and I thought it was interesting. It was “George Washington was known as an energetic dancer.” I thought it was funny because that’s a strange way to describe someone’s dancing, I think. I’ve heard “beautiful,” “talented,” and “skilled,” but “energetic” makes me think of him hopping up in the air and kicking his heels and having everyone around him look at him sideways and wonder why he has to dance so crazy. The fact that he was over 6 feet tall also probably made it hard to ignore his “energetic” dancing. Poor Martha. I bet she was totally embarrassed every time they had to go out to a party.
So, here he is, kicking up his heels:
For those of you who would like a coloring page, you can download one HERE or just print out this one:
So get out your pens and pencils and figure out what you think is interesting about George Washington. Draw a picture and post it in the comments or on instagram using #bobbledygeorge.
We’ll look at our submissions for the week and name a Champion of the Week (this means you can also enter your writing prompt HERE for another chance to win!). You’ll get an archival print of my George Washington drawing and a beautiful [paper] trophy with your name on it to color in. Go to it! And, Happy Almost Birthday, George Washington!
If an archival print isn’t good enough for you, you can bid on the original illustration HERE on eBay. Wahoo!
Are you ready? I hope so. Because HERE WE GO. Another week is ending, which means another theme week is beginning.
And this week’s Theme of the Week is: George Washington #bobbledygeorge!
Monday is President’s Day, so many of you will have the day off of school, along with all the bankers and government workers. And President’s Day is supposed to partly be celebrating George Washington’s birthday, even though it doesn’t actually happen on George Washington’s birthday (his birthday is actually February 22, but they celebrate it on Monday because then everyone gets a three-day weekend).
All of you are probably familiar with George Washington. In fact, you probably see him almost every day. I know! He’s practically like your best friend! Because you see him on every dollar bill you spend:
And on every quarter you find in the couch:
And, if you happen to have been wounded in battle, maybe even on your Purple Heart:
George Washington is in so many places because he is considered one of the “Founding Fathers” of the United States of America. This doesn’t actually mean he’s related to everyone in the United States, like he was our dad or our dad’s dad, or our dad’s dad’s dad or anything. In fact, George Washington didn’t have any kids at all. Did you know the USA didn’t even exist 250 years ago? Nope. This might seem confusing, because the LAND where the United States is located was always here. It used to mostly be mountains and woods and tribes of Native Americans, not cities and roads and Waffle Houses. But around 250 years ago George Washington and a group of people decided they wanted to start a new country here, in this land, and they made up a bunch of rules and ideas about what they wanted this new country to be like and that’s why we call him the “Father of our Country.”
George Washington was apparently pretty great. Back then, all of the people who were planning this new country had different ideas about what they wanted the United States to be like. But the one thing that they could all agree on was that George Washington should be president. And so they made him the first president of the United States (can you tell which grey-hair is George?).
Everyone knows he was a great president. But here are some interesting facts about George Washington, the person.
1. He was a farmer.
His father was a farmer, so he inherited the farm. George also grew up with nine brothers and sisters.
2. He was a super rich farmer.
Based on all of the land that he owned and the money he made from it, researchers have said that George Washington had about FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS worth of stuff in today’s money. That made him the richest president EVER. He was so rich that he tried to turn down the $25,000 that was what they decided to pay the first president (a LOT of money in those days), because he didn’t need the money. In the end, Congress convinced him to take it so that future presidents who weren’t so rich wouldn’t feel like they had to do the job for free too. It’s no wonder he’s on all that money.
3. He was a super rich farmer who loved dogs.
He had dogs named Sweetlips, Scentwell, Vulcan, Drunkard, Taster, Tipler and Tipsy. He also had a donkey named Royal Gift and a horse named Nelson. He also had a nephew named Bushrod, who I only include here because Bushrod sounds like a pet’s name, not a person’s name.
4. He was a super rich farmer who loved dogs and wrote a lot of letters.
I mean, a LOT. More than TWENTY THOUSAND. And that’s not like twenty thousand letters of the alphabet, that’s twenty thousand letters sent through the mail full of news from the farm, from the battlefront, from the president’s office, etc. That guy sure had a lot to say.
5. He was a super rich farmer who loved dogs and wrote a lot of letters and kept a diary.
As if he wasn’t doing enough writing with all those letters all the time, he also wrote in a diary. One of his diaries was published long before he was president, which made him famous enough that it helped start his military career (which led to him becoming a general, which led to him becoming president). All of which is to say if you get published, it might help you become president someday. Which is to say, you should enter the Bobbledy Books writing prompts every week!
6. He was a super rich farmer who loved dogs and wrote a lot of letters and kept a diary and who didn’t go to college.
Turns out you don’t need to go to college to be able to write all the time, be super rich, and become president of the United States. Don’t tell your parents!
7. He also liked to dance, was over 6 feet tall, only had one tooth when he was president, loved cream of peanut soup*, didn’t wear a wig (this is only interesting because everyone else did – what?!), and never lived in the White House (it wasn’t even built yet).
*If you’re interested, there’s a recipe for Cream of Peanut soup HERE.
So now you know what an interesting character George Washington was.
And here’s a video that tells you even more interesting facts. It’s pretty fun:
So on Monday, President’s Day, think about George Washington and thank him for being great enough to have a holiday, a state, our capital, lots of cities, lots of universities and lots of streets named after him.
Let us know in the comments if you find out anything else interesting about George Washington. Or tell us what you would name one of George Washington’s dogs, since they all seemed to have totally ridiculous names. (I’d name one “Squirrelpants”). And don’t forget to use instagram #bobbledygeorge for any George Washingtons you see out in the world. Once you start looking, he’s EVERYWHERE.
Happy George Washington Week!
Come back Monday to read Matthew’s story about George Washington!
Today is February 8th. Valentine’s Day is February 14th. Which means in SIX DAYS the whole country will be swimming in chocolate and flowers and candy hearts!
And so we present to you this week’s Theme of the Week: Valentines! #bobbledyvalentines
Valentine’s Day is the day when you exchange candies and cards with all your friends at school and you make sure no one gets left out, because that would be totally lousy. Everyone likes to be loved!
Valentine’s day is actually named after a person. A person named Saint Valentine. (Actually, he wasn’t named “Saint” he was a saint. Please ask an adult what a saint is, because it’s WAY complicated – it has something to do with performing miracles, but Saint Valentine was around so long ago, nobody’s quite sure who he is or what the miracles he performed were.)
Here’s a painting from over SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO showing St. Valentine:
I wish whoever painted this painting had thought to show St. Valentine actually performing a miracle, instead of just standing there watching some guys build a wall. Miracles are way more interesting than staring at a wall. I guess that is what we call “artistic license” – which means that artists can paint whatever they feel like. That’s pretty much why I like being an artist.
Some historians think that St. Valentine is thought of as the Saint of LOVE because when he was alive (almost TWO THOUSAND YEARS ago) the emperor of Rome (where he lived) said it was against the law for men to get married, because then they wouldn’t want to go off to war (if you had the option of fighting a bunch of people or eating chocolates out of a box with your true love, which would you pick?). And St. Valentine didn’t really like that so he secretly performed wedding ceremonies for people who were willing to break the law for love.
Here’s that killjoy of an emperor, Claudius II:
I show you this picture so you can see what a man with a stone cold heart looks like. I bet he didn’t make valentines for ANY of his classmates at school.
BUT – all that is HISTORY. Nowadays Valentine’s Day is all about showing someone you love them. Most people do this by making or writing a card. Around 144 MILLION Valentine’s cards are given out (or sent) each year.
Some people go the extra mile and give some candy with their Valentine’s card. Around 143 MILLION POUNDS OF CANDY is bought around Valentine’s Day every year. More than half of that 143 million pounds is chocolate – around 86 million pounds. Because who doesn’t like chocolate?
I think I could eat 86 million pounds of chocolate myself if you gave me a few days.
And you know those little candy hearts with sayings on them?
They’re only on sale for a month and a half, but they sell over 8 BILLION of them (that’s 8,000 MILLION!!!). But, just so you know, if you were planning on sending me candy hearts – PLEASE DON’T. I think they taste terrible – like eating chalk out of a port-a-potty. Blech.
Because Valentine’s Day is happening in only SIX DAYS, it seemed we ought to get a head start on making all the valentines the kids will need to take to school with them. We decided a card + candy combo is the way to go, and since the preferred candy around here is lollipops, we decided to make lollipop cards.
If you’d like to make something a little special for your friends, this is a pretty easy project.
First, get your lollies. The flat kind, not dumdums. It’s also remarkably helpful to have a list of everyone who will be getting a Valentine from you.
Then, get some red (or pink, or whatever) construction paper. Fold it in half long-wise, then fold it in half again. It should be long and skinny, not short and wide. Draw a half of a heart so that the point is on the fold. It should be about 4 inches from the point to the top of the round parts (this doesn’t have to be exact – it just needs to be big enough to fit over the lollipop). At this point, it should look something like this:
Then just cut along the line.
Once you’ve finished cutting, you should have two cut-out hearts that are exactly the same. And two holes that are exactly the same.
We’re actually not using the holes for anything. Which isn’t to say you can’t!
Next up: gluing. You’ll need to glue around the edge of one of the hearts, but stop gluing about an inch from the point on either side (there needs to be an opening big enough for the lollipop to go through). I helped Kato know where to glue by drawing a line first.
Once the glue is on, take the other heart, line them up, and stick them together.
Let the glue dry. Since you probably have about 30 of these to make, you should have no problem finding something else to do while it dries.
Once it’s dry, DECORATE!
We included our friends’ names on ours.
Since you’re sending someone a gift of love, you may as well enjoy doing it.
Once you’re done decorating, slide the lollipops in their covers through the gap at the bottom of the heart. And voila!
Lollicards! Or cardlipops! Whatever you want to call them! A little bit of card, a little bit of candy. It SHOULD keep EVERYONE happy. Maybe if someone had thought to send Claudius II some of these, back in the day, we might not have had to celebrate Valentine’s day at all, because he wouldn’t have been such a mean guy.
So – that’s it for this week’s theme announcement!
On Monday, Matthew will post his story related to valentines. On Tuesday, I will draw something valentine-related. And on Wednesday, we’ll test your LOVE knowledge with a new KidQuiz.
So stay tuned!
And just for fun: let me know in the comments what miracle you’d like to be able to perform and why, and you’ll be entered for a chance to become Champion of the Week (and you’ll get an archival fine art print from me!). Hopefully you’ll come up with something better than staring at a wall.
You can also instagram your cool valentines projects using #bobbledyvalentines to be entered as well!
Welcome to GROUNDHOG WEEK!! We thought since tomorrow is going to be Groundhog Day, we’d celebrate with a whole week of groundhog stuff (when you say Day, we say Week!).
Isn’t this guy a handsome fella?
Well, I realize that groundhogs kind of look like beavers, in their waddly lumpiness, so this isn’t that much of a stretch from Beaver Week. In fact, groundhogs aren’t hogs at all, but are rodents, just like beavers – and just like beavers, they have teeth that keep growing their whole lives, so they have to chew a lot of stuff to keep their teeth ground down. Thus, their waddly lumpiness.
But don’t be fooled! As waddly and lumpy as groundhogs are, they actually can climb trees!
Groundhogs are also called “woodchucks”. As in “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? As much wood as a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood.” Now say that fast. Three times. And whistle like a whistle-pig at the same time! Impossible!!
There are a couple of theories about why the groundhog is sometimes called a woodchuck, and neither of them have to do with chucking wood – the first is that early settlers to America thought they looked a little like pigs, and “chuck” was another name for a pig. The second is that the word for groundhog in Cree (a language canadian indians spoke) was “wuchak”, and settlers thought it sounded like “woodchuck.” Either way, woodchucks don’t chuck wood at all.
Apparently, they chuck about 700 pounds of dirt per den – and a single groundhog can have 4 or 5 dens! That’s a lot of dirt! And so, in some places, groundhogs are considered pests, because their very complicated tunnels and burrows cause trouble for farmers (and people who don’t want a bunch of holes in their backyards!).
The BBC thinks that groundhogs are pests too. But mostly because they’re annoying to listen to. I mean, REALLY annoying:
Alright! So now you know a bunch of new stuff about groundhogs! Don’t forget that tomorrow is Groundhog Day! If you want to see watch the groundhog live, you’ll have to get up early: Punxsutawney Phil (the most famous groundhog) heads out of his den at 7:25 tomorrow morning! You can apparently watch the live stream HERE. We’ll get to find out whether Spring is right around the corner, or we’re in for some more winter weather. I’m hoping for SPRING. How about you?
And remember if you have any fun facts about groundhogs, post them below! Or hashtag it up on instagram with #bobbledygroundhog – yeah!
And stop in again tomorrow, where we’ll have a special post just about Groundhog Day!
