Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Wonder Wallow Day 12 - Why Are There Seven Days in a Week?



My April Poems Thus Far

April 8 - Limits - a poem inspired by Wonder #1664
April 9 - Sundogs - a poem inspired by Wonder #1665
April 10 - Perspective - a poem inspired by Wonder #128

And now for Day 12!

Daily Notes
by Amy LV

Students - You probably already know that I love notebooks.  After all, I keep a whole blog about notebooks - Sharing Our Notebooks.  So when I began thinking and jotting in my notebook about yesterday's wonder, "Why Are There Seven Days in a Week?" I got to thinking about recording things over time.

Many people like to keep logs of weather.  These may be be small date books or leather journals, or even books made for recording weather such as this one - THE WEATHER WIZARD'S FIVE YEAR DIARY.  Keeping track of weather teaches people about their surroundings and also lets them look back to see patterns in weather over time.  You can find and read examples of these notebooks such as this one by John Andrew.

Scientists today are even using crowd-sourcing methods (having many people help with small pieces of a project through the Internet) to learn about weather of the past and to project future weather.  You can see an example of this at Old Weather where the scientists are studying old ships' logs for weather observations.

Keep your eyes open when you visit flea markets; you might just find an old weather diary yourself!  If you'd like to keep a weather journal, you might look at this one.  You could use it, or you could make your own. Then, your children's children's children can see what the weather today is like - because you wrote it down!

Today was going to be a free verse day, but when I got writing, the poem wanted to rhyme. That happens sometimes!

This poem introduces a character who goes back in time reading a great-grandfather's weather notebook. Yesterday's poem introduced a character who imagined back in time and future in time too.  I often wonder if the themes in daily poems come from somewhere deep inside a writer.  How could they not?

Oh, and in case you were wondering if today's poem is true...it is not.  As far as I know, none of my great-grandfathers kept weather notebooks.  My mom's mom's dad did keep family scrapbooks, but no weather notebooks.


Please don't miss a blog post at my other blog!  Middle school teacher and librarian Stefanie Cole and her students from Ontario, Canada are visiting Sharing Our Notebooks this month.  This is a wonderful post  full of notebook inspiration, a video clip, and a great book giveaway from Stefanie.

Happy Day 12 of National Poetry Month 2016!  

Please share a comment below if you wish.


  1. My mom kept diaries that included the weather often. When she had to move to a nursing home I was able to take most of them home with me. Since I lived away from home for a long time it really gave me a totally different picture of her that perhaps my siblings who lived closer had know all along.

  2. In daily phone conversations with my father, we always always share our weather. :) xo

  3. When I was eleven, I went with my grandparents on a cross country trip. My grandmother kept a daily diary and so did I. I remember that Grandmother wrote about the weather every day. I couldn't understand why that interested her so much. She told what time we got started each day and how many miles we drove. Stuff like that. Very different from my entries. Now I'm wondering if any one kept her diary.

  4. Keeping a log of the weather seems so simple, but it's not something many people do. I keep notebooks at home sporadically. But I write in one at school alongside my students. I've kept these over the years. Makes me wonder if anyone would value them as much as I do.

  5. I am in my second volume of 10-year diaries. There are about 5 lines for each day. I can now go back (not as far as the "dad's dad's dad") and see how any day is the same or different as that day was a few years back. It's very fun. When did the first dogwood bloom? When was the first snow? What was I thinking and feeling back then? Am I the same person, or have I changed?

  6. I just love this--such a simple but direct connection between the present and the past.