May is Get Caught Reading Month. Use the free posters from www.getcaughtreading.org or take your own photographs as you catch someone reading.

May is also Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. Check out these reading suggestions featuring Asian or Pacific American characters and heritage.

May is National Bike Month and National Physical Fitness and Sports Month.
50 Ways to Celebrate national BIKE Month. Toolkit for celebrating National Physical Fitness and Sports Month.
Celebrate both together and prepare yourself and your family to enjoy the Summer Olympics to be held in Beijing in AUgust.
Official website of the Beijng 2008 Summer Olympics.

May Food Holidays.

May 1: National Day of Prayer.
May Day. Dawn on May Day and May Baskets and such-like.
Mother Goose Day
Ascension Thursday.

May 2: Birthday of Henry M. Robert, Benjamin Spock, and soccer star David Beckham.

May 4: Birthday of John Dunton, Horace Mann, William H. Prescott, Thomas Henry Huxley

May 5: Cinco de Mayo “marks a victorious battle that took place in Puebla, Mexico. There 4,000 brave Mexican soldiers triumphed over twice as many French fighters on May 5, 1862.”
Kaboose Cinco de Mayo crafts, recipes, and activities.
Birthday of reporter Nellie Bly and author/illustrator Leo Lionni.
Teaching with Leo Lionni from Scholastic.

May 6: Birthday of poet Randall Jarrell, former British prime minister Tony Blair, Arctic explorer Robert Peary, baseball player WIllie Mays.

May 7: Birthday of composer Johannes Brahms, poet Robert Browning, composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, and author/illustrator Nonny Hogrogian.

May 8: Birthday of U.S. President Harry S. Truman.

May 9: Birthday of authors J.M. Barrie, William Pene Du Bois, Eleanor Estes, Richard Adams, abolitionist John Brown, and clarinetist Benny Goodman.

May 10: Birthday of authors Caroline B. Cooney, Christopher Paul Curtis, Bruce McMillan.

May 11: Whitsunday or Pentecost Sunday.
Mother’s Day
A perfect picture book for Mother’s Day.
Birthday of Salvador Dali, dancer Martha Graham, authors Sheila Burnford, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Peter Sis.
May 12-18: Children’s Book Week

May 12: Limerick Day.
Birthday of poet Edward Lear, authors Jennifer Armstrong, Farley Mowat, and nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale.

May 14: Birthday of German physicist Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, authors George Selden, Eoin Colfer, filmmaker George Lucas.

May 15: Birthday of Mr. Wizard of Oz L. Frank Baum. Also born on this date: authors David Almond, Nancy Garden, Norma Fox Mazer, Paul Zindel.

May 16: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian movie is out in theaters today.
Harper Children’s has some web-based games related to the Narnia books.
Biographers Day: the anniversary of the first meeting in London of James Boswell and Samuel Johnson.
Birthday of author Margaret Rey.

May 17: Birthday of Doctor Edward Jenner.

May 18: Birthday of author/illustrator Lillian Hoban and of Pope John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla, 264th pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

May 19: Birthday of Malcolm X, author Arthur Dorros,

May 20: Anniversary of the first solo trans-Atlantic flight by American aviator Charles Lindbergh.
Birthday of Dolly Madison, author Mary Pope Osborne,

May 22: Birthday of author/illustratorArnold Lobel
National Maritime Day.

May 23: Brithday of picture book author Margaret Wise Brown, historical fiction author Scott O’Dell, Swedish naturalist Caarolus Linnaeus, and Newbery award winning author Susan Cooper.

May 24: Anniversary of the opening in 1883 of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Birthday of painter Emanuel Leutze.

May 25: National Tap Dance Day, held on the birthday of one of the greatest tap dancers to ever perform, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.

Birthday of authors Ann McGovern, Martha Alexander,

May 26: Memorial Day
Memorial Day Resources for Kids from Free Stuff for Kids.

May 27: Birthday of social reformer Amelia Jenks Bloomer, scientist Rachel Carson, dancer Isadora Duncan, Wild Bill Hickock, presidential candidate Hubert Horatio Humphrey, and author Lynn Sweat.

May 28: Birthday of author Ian Fleming, athlete Jim Thorpe,

May 29: The Quarterfinals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee air live on ESPN360.com from 2:00 to 5:30 p.m. ET.
Birthday of G.K. Chesterton, U.S. president John F. Kennedy, Virginia patriot Patrick Henry, and authors Andrew Clement, Brock Cole

May 30: The Semifinals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee air live on ESPN from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET. The Championship Finals air live on ABC May 30 between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. ET.
Feast Day of St. Joan of Arc.

May 31: Anniversary of the Johnstown Flood.
Birthday of poet Walt Whitman.
100 Things to Do this Summer When You’re Bored
Summer Snacks
Summer Reading List

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