April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. This is an effort to increase public awareness about protecting children from abuse and neglect. To learn more, go to http://www.preventchildabuse.org/publications/cap/index.shtml

April is National Volunteer Month. What a wonderful opportunity to teach your children the value of volunteering in their community. 

April is National Poetry Month. It’s a good time to exercise the creative part of your mind. When I was in middle school, a visiting writer encouraged our class to go outside and explore the world around us, from a blade of grass to the clouds in the sky … and to write about what we saw, smelled and felt.

Did you know there are days within April that also commemorate food?

April 12 is National Licorice Day, as well as National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day. But, I think I’ll hold out for Friday, April 13: National Peach Cobbler Day!

Your pets won’t be left out, either. April is National Pet First Aid Awareness Month and National Heartworm Awareness Month.

And, though Earth Day falls on April 22, we can spend the whole month exploring the value of protecting the world where we live. Something as simple as planting a tree or flowers can be a learning experience for our children.

I hope you enjoy this month of awareness and observance.

–Linda Lynn

LLynn@opubco.com

Follow me on Twitter: @OKNewsResearch

We call it home, but sometimes we take it for granted.

What could you do to give back to our big blue marble?

- Plant a tree. (or a bush or a seed)

- Walk instead of driving. (or skip, run, dance)

- Ride a bicycle. (or a cow, horse or unicycle)

- Share a commute with a neighbor or co-worker, or take public transportation. (And share good conversation on the way!)

- Volunteer to help clean up your local park or neighborhood. (Start with your own yard.)

- Use reuseable shopping bags, buy less and consider food packaging. Do you really need a separate plastic produce bag for lemons, limes, squash and onions. Go sans plastic bags, since you’re going to wash them anyway. (And use the food you buy. Don’t waste it and let it rot for a couple of weeks in the fridge.)

- Take shorter showers. (Turn water on, turn off, soap up, turn water on and do a quick rinse. Done!)

- Use less pesticides, fertilizers and chemicals around your home. Or stop using  unfriendly products altogether. (You might not have the prettiest lawn in the neighborhood, but you’ll feel safe having your kids play there.)

- Spend the evening watching a sunset — not the TV. (The color reception is so much better.)

- Play outside. (Bouncing balls, Hula-hoops and horseshoes are more Earth-friendly than living room-friendly.)

- Take your children on a nature hike, sharing appreciation of our environment. (Don’t touch the poison ivy!)

Share your Earth-celebrating ideas with The Oklahoman and our readers. You might inspire someone else to follow your example.

–Linda Lynn

LLynn@opubco.com

A plastic bag is blown against a park fence.

By now many of you have seen or heard about last week’s “Oprah Winfrey Show” and her segment on the epidemic of plastic trash in the ocean.

I only saw a few minutes of the show — the swirling mass beneath the surface, the plastic bag wrapped around the bird — but it made me realize even more that we need to take action. For us, for our children.

The wind in Oklahoma is unforgiving. Plastic can quickly get away from you, and in an instant, like a balloon, it can travel up and away.

Plastic shopping bags as well as other plastics catch on fences, snag on grass and weeds, get caught on tree branches and drift to lake shores.

Ireland and Denmark have placed taxes on plastic bags, and consumer use was reduced drastically. Why can’t we do this in Oklahoma? Why can’t our state make the stand that we want to start making a difference in our country?

There’s so much we can do to make a difference. My daughter told me a story last week about a man she saw unwrapping a piece of candy. He unwrapped it, let the wrapper drop to the ground and then got in his car. She questioned why he didn’t just keep the wrapper to throw away later.

I’ve switched to reusable shopping bags.

Now, what will you do?

What will Oklahoma do as a state to make a difference?

– Linda Lynn

llynn@opubco.com