23rd April Picnic Day

Picnic Day seems to be celebrated in a lot of different places on lots of different days. It is National Picnic Day on 23rd April in the USA and as it is school holidays here in Sydney and the weather is glorious it is a good idea to go outside and eat . The definition of a picnic is an occasion when a packed meal is eaten outdoors. Another says that it is  a pleasant or amusingly carefree experience. Doesn't really need a definition, it just involves food and being outside.

The word 'picnic' comes from two French words 'piquer' (to peck) and 'nique' (trivial). See the origin here.

One of my favourite books to read aloud is Gotcha  by Gail Jorgensen. In this story Bertha, a bear is celebrating her birthday with a group of bears picnicking in a field. The gathering is interrupted by a fly buzzing. Like all good picnics here in Australia there may be flies, ants, seagulls or even brush turkeys and kookaburras as I found out last week at a barbecue picnic at Clontarf Reserve. The kookaburras made eating food quite unpleasant as they kept swooping in to steal food.

These are other books you could also share to inspire the need to picnic.

• Picnic  by John Burningham

• We're Going on a Picnic  by Pat Hutchins

• Bear and Bird: The Picnic and Other Stories by Jarvis

• The Lighthouse Keeper's Picnic  by Ronda and David Armitage

• The Bear's Water Picnic  by John Yeoman and Quentin Blake

• Picnic With Oliver  by Mika Song

• The Perfect Picnic  by Ciara Flood

• Florentine and Pig Have a Very Lovely Picnic by Eva Katzler and Jess Mikhail

• Polly's Picnic by Richard Hamilton and Sophy Williams

• Piglet's Picnic  by Jessica Souhami