12th March Yes Day

 

Yes Day!  by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld

No matter how silly the request, there is one day a year when kids always receive a positive response: Can I have pizza for breakfast YES! Can we have a food fight YES! Can I stay up really late YES!

The simple text coupled with delightful illustrations will send kids on a journey into their wildest wishes. With humor and appreciation for life's little pleasures, Yes Day! captures the excitement of being a kid.

This day has come about because of this book! It has been made into a movie by the same name and the day encourages parents to have a day when they say 'yes' to their children, of course with some guidelines.

As parents there are days when we feel that we are always saying 'no', and of course it is alright to say 'no' to children, but you could make this day a way of planning  with your children. 

You could see it as a way to teach children how to make decisions. They get to choose the activities for the day, but know there is a limit on what they can choose. Children learn about setting priorities and preferences to help them choose what they’d like to do for the day. They may learn different communication skills when planning yes days. They learn about speaking their wants and needs, negotiating and compromising.

There are a myriad of ideas on line, including rules for, suggested plans for how to run it, plans for Yes Day at school with your class...

In the library we have had displays of books that feature 'no' in the title, so when I read about this day I thought 'good let's do a display of books with 'yes' in the title. Well guess what a quick search of the catalogue revealed that we only had about ten books. Not enough for a display! And some of them were about serious topics like consent, reconciliation and disability rights.

These would be appropriate:

Sometimes saying yes is a brilliant thing. You can meet new people, discover amazing things, and go on exciting adventures . . . but not always.

When a gorilla named Gideon shows up at your house with lots of questions and some preeeeeetty bonkers requests, perhaps “yes” will lead to trouble, trouble, and maybe just a touch more trouble. One thing’s for sure - it definitely won’t be boring!

Little Roo, Quacker Duck and Country Mouse are playing happily together when Little Roo challenges Quacker Duck to jump over a big, big log. Of course he can't and Country Mouse laughs at him. So Duck challenges Mouse to float in a puddle and when he crawls out dripping wet, Roo thinks it's hysterical. So then Mouse challenges Roo to chase his tail and Roo is too big to do so and Duck and Mouse laugh at his attempts. The three friends end up frustrated and fall out with each other.  Can they be friends again? 'Yes we can!'

"YES!" Bobo loves bath time. But when Mummy comes to put him to bed, Bobo says "NO!" Will the naughty little chimp ever get out of the bath and snuggle down to sleep?

It's the Nursery Rhyme's big performance, but Cow is having second thoughts. She's too scared to jump! What if she crashes? Will everyone laugh? The curtain's almost up and the audience are waiting. Can Cow overcome her fear of failure and become the star of the show?

Join a cat and puppy pair through their day-the ups of being fed and romping through grass, and the downs of days that are too short and things that don't go as planned-as they realize that sometimes the very best thing that can happen is just being together.

Jada's working on her science project. She's finding out whether plants grow best in water, milk, juice, or soda. There's just one problem—she keeps getting interrupted!  Find out how Jada relies on grit to keep on going.

And this is the one I wish I had for me!

Mr. Yes could do a lot of different, funny things...but he'd never learned how to say no. Even though it made him unhappy, he would reluctantly agree to do things because he would say yes even though he really wanted to say no. One day, the unexpected happened and Mr. Yes found a powerful, new voice. So what about you? Have you ever smiled and said yes when what you really wanted to say was no?

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