April 21, 2021 – National Lawn And Garden Month | National Kindergarten Day

Did You Know That Backyards Were Not Always An Oasis For Leisure Time?

Welcome to April 21, 2021 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate the evolution in our backyard and the garden that grows our kids. 

The next time you’re out enjoying your backyard, you can thank your refrigerator. Yes, we get it. That sounds crazy. But if it weren’t for refrigerators becoming such a common household appliance, what is now known as a place to laugh, play, and barbecue may not have come to exist. Yards used to be a place where people grew vegetables and kept animals. There wasn’t a good way to preserve lots of food at once, so anything left over from crops would be stored in root cellars. Once refrigerators became popular after World War II, the yard became less about work and more about play. And dads have been complaining about weeds on their lawns ever since. April is National Lawn and Garden Month, so grab yourself a lawn chair and a drink, and get outside for some fresh air.

Most of us know that kindergarten is where kids make the transition from learning at home to learning at school.  This very important stage of child development was recognized by a German teacher, Friedrich Wilhelm August Frobel in 1837.   He is credited with starting the first kindergarten in Blankenburg Germany. Realizing that children learn through play and experience, his class was designed to ease this crucial stage in a child’s life.  Here in the United States, the first kindergarten was opened in Watertown, Wisconsin in 1856, but it wasn’t formally adopted nationwide until 1873. On National Kindergarten Day, we celebrate this gentle garden that allows our kids to truly grow.

I’m Anna Devere and I’m Marlo Anderson.  Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day.


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