Celebrating Left Handers Day

Left Handers Day is celebrated annually on August 13, though my left-handed kiddo will tell you we celebrate it all the time. Did you know about 10 percent of the population is left handed?

According to data gathered by leftyfretz.com, the nation with the highest population of lefties is the Netherlands, followed closely by the United States. Other top countries for southpaws include Canada, the United Kingdom and France, all of which had more than 10 percent of their population among the left handed. Apparently just 3.5 percent of the population of China is left handed.

The Left Handers Day website says that it’s thought there are more left handed women than men.

Scientists don’t actually know why people are born left handed, as both genetics and environment seem to play a role. Among those who completed a survey at the Left Handers Day website, 14 percent said their mother was left handed, and 13 percent said their father was. Eleven percent of all left handed people’s direct relatives were also left handed.

Check the website linked above for more interesting left handed facts. I find it interesting that in their survey, 98 percent of respondents said they write or draw with their left hand, but only 68 percent use scissors with their left hand. This is my daughter’s experience, too, as I’m not sure her preschool had left-handed scissors and her teacher just taught her the same way she was teaching everyone else.

If you have a leftie in your life, make them feel special this day! You can celebrate by having all the right-handed students/people in your family attempt to do things with their left hand, or do a little report on a famous left-handed person (a few to choose from: Barak Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, Bill Gates, Leonardo DaVinci).

Do you celebrate Left Handers Day? I’d love to hear what you do!

[Image by Anna Prosekova from Pixabay]

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

Have you read?

Leave a Reply