Albert Einstein says, “Look deep into nature, and you will understand everything better.”

My favorite natural fact is that we are all made of “star-stuff.” It lives above us, around us, and within us all. It is from the beginning of time with the power to overcome darkness of any kind! Just think about that for a moment. We all have this magic living in our hearts! I play on this fun truth in my books and use our beautiful world as a mirror to show us our lives, our choices, and the ways we relate to one another.

Carl Sagan, a famous scientist, says, “We are made of star-stuff…Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective precious.”

So let’s celebrate the miracle of us and the magic of stardust in all of us 🙂

LINKS:

1. Decorate stars with a great download.
2. Put stars over your bed to watch over you .
3. Turn stars into a magic wand by attaching to a pencil.
4. Sing TWINKLE Little Star to remember you have a chest full of treasure, stars!
5. Study Stars with this fact sheet.
6. Flashlight fun to learn constellations.

Since you are born extraordinary with a chest full of treasure, stars, we like to say you are royalty! A King! A Queen! The only you who will ever be! You have gifts only you can share with the world so let your life shine & hold your crowned head high!

LINKS:

1. Decorate Crowns with a great download.
2. Lead Your Best Life, celebrate your gifts, talents, & dreams:

With family or friends, pick a leader! Everyone shares their favorite thing about them. The leader does a show & tell so everyone can learn more about them. Then they celebrate with a giveaway. They gift something they love to show their willingness to share, sacrifice, & do what’s best for their community.

3. The Lion Fact Sheet to learn to lead from the King of the Jungle.
4. The Termite Fact Sheet to learn to lead from a Queen who builds a beautiful castle through encouragement & collaboration.

Now that you know you are born extraordinary, with gifts only you can share with the World! Lead and live your best life too! Celebrate you!

Play The “NO BAD BUTS GAME!”

We created this game because we realized the people we call heroes got to their best life by living from their “YES!” From the gift of who they are, no matter what they’ve been through or are going through! One hero, Victor Frankl, who survived the concentration camp, came out to write a book that has sold millions of copies and was initially titled, “Nevertheless, Say YES to Life.”

Don’t deny your pain or hardship, but live by your YES!

LINKS:
1. Play the No Bad But Game to practice living by your YES!It’s like Simon Says, but you use different key phrases: When Simon, the crowned leader, says, “Yes, I can stand.” “Yes, I can clap.” “Yes, I can…” Everyone should follow. When the leader says, “Yeah, but I can stand.” And you follow, you are out. You never follow a BUT!

2. The Kudu Fact Sheet to learn from someone, who faced some hard twists in fate, but chose his YES! Note the beautiful, twisting horns he grew to remember how great a YES can be!

A S.M.I.L.E.- See Miracles In Life Every day! The miracle is you- YES!

Science says smiles reduce the body’s response to stress, lower heart rates in tense situations, & release neuropeptides, good stuff, in our brain!

The African Animals discover secrets—three powerful ways our smiles can invite stardust to WHOOSH into our lives and WHAM light the gift of stars in our hearts! Our treasure chest! So we can live rich, rewarding, heroic lives together too!

LINKS:

1. CATCH-M, know your smile! Experience your smile! Face who you are! Look in a mirror! Name all your different smiles. My kids have 7 distinct smiles! Draw your smile on paper, shirts, socks, thumbs for thumbs up fun CATCH-Ms, on half a paper plate for silly smiles. The list is endless.

2. Surprise Smile download to bring sunshine into someone’s day. Sharing smiles build fortune-filled treasure chests for all! For home fun – find different ways to make each other smile, hide smiles, do kind notes, make a Family Mural where you put everyone’s smile together on a wall or poster board to know we are in this life together. For community fun – do sidewalk chalk, hide smiles in the window, send to health care folks with an encouraging note, or your amazing teachers.
Also, do A CATCH-M Adventure by mailing your smile to a loved one. On the backside of CATCH-M, write: What you love about the person! They can keep or make it a chain letter by adding their CATCH-M. Then mail them to the next person where someone could end up with 30 smiles. You can even keep track of all the places your CATCH-M goes and all the friends it gets to meet by putting pens on a map. ENJOY!           
3. The Star Fact Sheet to learn that stars are really 2 hydrogen atoms fusing to make helium—the star stuff above, around, or within you fusing with the stars in your heart! So get your CATCH-M ready, light hearts of stars, & see your life shine!

Now that you know you are born for GREATNESS. Stay true to you! Learn from Baboon how to keep your moods in check, understand what you do, and how you think so that you can live BIG too!

LINKS:

1. Learn your moods with Baboon who can be moody & mean or happy & helpful. Daily, we too can choose which way is better!
2. Baby Baboons Rainbow moods. She learned by watching her dad how to name moods.
3. Make “PomPoms/ Dreamcatchers.” Baby Baboon keeps her mood in check with pompoms and at night if she can’t sleep she puts it over her bed like a Dreamcatcher to catch any bad dreams. Note, she also wears a tutu to encourage us to Live Big by saying, “You can too-too!”
4. Make You Can Drums. Baboon keeps his moods in check with Drums. He even fills his drum with what HE CAN do, a fun download!
5. Learn the Secrets! Baboon watches the other animals react to fear, pain, and hardship! He sees a better way for us all- a great social, emotional resource for any age!

We are not alone! We can bring everything that we learned from Baboon together. So pull out your pompoms, drums, make drum circles, create beats, LOVE BIG, & let’s support one another!

Take The ABUNDANCE CHALLENGE! Come up with ways to celebrate the good we do have in our lives and ways we can do good together!

Eckart Tolle says, “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation of all abundance.” SO let’s choose YES! Have a blast encouraging each other, make up some fun bun-dance moves & make great memories as we shout together, “Our lives are full of abundance!”

LINKS:

1. Play the A-BUN-DANCE Game! Put on headbands, anything grand, even a tutu! Sing, dance, and come up with fun ways to shake your booty—a great way to stop any bad day! Helen Keller says, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much!”
2. The Honey Bee Fact Sheet. Let’s be like the Honey Bee who communicate with their bum shake so they can fill their home with a sweet treat, honey. Let’s do the same and fill our homes with sweet, fun memories! 
3. Go to my Sound Cloud Page and make up your own fun bun-dance with Jack Propst’s song he created for me. Or my new Tik Tok Page.
4. Termite Tricks. Make up your own dynamic ways to encourage others to Live Big too!

Some times in life and for sure in quarantine, we DO not know what to DO. So let’s continue the fun and celebrate like the Dung Beetles who DO good with the good they DO have in their lives!

One could say, a Dung Beetle has a horrible life. They are born in poop. Oh gross, I know! So what DO you DO? Dung Beetles don’t complain. Instead, they DO GOOD & have fun with what they DO have. They turn their poop home into balls that fertilize the land and helps make food for us all to eat—why folks in Africa call then the HEROES of the savannah!

So let’s be HEROES and DO GOOD with what we have too, even a smile will do!

Since it can be hard right now, we can practice together by playing:

LINKS:

 1. The Dung Beetle’s Do-Do Game The game is like “Duck, Duck, Goose” But you play with different key phrases. “Duck” is “You Can”.“Goose” is “Do Good”. Make a circle, someone is it, & let the fun begin!
 2. The Dung Beetle Fact Sheet! Remember, they are vital to our world’s survival!                  3. Termite Maze, a download to learn to navigate some of the hard roads life can lead us down.
 4. Fill Your Heart With Song to stay encouraged to DO good too! Write your own songs, use the animals’, then while you’re circled up, play and sing songs together!

Personally, I lost my brother at a young age. Then my sister, my brother-in-law, my mom, & my dad, all at different times & suddenly.

What DO you DO?                                                                                                  

After my brother, I watched my parents shut down from the pain? My pain wanted to take control too. It felt like a dark scary room, alone, with no lights! So I’ve tried everything- physical, spiritual, mental & emotional! I’ve studied people I call heroes to see how they dealt with pain and hardship. I’ve read 100s of books. I’ve watched. Learned.

What DO IDO?

Now, I have kids of my own. How do I conquer, cherish, & lead them?

My books are the cumulation of my journey. The African Animals are my light. Nature has been a great teacher. Hopefully, my books can be a resource through your hard twists in fate, & WE CAN DO GOOD WITH THE GOOD WE DO HAVE & BE THE HERO OF OUR STORIES TOGETHER!

No matter what the circumstances!

Be the HERO of your story!

Celebrate the divine privilege of being born & dare to share your gifts with the world!

Believe in yourself & your dreams!

Mel Robbins says, “Scientists have crunched the numbers on the odds of you being born, at the time, to the parents, with the D.N.A. structure you have is 1:400,000,000,000…One to four hundred trillion. You are not born fine. You are born fantastic!”

Celebrate the MIRACLE of you and DREAM BIG too!!!

LINKS:

1. Make Dream Boards– A daily encourager! Walt Disney says, “First imagine! Second dream! Third, believe. And finally, dare.” If we take time to do what Disney says, who knows what great things we too can accomplish!
2. Baby Baboon’s Dream– Young kids begin to imagine your dream with Baby Baboon!
3. Caterpillar’s Dream– Older kids can begin to formulate their dream with caterpillar!
4. The Hero’s Journey– Study and understand what it means to be on The Hero’s Journey!
5. Write A Memoir– Visualize & Internalize Your Dream! Write your memoir backward with a detailed account, feelings & all, of your best life!
6. Make Capes– Go BIG, celebrate, and know you are The Hero of your story! Plus, Dream Big Curriculum– Learn more about Africa and the animals in the book.

The good news is we are all in this thing called life together.

So let’s LOVE BIG and start A R-EVOL-UTION! Love is part of the word revolution! Revolution is a movement designed to effect fundamental change! Know together WE CAN make a difference!

There is an excellent song by Big Sean titled, “One Man Can Change The World!” Let that person be you! Start and be part of a rEVOLution!

LINKS:

1. Make Rhino Horn Party Hats– Celebrate that KIND IS COOL!
2. Make an A-Point-ed Container – A “LOVE CAN” & make a PACT to be KIND together every day. Have a party, fill your LOVE CAN with everyone’s hair to honor the Rhino horn which is made of the same stuff- too weird, no problem, draw your CATCH-M with hair & place in The LOVE CAN to show your commitment. Every night, add your group’s best kind act for the day to the “LOVE CAN”.
3. Make capes– Go out like HEROES together and change the world! KINDNESS is the opportunity we have every day to do just that!
4. Coat of Arms Download– A community symbol to add to your capes!
5. Learn from the African Animals 4 Fantastic LIFE SKILLS on how to LOVE BIG—KIND! Rhino Fact Sheet–  They’re born with a top lip power- pout! We have a lot of reasons to stick out our power pout right now! OR we can be like Rhino, who grew a horn to remember to offset the pout by making “a point” to be KIND every day! SHARE! Hare Fact Sheet–  Hop, pop, zip, & skip like Hare because she learns how fun it is to SHARE!LISTEN! Lion Fact Sheet– Become a true leader like Lion, who LISTENS to who he is and to who those around him are too! CARE! Dung Beetle Fact Sheet– Be a hero! DO GOOD with what you have too! CARE! Plus, Love Big Curriculum.

When we must face hard twists in fate, like quarantine, we can THINK BIG together and still go for our best lives! The African Animals show us that we can each be “our best me” when we celebrate the 3 G’s: GOALS, GIFTS, and GRATITUDE!

LINKS:
1. Goal Sandwich Download– GOALS, the meat of our day, going for our best life, can always be met with success when surrounded by GRATITUDE and our best GIFT for the day!
2. “LOVE CAN“- You can even use your a-POINT-ed Container. In the morning, fill it with your gratitude. At night, fill it with your best gift or act of kindness for that day!
3. Mythological Fable– Pick your favorite animal or natural fact. Write your own origin story with a moral take away to help us find more ways to live our best lives together!
4. World Smile Day– The first Friday in October can really be any day so we can have fun celebrating the power of your smiles together!
5. Holi Festival– Come together and celebrate living our best lives together no matter what!
6. Giraffe Fact Sheet– BE EXTRAORDINARY! GO FOR YOUR BEST LIFE! Stick your neck out! Set goals!
7. Honey Bee Fact Sheet– BE GRATEFUL (great-full)! To be great, be full of an attitude of gratitude and celebrate being alive with friends and family!
8. Baobab Tree– BE GENEROUS! LIVE TO GIVE & GIVE TO LIVE! To live a long, fruitful life we must celebrate the community around us!
9. Kudu Fact Sheet– CELEBRATE YOUR BEST ME! Choose to do good no matter what twists in fate you must face! Plus, Think Big Curriculum where you can enjoy The 3 G’s, do more writing exercises, and talk about fire.