SnowDays . . . Make Your Own Snowflake . . .TGIFF!

Let's get this holiday season started! 

For some of us it's never too soon for the white stuff so here is your chance to make your own snowflake, add a message, share it with the world & be notified of any responses you get AND check out the snowflakes that others have created.

SnowDays is the place to go if you love snow because it's where the snow never stops falling!

To make your own snowflake just click on the appropriate tab and follow the directions. (It's merely a matter of clicking and dragging. There's a preview pane, too.)

To view what others have created put your cursor on a falling flake (as of this post there were over 8 million designs).

You can also search for a particular flake using several different fields.

OK, Peeps, what are you waiting for? Let's go play in the snow!

Happy Thanksgiving & a Video . . .

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Here is a little Turkey Day video by MentalLapse from YouTube for your enjoyment:

Thanksgiving Stats . . .

The Facts for Features & Special Editions section of the U.S. Census website consists of statistics from the Bureau's demographic and economic subject areas collected to commemorate anniversaries or observances or to provide background information for topics in the news.

So this is the place to go to find out about turkeys & turkey day: Facts for Features -  Thanksgiving Day Nov. 26, 2009 .





And here is a report from the AAA Newsroom (where you can also find other interesting info) on Thanksgiving Travel.

Mind Your Manners @ the McCord Museum of Canadian History!

The McCord Museum of Canadian History in Montreal was founded in 1921, and embodies the vision of  passionate collector, David Ross McCord, whose abiding wish was to shed light on the history and cultures of his country and thus bring its people together.

Here you will find online exhibits, history online, thematic tours, educational resources and more!

The website of the McCord Museum is definitely worth a visit if you do nothing else but try the Mind Your Manners role playing game for the Victorian Era. (FYI: there is also one for the Roaring Twenties). 

 This online game has many delightful Monty Python-esque attributes. Be sure to have your sound on. (Miss Bun especially appreciated the fate of the lady who wore the wrong dress to the evening dinner at home.) The whole game is very amusing! And be sure to check out the other interactive games to be found on this interesting site. 

P.S. A "thank you kindly" to my sources in New Hampshire for alerting me to this site!

This is Papercraft Heaven!

 Hi Peeps! It's been a really busy week in Library Land ... hence the lack of posts ... BUT ... here is a site from Canon  (the technology company ... I'm sure you've heard of them?) that really is a bit of heaven for papercraft enthusiasts.

Canon Creative Park is an amazing site with amazing projects that are all free.

Here are their categories for all sorts of things to do and make with paper and a printer: Gift & Card, Paper Craft, Scrapbook, Art, Calendars, and Photo Gallery.

There is everything from the very simple to the complex, from one dimensional to 3D and beyond! I have to say there are some very talented people out there designing these projects.

Creative Park gives users a choice of five languages. Each project has author info, release date, recommended paper & printer settings as well as download-able pattern and assembly instructions. 

So limber up your phalanges and click on over to (the aptly named)  Canon Creative Park!



Enjoy!  

The History of Thanksgiving. . .

On The History of Thanksgiving by history.com you can:

• Find out what the first Thanksgiving menu was
• Read the proclamation that started it all
• Find out about the first broadcasted  football game in 1934
  
• Look up Thanksgiving trivia

And lots more!

So, don't just sit there like a stuffed turkey.....trot on over to this site and enjoy!

TGIFF & Turkey To Go...

And now, for your juvenile gaming pleasure, we give you: Turkey To Go.

A rather inane kind of game where you collect feathers for your turkey, corn is a bonus, and forks are hazardous! Beware the forks! (Or not....depending on how warped your sense of humor is!)

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Enjoy!

Hibernation Anyone??? A ThinkQuest Website has the Scoop!

Ok, so hibernation time is just around the corner (You're feeling very sleepy...) and in case you were wondering what that's all about take a look at this very good website created by a group of 5th graders for a competition put on by ThinkQuest (see below):

The Deep Sleep
Did you know there are four different ways animals deep sleep? Check it out!     

What is this ThinkQuest I speak of?

ThinkQuest  is a protected, online learning platform that enables teachers to integrate learning projects into their classroom curriculum and students to develop 21st century skills. It is provided as a free service to K-12 schools around the globe by The Oracle Education Foundation.

On the ThinkQuest site you will find the project area (here you can take a tour of ThinkQuest...fyi); a competition space where the technology contests happen and the ThinkQuest Library that houses all the projects and is a pretty nifty learning resource.There is also a professional development program for teachers.

School administrators must enroll their schools to participate in a project or competition but anyone can access the ThinkQuest Library and check out the competition winners.

You can search the library by age group, country, and subject category. There are over 7,000 websites created by students from around the world and they are amazing.  Enjoy!

OpenCourseWare from MIT! Get Your Learning On!

 
Wondering what MIT OpenCourseWare is?

Here's the scoop (from their About page): "MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.

MIT OpenCourseWare is a free publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.

• OCW is not an MIT education.                                           
  
• OCW does not grant degrees or certificates.
• OCW does not provide access to MIT faculty.
• Materials may not reflect entire content of the course."

 How cool (and educationally generous) is that!?!

There are 1900 courses listed. Some of them are Audio/video courses, some are translated courses. You can search them by several categories. And it's all FREE and no registration required.

There is also a key to what is included in each course. For example: Lecture Notes, Selected Lecture Notes, Assignments & Solutions, Assignments (No Solutions), Projects & Examples, Projects (No Examples), Exams & Solutions, Exams (No Solutions),  Image Gallery,  Online Textbooks, & Multimedia Content, etc.

There is also a newsletter & rss updates to courses you can sign up for.

Kind of puts a whole new spin on Life Long Learning, doesn't it?

Check Out the Most Famous Shipping Disaster in the History of the Great Lakes. . .

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank suddenly on November 10, 1975 in 530 feet of water without sending any distress signals. Her entire crew of 29 was lost.



The sinking of the "Mighty Fitz" became the most famous disaster in the history of the Great Lakes and was the subject of Gordon Lightfoot's hit ballad "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".

Here are some links to a wealth of information on this famous ship and her fate:

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum  
(Don't miss the tabs at the bottom of the page for more info.)

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
This site has many interesting links to explore, song lyrics, and midi-versions of the song.

Wikipedia's SS Edmund Fitzgerald
This site has a list of the crew as well as some very interesting external links to check out including Google Earth and NOAA.

What's Big & Scaly & First Appeared in Japan in November 1954?

Godzilla (or "Gojira" as he was known at the time) was first seen in Japanese theaters November 3rd, 1954 and has gone on to become a pop-culture icon to the world.

Check out these sites for all the info you could want or need (and then some!) on our favorite gigantic lizard monster:


Godzilla - Wikipedia

Barry's Temple of Godzilla
This site has video clips, sound clips, photos, movie reviews, FAQ's just to get you started. The site is not being updated but should be looked at as more of a Godzilla museum and is well worth a visit.

Days of the Dead. . .

 

Between October 31st and November 3rd many cultures around the globe celebrate remembering the dead in some fashion or another.

Days of the Dead from Boston.com is an interesting photo journal of those celebrations from the White House to Paris to Mexico and beyond.

(It's always fun to see what the neighbors are up to!) Enjoy!

Check Out These Opening Lines. . .

100 Best First Lines of Novels . . .As chosen by the editors of American Book Review and found on the Infoplease.com site.

This is a rather interesting list and it was fun to recognize old favorites.

(Miss Bun's personal favorite is #63.)

Be sure to take a look at #95....it should win an award....or something.

Happy Birthday to . . .

Daniel Boone who was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania in 1734 to Quaker parents.

Find out more about this original American folk hero at:

Daniel Boone - Wikipedia

and

The Daniel Boone Homestead