Monday Fun Fact Nov 30

Cheese Rolling!

image from babyswiss.com

My family discovered the Cheese Rolling Competition while watching television this weekend!

  Cooper's Hill near Gloucester in England is the site of the cheese rolling race.  Competitiors race down this 200 yard hill, chasing a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese.  First person to cross the finish line wins - whether you are on your feet or not!

image from Sky News

image from ITV Hub

As  you can imagine, running down such a steep hill can be tricky!  Several people fall, but the town continues the cheese rolling race because everyone enjoys it.

See you on Friday!

Friday Fun Fact Nov 27

 

The Pound Cake

Have you ever had pound cake?

It's a yummy, usually vanilla-flavored cake that can be very simply served or dressed up in drizzled chocolate, lucious berries, or a thick  delicious sauce.

The name "pound cake" was originally a recipe of 1 pound of butter, 1 pound of sugar, 1 pound of eggs, and 1 pound of flour.  A pound cake could serve many people because a family had many members back in the "old days"!  Today's pound cake has smaller quantities of ingredients and may have some kind of leaven added to make it fluffy and light.

Enjoy a slice of pound cake today!  

Monday Fun Fact Nov 23

Braille Legos

image from Brickset

 I was reading through some of the articles found in the DOGO news (you can find this in the CPS Portal in the Electronic Library in Destiny) when a fascinating article caught my eye:  Denmark's LEGO Group, creators of all the wonderful LEGO products that children use to build worlds, has created LEGO braille blocks to help visually impaired children worldwide learn braille. 

Braille is a system of raised dots that represent individual alphabet and numbers. By touching the raised dots, the individual can determine the letter of the alphabet indicated and put letters into words.  This can be difficult for young children, so the LEGO Group created the braille bricks to help young children learn braille through play.

The LEGO braille blocks are similar to the original building blocks, but instead of the eight studs, the 2X3 array has raised braille dots with the number and letters printed on the bottom.  Both blind and sighted players can build together.

image from NPR

Very cool!

Friday Fun Fact Nov 20

"Sinterklaas"

image from Historynet.com

One of my favorite movies in December is "Miracle on 34th Street".  I can tell you the reason that it is my favorite:  because of the scene pictured above.  In this movie, a little orphan girl from Rotterdam, Holland, is adopted by the woman standing behind her.  They saw Santa Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the little girl - who speaks only Dutch - was so excited, calling him "Sinterklaas".  The woman brought the little girl to see Santa Claus, explaining to him that the girl spoke only Dutch, and she knows that he will be unable to communicate with her.  At this point, Santa speaks in Dutch to the little girl.  The look of joy and relief on the Dutch girl's face is so touching!  Santa Claus can talk with her!

Sinterklaas is the name of the Dutch St. Nicholas. Sinterklaas brings goodies to children on the night of December 5 and leaves them in their shoes which have been left out.  On December 6, the Dutch children wake up to discover what surprises Sinterklaas left for them!

Enjoy your weekend!

 

Monday Fun Fact Nov 16

TV Dinner :)

Popular legend says that Thanksgiving leftovers led to the first frozen dinner idea.

A Swanson employee mistakenly ordered too much turkey in 1953.  Because there was so much turkey meat left over, salesman Gerry Thomas came up with the idea of making frozen dinners similar to the dinners served in airplanes at the time.

5.000 aluminum trays were filled with turkey meat, cornbread stuffing, gravy, sweet peas and sweet potatoes.  The meal cost less than $1 and were a hit with increasingly busy families.

image from History Daily

 

Swanson often is credited with inventing the term "TV dinner" .  They used the newest invention of that year - the television set - to set up their ad campaign, and it worked!  The company sold millions of TV dinners starting in 1954.

TV dinners were prepared in the oven in the early days.  However, during the 1970's, microwave ovens became very popular, and that is when TV dinners really took off. The aluminum trays were replaced with plastic containers, cooking time was reduced, and many more companies began to develop meals that busy families could prepared quickly.  

And the rest . . . is history!   Enjoy!

Friday Fun Fact Nov 13

 

Let's Talk Turkey!

image from iStock

Turkeys are amazingly beautiful birds!  The male turkeys have the big tails that spread out in a fan of green, gold, bronze and red color.  The female turkeys are brown or grey - good colors to hide them while they sit on a nest!

Only the male turkeys make the "gobble, gobble" sound.  That is why male turkeys are called "gobblers".  Female turkeys make more of a chirp or clucking sound.

Wild turkeys can fly up to 55 mph.  They also tend to fly up into trees to sleep.  Domestic turkeys are too big to fly.

Turkeys eat small stones so that those stones can go into the turkey's stomach called the gizzard.  The stones help break down the food and help the turkey digest.

Now you have some fun facts to talk about while eating your turkey dinner!

image from PNGio.com

Monday Fun Fact Nov 9

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade 

image from Evensi

The very first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade began at 9:00 am on Thursday, November 27, 1924.

The Macy's Department store had recently grown in size to take over an entire city block, and the company wanted to showcase its store in a big way:  thus the Macy's parade got its start.

"To match the nursery-rhyme theme in Macy’s Christmas window display in 1924, floats featured Mother Goose favorites such as the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Little Miss Muffet and Little Red Riding Hood. Macy’s employees dressed as clowns, cowboys and sword-wielding knights. A menagerie of animals on loan from the Central Park Zoo—including bears, elephants, camels and monkeys—offered a circus-like atmosphere as four bands provided the soundtrack to the festive march. Bringing up the rear of the parade was a float bearing the guest of honor—Santa Claus—sitting in his reindeer-driven sleigh on top of a mountain of ice."

- History.com

The zoo animals did not enjoy the parade, and so they were replaced in 1927 with large balloons.  The first balloon was Felix the Cat who joined the parade in 1927. 

You can read more about the history of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade here:

https://www.history.com/news/the-first-macys-thanksgiving-day-parade

                                                                                               -image from Bettman Archive/Getty Images

"Andy the Alligator" in 1933

image from NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images

"Mickey Mouse" in 1934.

Shepard Students Share Fun Facts!

 Kyra S in 4th grade:  Bus stops in Kangai, Japan are shaped like fruit!

So cool!  Here are pictures of them:

images from Dream Tours Japan

These bus stops were built for the 1990 Travel Expo and remain in use today.

Thank you for this wonderful fact, Kyra S!

Have a great day!

Friday Fun Fact Nov 6

 Thank You, Thanksgiving!

image from Aurit Mediation

The year was 1863.  The United States was in the middle of the Civil War, and the Northern States and the Southern States were deeply divided.

Sarah Josepha Hale was a magazine editor and writer at the time.  She wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and many other items, but she also wrote letters.  Lots and lots of letters!

Sarah wrote letters to governors, senators, politicians and presidents, and those letters were about this:  let's make Thanksgiving a national holiday.

Many people in the United States already celebrated Thanksgiving.  George Washington had requested a day of prayer and thanksgiving in 1789 to show gratitude for the successful end of the War of Independence from England.

 New York proclaimed a Thanksgiving holiday in 1817 for its state. Other Northern states did the same, but each celebrated it on a separate day.  The Southern states were unfamiliar with the tradition because the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims occurred in the northern part of the United States.

Sarah Hale wanted to have Thanksgiving declared a national holiday - a holiday shared on the same day by ALL of the states.  She wrote so many letters and worked so hard for this idea that she became known as the "Mother of Thanksgiving".

Sarah wrote to Abraham Lincoln, and they both agreed that the Northern states and the Southern states needed something to bring them together, at least for one day.  So in 1863, Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving to be a national holiday.  He asked all Americans to thank God and to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” *

Lincoln scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday of November, and we have been celebrating this holiday in November ever since.

                                        Abraham Lincoln              Sarah J Hale

                    - image from Unsplash.com                                                                                         - image from Wikipedia

- image from Pinterest

Have a good weekend!

    *https://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving

Monday Fun Fact Nov 2

 

Walt Disney, Young Artist

image from Pinterest

Walt Disney began drawing regularly when he was four years old.  He was encouraged by his aunt and a neighbor to draw.  Walt lived in Marceline, Missouri then, and he found his life there memorable and happy.  He loved Marceline so much that he created Main Street in many of his theme parks to resemble Marceline's Main Street. 

image from Disneyland Resort

In Marceline was a large cottonwood tree that young Walt called his "Dreaming Tree" where he would retreat to let his mind wander.

Have a good day somewhere under YOUR "Dreaming Tree"!