For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate. Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day. I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge. At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter. At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in an A to Z keepsake playlist on Spotify. Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.
A Very Special Installment Today
Dave Out Loud Presents Undecided, Undeclared & Uncertain Day
21 letters 21 songs assembled in a playlist. 5 more remain. Here is what we have so far.
To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!
Bo Jackson was an amazing athlete. He was a three sport star (Football, Baseball and Track) at Auburn. In Football he won the 1985 Heismann Trophy. He played Football for the Oakland Raiders and Baseball for the Kansas City Royals. He played in a Pro Bowl and in A MLB All Star Game. He had to give up football because of a hip injury. Because of the injury , the Royals release Jackson on March 18th, 1991.
16 days later the White Sox gave Bo a 3 year incentive laden contract. He played a handful of games in 1991, spent 1992 rehabbing his knee and on April 9th 1993. Bo came to the plate as a pinch hitter in the White Sox home opener and did this...
On March 13th of this year the Kansas City Royals announced that Bo Jackson had been elected to the Royals Hall of Fame and will be inducted this summer.
For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate. Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day. I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge. At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter. At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify. Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.
Yesterday, I created a new made up holiday by making one up. Today I will regale you with info regarding a Holiday that someone else made up. Today is Children's Picture book day!
Here is an informative video from the Champaign Library.
Like many of these made up Holidays the day we celebrate it is based on a relevant birthday. The birthday in this instance is Hans Christian Anderson who was born on this day in 1805.
In preparation for this post I watched the Danny Kaye Film Hans Christian Anderson. I will review the film sometime shortly after the challenge is complete. Here is the trailer.
Exactly 98 years and 11 months after Han's Christian Anderson's birthday Theodor Geisel much better known as Dr. Seuss was born on March 2nd 1904. Geisel became a pioneer in children's picture books.
The book, “The Cat in The Hat,” by Dr. Seuss, sits on a book shelf at West Elementary School during a National Read Across America Day event Mar. 2, 2017 at Yokota Air Base, Japan. National Read Across America Day is a holiday to share the fun of reading with children of all ages, and is celebrated on Dr. Seuss’ birthday. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Donald Hudson) Unit: 374th Airlift Wing DVIDS Tags: Japan; Yokota Air Base; 374th Airlift Wing; Dr. Seuss; National Read Across America Day
One of my favorite kinds of picture books is what I call Alphabet books. These books much like the A to Z challenge take a subject and then devote 1 page and 1 picture per letter of the alphabet. On a recent trip to the Beloit Public Library (which I will also be reviewing after the challenge) I was reminded of my love for Alphabets and took pictures of several of them
Not sure why that pen is in all the pictures, it's nothing to write home about.
Among other holidays occurring today is Autism Awareness Day.
Today's song of the day is Broken Things by Julie Miller
The Leap of Dave A to Z Spotify Playlist is now up to 2 songs.
Time to close the book on the letter B. I think you get the picture. As you head back to more of the challenge or just your regularly scheduled life feel free to leave a comment. Maybe you can let me know what your favorite picture book is/was and why.
To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!
Today at school was the readathon day. Instead of having core classes (Math, Social Sciences, ELA, & Science) are middle school students were able to read in those classes and have teachers and other staff read to them as well.
As a building sub I don't usually know who I'm going to be that day. Today I subbed for a paraprofessional in one of our SPED classes. This particular class is rather low functioning so the books read to the students were geared for much younger children. There was one book the teacher read called Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein. The title reminded me of the old knock knock joke:
A: Knock Knock
B: Who's There
A: Interrupting Cow
B: Interrup
A: Moo
I was able to find a read aloud version of the book on you tube. This is not that difficult of a thing to do. I have considered in the past having an A to Z challenge of children's books being read aloud on you tube videos.
I just saw this on You Tube and thought it was worth sharing. It makes me want to watch Shop Around the Corner, Good Old Summertime and You Got Mail back to back to back. I have seen the 1940 Jimmy Stewart Classic multiple times. Have never seen Good Old Summertime and believe I have only seen You've Got Mail Once.
I really liked this glimpse into the storytelling process of filmmaking.
January 6, 2024 is Take A Poet to Lunch Day. It was started in 1995 making today the 20th annual celebration of this event created by Professor Arnold Adoff. This link gives some good ideas of how to celebrate poetry on this day. A few years back I found out about this day and wrote a poem to commemorate the occasion,
Keith Green would have turned 70 today. Here's a clip of Randy Stonehill talking about the behind the scenes story of the classic tune Your Love Broke Through.
I went to the Elgin 4th of July Parade and took this footage of the Jesse White Tumblers. Jesse White started the tumbling team in 1959 as an positive activity for youth. I first saw the tumblers when they performed at Taste Of Chicago in the mid 80's and have seen them at least 20 times over the years. Jesse White served as an elected official in the state of Illinois from 1975 to earlier this year when his final term as Illinois Secretary of State came to an end.
Note:Aileen Fisher wrote the poems in this book but did not do the illustrations. I did several takes of this video, and this was the only one where I omitted mentioning the fine work of illustrator Gail Niemann.
Poetry Friday is being hosted by Irene Latham. You can find it by clicking here.
Have not posted for awhile. More on that later. Now that I'm back, let's get righ to it with this Brady Bunch Avengers parody which is just a little bittersweet as it includes the late Chadwich Boseman. Just a little in the box thinking from the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
I just finished watching the finals of the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Before I announce the winner and the winning word I'd like to talk about my involvement in the bee.
I spent the first semester of the 2022 2023 school year as a long term substitute teacher in a 6th and 7th grade autism classroom. My group of students studied the same curriculum as the rest of the students in our school. All my 6th graders and 7th graders participated in a classroom spelling bee, which is the first step in the Scripps spelling bee program.
I drilled my students for several weeks held a few practice bees and even had a scrimmage with another classroom. It was exciting to see all my students grow in their spelling during this process. At the end of the semester they found someone to take over the class and I moved on to my current position as a building sub in a k-5 building. When the 2nd semester began my 6th grade winner and my 7th grade winner participated in spelling bees for their grade. Unfortunately both of my former students got out on their first word.
Tonight I was turning off the television when I saw that the Scripps final bee was about to air live. This brought up memories of my former class. As a substitute teacher I may never get another opportunity to conduct a bee, but it was one of the high points of my educational career.
The finals were amazing. The students were polished, poised and prepared. I especially liked the parts where the judge would affirm the incorrect speller on the amazing run they had just finished.
Dev Shah of Largo, Florida win the competition. Here is how it happened.
The A to Z Road Trip is here. This is a chance to give anyone who wants to regardless of whether they participated in this years A to Z challenge a chance to take a deeper dive into the blogs that did participate.
Here is the link to the road trip. Here is the spreadsheet of those who are so far entering their blogs into the roadtrip.
Today I picked up a book from my library, a biography of Jim Henson. In the prologue he describes a Sesame Street sketch where a little girl is reciting the alphabet to Kermit. I reemebering watching this scene as a kid, and again with my kids when I bought the Sesame Street Old School DVD set, I pulled up the scene from YouTube because it has an a-z vibe to it.
2016 was a big year at the movies for Walt Disney Studios. According to Box Office Mojo, they had 5 of the top 7 grossing films released in that year. It was also a big year for animated children's movies with 3 of the aforementioned top 7. Zootopia was 7th on the list grossing 341.3 million in the U.S. alone.
By gkaidan - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42701886
Zootopia - Disney Enterprises Inc.
Zootopia features Ginnifer Goodwin (Once Upon A Time) and Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) as the voices of Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde a bunny on the Zootopia police department, and a fox, a hustler, and a condog (a male fox is called a dog, look it up.).
This movie follows the standard buddy cop movie plot. A by the book, play by the rules cop is partnered with an informant who flaunts and plays fast and loose with the laws. As they learn to work together they go deeper and deeper to uncover a vast conspiracy.
This plot also underlies the main theme of the movie that biases and prejudices don't really show what the true heart of a person, or in this case an animal is.
Positive Tomato: Sure to speak to kids d grown-ups alike, Zootopia unfolds a poignant lesson about how prejudice can hurt people, but also how it can be overcome. And it does all this in a wonderfully fun film. Kristy Pucko - Pajiba
Top 100: I enjoyed this film quite a bit, but it is nowhere near my top 100, I doubt it would even make the top 200.
A to Z Connections: Bonnie Hunt who voices Judy's over-protected Mom also appears in Dave as a very eager White House tour guide. She co-starred, co-wrote, and directed Return To Me.
.png "By gkaidan - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42701886")
