The Iditarod

I've written previously about my family's affinity for our 49th state, so I have to mention that today, the first Saturday in March, the Iditarod begins.

The Iditarod is a dog sled team race across Alaska.  Teams, typically 16 dogs and their dogsled driver (aka musher), cover more than 1,000 miles from Willow to Nome, Alaska, in nine to fifteen days.  

When my son was in the third grade his school placed an emphasis on the Iditarod, utilizing the details and facts about the race to interest the kids and making it part of a comprehensive curriculum - math, science, reading, etc. Which I have say, I thought was a really great idea.    One class even wrote the mushers and a few wrote back!

Irresistible

This year, in the spirit of the race (and an effort to be a little more active), I'm doing the Idita-Walk.  A fundraiser for the Nome, Alaska Boy Scouts.  Ten dollars buys you access to their tracking website so you can log your minutes (not miles, thankfully) and walk wherever you are. It's a really clever idea, your own version of the Iditarod and you won't be subject to white-outs or sub-zero temperatures!

National Grammar Day

This blog and my Bachelor of Arts in English demand that I include this information for your edification.  However, fearful of making a  syntax or punctuation error, I will conclude with this bit of funniness.

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” - Dr. Seuss

How can you not love a man who wrote that?!

Happy Birthday To You! by Dr. Seuss. 

If he were alive, Theodor Seuss Geisel would be 107 years old today.

Did you know that on a bet from his publisher, Mr. Geisel wrote Green Eggs and Ham using just 50 different words?  It almost makes the 223-word The Cat in the Hat seem verbose. 

Seuss' weird, nonsensical words, silly rhymes and cartoon characters are so special and unique, there is no one else like him.  It's no wonder his books are third and fourth on the list of all-time children favorites (series books take the number 1 and  2 spots). 

A sampling from our collection of Dr. Seuss' books.

Geisl was a prolific writer, author of 44 children's books, and all of his works, including If I Ran the Zoo and, of course, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, are favorites at our house.

Here are some fun printables for a Dr. Seuss celebration, including this one:   

 

There are lots of other great resources at the PBS website and at www.seussville.com. 

But regardless of how (or if) you celebrate, when the day comes to a close, I hope you'll say 

“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”

Smokey

Smokey was created in 1944 (so he's 67 years young today).  What do you think the odds are there'll be candles on his cake?

When I was in the 3rd grade, Smokey Bear, or as I called him then, "Smokey the Bear", came to my school for a presentation about how we could all do our part to prevent forest fires.  

And though I'm not certain that any 8-year-old living in sprawling suburbia has much of a concept of forest fires, I was elated to be among the few children selected to stand on the stage with Smokey (a man in an adorable costume that looked remarkably like this):

My gift for playing a part in the fire safety presentation was a coloring book (that looked remarkably like this):

And because there's clearly no need to improve on such a good [great] thing,  Smokey is the longest running public service advertising campaign in U.S. history.

If you want to check out your own info on Smokey, go here.  I think the resources for kids are particularly fun though probably not as fun as sharing the stage with the bear himself.