Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The History of Fathers Day

It just took one person to create Fathers Day.

A young woman named Sonora Dodd came up with the idea in 1909 after listening to a sermon about Mothers day in church.

Her father was a Civil War veteran who had lost his wife when she had his sixth child, and he gave his all to raise their new baby and five other children alone. As an adult the true impact of her fathers hard work hit, and her girlhood idea started to take form. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.

The holiday had grown so wide spread that President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, supported the idea of a national Father's Day. President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation in 1966 declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day. It took until 1972 for President Richard Nixon to sign it into law permanently and there you have it – both the history of fathers day and something truly positive to remember Richard Nixon for.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

The Dreaded Book Report

The Dreaded Book Report...

So book reports are often heard to be true pains in the rear... but there are some interesting figures that can be done for Biographies and Autobiographies, and if you've not introduced the idea of what each is now is a great time! A great way to do it is to connect the dates to the birthdays of the person being read about. So here are some June Birthdays and some even have titles for the individuals celebrating on that day.

June 1 - America's favorite country bumpkin, Andy Griffith (grades 5-6)
June 3 - Josephine Baker (grades 6-8)
June 5 - Adam Smith (grades 6-8)
June 5 - John Maynard Keynes (grades 6-8)
June 6 - Cynthia Rylant (grades 4-6)
June 6 - Diego Velázquez (grades 4-6)
June 8 - Frank Lloyd Wright (grades 5-7)
June 9 - Dickie V, Dick Vitale (grades 5-8)
June 10 - Judy Garland (grades 5-6)
June 10 - Hattie McDaniel (grades 7-8)
June 11 - Robert Munsch (grades 4-6)
June 13 - Luis Walter Alvarez (grades 5-7)
June 14 - Harriet Beecher Stowe (grades 4-5)
June 15 - Edvard Grieg (grades 4-6)
June 15 - Erik Erikson (grades 5-7)
June 17 - Taking the World by Storm, Venus Williams (grades 6-7)
June 18 - Chris Van Allsburg (grades 5-7)
June 19 - Moe Howard (grades 4-6)
June 26 - Babe Didrikson Zaharias (grades 5-7)
June 28 - Esther Forbes: Love of the Past (grades 5-6)
June 29 - Slim Pickens (grades 6-7)
June 30 - Ed Yost, Father of Modern Hot Air Ballooning (grades 5-6)

Your students should find someone from this list easily... Have fun!