Summer Bucket List 2.0

Here are some ideas to keep your brain functioning and your days less boring for Summer 2017:

 

• Make an entire meal for your family: Plan it, make it, clean up afterwards. If you already do this, try something new.
• Take a walk around your neighborhood and see how many different types of trees you can recognize.
•  Press some flowers--just put them under something heavy, or between the pages of a thick book, and wait
• Make a fairy garden without buying anything:

• Try to take an unusual picture every day for a week. Or two weeks. A month?
• Or, take tons of pictures all summer and then make an album or collage right before school starts-there are photo apps with a collage feature. Share with friends you haven't seen since the end of this school year.
• Fly a kite
• Visit your library. Get a library card if you don't already have one.
• While at the library, find a book that has an interesting title or whose author has an odd name. Read it. Did you like it, or not? Why?

• Re-read something you liked a while ago. Or exchange favorites with a friend.
• Built a blanket fort, or a cushion fort. Maybe build one outside.
• Clean your room. Put up some cool decorations you make yourself. It will shock your parents.
• Think up a great Halloween costume: you have lots of time--but how awesome would it be if it was all ready?!!

• Dance.
• Learn origami.  http://www.origami-instructions.com/simple-origami.html

• Try your hand at making paper. https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-make-handmade-paper-604163
• Measure the rainfall in a rain gauge all summer. Keep track of how much rain we get in total from the last day of school until September 1.

• Write something on the sidewalk with chalk, to brighten someone's day.
• Look for minnows in a lake. Watch how they behave.
• How many rainbows will you see this summer? Try to get a picture of each. They fade fast.
• Go to a free outdoor concert--Look for free concerts available by looking up your city website.

For example, these free concerts are held at the Coon Rapids Dam, Pavilion 3: https://www.anokacounty.us/941/Summer-Concert-Series

 

Do one good deed every day without asking anything in return:

• Give someone a smile.
• Open a door for someone
• Before the end of the school year, say thank you to a custodian for keeping your school in order.
• Pull some weeds
• Put something away even if you didn't get it out
• Pick a flower from your yard, put it in a vase, set it out to enjoy
• Leave a dollar somewhere for someone to find

• Call your grandparent just to talk for a while
• Buy lemonade from a kid's lemonade stand
• Go up to someone shy in a gathering and start a conversation.
• Sit quietly with someone having a hard time
• Share a snack with someone
• Post something positive on Facebook

What's on your summer bucket list 2017?

 

 

 

 

 

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Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking is a Theoretical Physicist known for his knowledge of the universe. Limited to life in a wheelchair due to ALS, he can only speak using a computer, he has nevertheless accomplished a lot in his life.

• In his early years, he was a poor student and didn't learn to read until later than most of his peers, which he blames on poor teaching methods.
• At the age of 16, he and a friend built a computer using parts of a clock, a telephone switchboard, and assorted junk.
• His father wanted him to study medicine, but Stephen was more interested in Physics and Cosmology (the study of the universe).
• He attended the University of Oxford in England, starting young at the age of 17. He did his graduate work at Cambridge University, also in England.
• He was physically awkward, but because he was small, he was a coxswain (team captain/director) for men rowing Crew at Oxford. He was known to be very reckless with the boats. 

                                                      Oxford University (Harry Potter, anyone??)

 

                                                               Cambridge University

• During his graduate studies, he was diagnosed with ALS: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. It affected his walking and his speech, and he was given 2 years to live.
• He earned his PhD in 1966, age 24. 
• In 1985, he came down with pneumonia, which meant he had to have a tracheotomy in order to breathe. This ended his ability to speak.
• Currently, he uses his cheek muscles to speak using a computer that has a word predictor. It has a vocabulary of 2500 to 3000 words-in an American accent.
• There are people working on finding a way for him to move his wheelchair using his chin, which is a problem because he can't move his neck.
• He occasionally has breathing trouble as well.

 What is ALS? Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: damage to the brain and spinal cord that causes muscles to stop working.

You can learn more about ALS here:

http://www.alsa.org/about-als/what-is-als.html

 

 

 

• He has three children: Lucy, Timothy, and Robert. He has written 7 books and co-authored 5. He's also written four children's books with his daughter, Lucy.
• Mr. Hawking's net worth is $20 million.
• He reportedly turned down a knighthood offered him by the Queen of England.
• He has appeared on TV: Conan O'Brian, The Simpsons, Star Trek, and the Big Bang Theory (an episode in which Sheldon meets Hawking, whom he considers to be his intellectual equal).

 

Stephen Hawkings is Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretic Cosmology at the University of Cambridge in England..

 

In 2007, he was able to experience weightlessness in a spacecraft simulator.

Here are some videos:


On Space and Hawking's fears for our planet:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=stephen+hawking&&view=detail&mid=EF92802D1B1537F81AEBEF92802D1B1537F81AEB&rvsmid=7ADDB362EDE93258C0AE7ADDB362EDE93258C0AE&fsscr=-4620&FORM=VDFSRV

 

How does his wheelchair work?

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=stephen+hawking&&view=detail&mid=CEDB1BF27B381447D64ECEDB1BF27B381447D64E&rvsmid=7ADDB362EDE93258C0AE7ADDB362EDE93258C0AE&fsscr=0&FORM=VDFSRV

 

A brief history of himself  http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=stephen+hawking&&view=detail&mid=E4A917BB4D9A6D0EE584E4A917BB4D9A6D0EE584&rvsmid=7ADDB362EDE93258C0AE7ADDB362EDE93258C0AE&fsscr=-1155&FORM=VDFSRV

A film was made about his life called "The Theory of Everything," which illustrates his story as well.

 

What Do You Know About...Toronto?

If someone asked you what Canadian province(s) are to the direct north of Minnesota, would you know?

They are Ontario and Manitoba.


The largest city (in population) of Ontario is Toronto. Toronto sits on the northern edge of Lake Ontario. Look at this map: The province of Ontario is very large, spanning an area from the northern edges of Minnesota and Wisconsin eastward to New York. It is 929 miles from Minneapolis to Toronto if you go by car, which would take about 13 hours.

The pale yellow area covered by the largest arrow is all Ontario.

 

 

                                                                            Toronto Skyline

                  

Although Canada covers a huge amount of land, which includes six time zones and people who speak more than 100 languages, it has only 27 million people, which is close to the population of Texas. Minnesota, by comparison, has just under 6 million residents (about 500,000 in the City of Minneapolis).

• Toronto is home to 2.6 million people.
• Their 'official' language is English.
• If you plan to travel to Toronto or anywhere in Canada, you need a passport but not a visa.
• Canadians use the metric system.
• If you drive to Toronto, or anywhere else in Canada, keep driving on the righthand side just as if you were still in the U.S.

Toronto has cold winters and warm, humid summers. Lake Toronto keeps the temperature lower and can cause a chilly breeze at times, plus lake-effect snow in the winter. Annual precipitation is about 32" and annual snowfall, 48".

What about school in Canada?

Children attend school much like they do in the United States. Most schools run from September to the end of June, and students generally go up to Grade 12. It is compulsory (required) until the age of 16, like it is here in the States.

The word "college" in Canada usually refers to a technical school, while "university" refers to an institution of higher learning where you would obtain a 3 or 4 year degree similar to our Bachelor's Degree. People say, "She's attending university now" to indicate the person has moved on to the next level of education. Sometimes what we call high school is called a "collegiate institute."

The exception to these rules is the province of Quebec, which handles school somewhat differently.

One in seven adults in Canada has obtained a university degree.

Here are some institutes of higher education around the Toronto area:

• University of Toronto http://www.utoronto.com/
• Ryerson University  http://www.ryerson.ca/index.html
• York University  http://www.yorku.ca/web/index.htm

These offer a range from what we would call a technical certificate all the way up to a baccalaureate degree:

• Ontario College of Art & Design
• Centennial College
• George Brown College
• Humber College
• Seneca College

Here are some interesting things to check out in Toronto:

                       The CN Needle, 1815' tall:

 

 

 

Notice the huge domed structure to the left of the CN Needle?

That's the Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Learn more about the Rogers Centre at: http://www.rogerscentre.com/about/history.jsp

 

                    The Toronto Zoo

 

 

 

 

 

The Hockey Hall of Fame

 

 

 

Centreville Amusement Park

 

 

 

 

The Royal Ontario Museum

 

and another view of the museum:

 

 

 

 

Eaton Centre Mall

 

Most people who live in Toronto are of these backgrounds:

• English  12..9%
• Chinese  12. %
• Canadian 11.3%
• Irish   9.7%
• Scottish  9.5%
• East Indian  7.6
• French  4.5%

The most common religion is some form of Christianity, and of those people there are more Catholics than Protestants. 24% of the people say they have no religion.


Here is Toronto's city website:

http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=3a7132d0b6d1e310VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD

 

Free things to do in Toronto: http://www.ydsquare.ca/

The Toronto Farmers Market: http://www.stlawrencemarket.com/                

You can visit a labyrinth in Toronto:  

http://labyrinthnetwork.ca/

The Aquarium of Canada

Ontario Science Centre

Niagara Falls is on the border of New York and Ontario

                                     So there you have it: Toronto in a nutshell. Think about a visit one day!