A very exciting thing is happenng at my studio…we’re getting glass blowing equipment built so that we can offer classes as well as blow glass pretty much whenever we want. Yee ha!! So it’s got me wandering around the interwebs looking for information to assist with stuff. Putting a potato in the furnace to help remove bubbles caught my eye. Found it amusing and I thought you guys might too. Over at the site, Bernard Katz Glass there are a lot of videos about glass. I like this one. I’ll probably post others in the coming days as we enter the wonderful world of glass blowing…
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Celebrating Terry Fox Day
In our continuing exploration of lesser known holidays, let’s take a look at Terry Fox Day, which is probably one you know if you’re Canadian.
Terry Fox was a Canadian athlete who had a leg amputated at age 18 because of cancer and then did a cross-country run to raise awareness and funding for cancer research. He was born July 28, 1958, and the first Monday in August is celebrated as Terry Fox Day in Manitoba.
Fox is considered a kind of folk hero in Canada despite the difficulties of traveling across Canada on foot (no one on his team spoke French, for example, the weather was often bad and cars would force him off the road) and the low number of donations at the beginning of his run. He ultimately had to end his run after 143 days and 3,339 miles, or 5,373 km, because his cancer had returned and spread to his lungs, but he raised $1.7 million, and a telethon a week after he ended his run raised $10.5 million.
Check out some Terry Fox quotes collected by My Little Desire. You can learn more in this video from CBC Kids, and listen to the Terry Fox song illustrated by a first grade class.
Twinkl has a bunch of Terry Fox related activities in both English and French, including an activity pack with a maze and word search, a coring challenge, a fact sheet and coloring page.
Most of the resources I could find were at Teachers Pay Teachers, but you can learn more about the activity pack for grades 1-3 that Mrs. Bremer’s Class has made, which tells his story and has kids write things they learned and discuss why they think he is a hero.
Creative Classroom Core has a few paid resources include writing activities, reading comprehension and a Terry Fox fact book.
That Fun Reading Teacher has a K-2 singalong with a differentiated reader and activity to teach kids about him.
You can also celebrate Terry Fox Day by talking about what makes a person a hero and who the kids in your home or classroom think of as heroes. And if you’re Canadian, there are Terry Fox runs in more than 650 communities in September, so you can make plans to participate or cheer on the runners to remember his legacy.