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Canku
Ota
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(Many
Paths)
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An
Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America
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February
1, 2011 - Volume 9 Number 2
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Favorite
Sites
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collected
by Paul and Vicki
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WELCOME
TO SHARED VISION!
Shared Vision is a community effort to address the issue of
racial diversity and racial disparity. While the Bemidji community
has much to be proud of, there is also recognition among community
members that the community must do a much better job of addressing
the issues of racial disparity and racial bias. If we are
going to be the community we want to be, then we have to create
expanding opportunity for all.
http://www.sharedvisionbemidji.com/
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Protect
Bear Butte
Many of the Plains Tribes including the Cheyenne’s, Lakota,
Dakota, Arapahoe and Hidatsa Mandan, have traveled annually
to Bear Butte to worship. This ritual has been followed since
the beginning of time, and continues today. http://www.protectbearbutte.com/
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Valentine's
Day Cards
The selection of free Valentine's Day cards on the
Internet is awesome. For this week's picks, I included one e-card
site (where you send your greetings via email) and four sites
for printing cards on paper. After all these years of e-this
and e-that, I feel a paper card that is either mailed or given
in person is so much more special. Happy Valentine's Day!
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123
Greetings: Valentine's Day Mail
123 Greetings is the only e-card site included in today's
roundup. Their Valentine's Day collection of free interactive
greeting cards is divided into sections such as Roses, Hugs,
Love Songs, Family and Friends. Cards can be customized with
your message and choice of music, and can be scheduled to
be sent up to sixty days in advance. To help you find the
right card for the right person, cards are ranked by popularity,
and include user comments and ratings.
http://www.123greetings.com/events/valentines_day/
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Canon
Creative Park: Valentine's Day
These forty-five printable Valentine's Day greetings cards
from Canon Creative are beautiful, many of them created by
Japanese artists. Each card is available to print five ways:
half-fold on A4 (an international paper size not used in North
America), quarter-fold on A4, 4"x6" (postcard size),
half-fold on letter size, and (my personal favorite) quarter-fold
on letter size. The latter gives you both an image outside
and a message inside. In addition to the simple printed cards,
there are also Valentine's Day cards with pop-ups (look under
Craft Cards in the left-hand menu.)
http://cp.c-ij.com/en/contents/3031/list_45_1.html
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Free
Printable Valentines
All 76 fun, fab cards at Free Printable Valentines are available
as-is for free, or you can buy customizable versions (in Microsoft
Word format) for $4 each ($19 for the entire collection).
The most popular Valentine's Day cards are on the home page,
or choose one of the categories in the left-hand menu: Love,
Friendship, Kids, Animals and Robots. To learn about new printables
on this and other sites in the Savetz Publishing network,
sign up for the Free Printable newsletter.
http://www.freeprintablevalentines.net/
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Print
With My Pic: Valentines Cards
A sister site to 123 Print Cards, Print With My Pic requires
no email registration or account creation. These cute printable
Valentine's Day cards are easy to customize with your own
message and photo (how cool is that?) The site also offers
customizable birthday cards, thank-you notes, photo frames
and calendar templates. "Click on a preview, load your
picture, edit the text and hit print. There are buttons to
move your image around so it fits just right. Enjoy!"
http://www.printwithmypic.com/cards/valentines.php
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Xerox:
Valentine's Day Cards
Xerox is another printer company with a beautiful (although
smaller) selection of printable Valentines. Like the Canon
cards, they are available in A4 international paper size,
as well as postcard and letter-size quarter-fold. The difference
here is that cards contain text areas that you can customize.
Simply follow the "Click here" instructions to type
in your own message. Don't miss any of the text areas (look
both on the back of the card and in the middle) or else your
printed card will say "Click here to insert optional
text!"
http://www.office.xerox.com/small-business-templates/greeting-cards/valentines/enus.html
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Tobacco Facts
According to the American Lung Association, cigarette smoking
is the most preventable cause of death and illness worldwide.
Today's roundup of sites have all the facts and figures to
help you understand the problem and become part of the solution.
Smoking kills. Pass it on.
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Above
the Influence: Tobacco Facts
"Our goal is to help you stay above the influence. The
more aware you are of the influences around you, the better
prepared you will be to stand up to the pressures that keep
you down." Created by the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, this site has facts about all kinds of drugs, from
alcohol to tobacco, and a great explanation of the Science
Behind Addiction. Although tobacco gets only a single page,
I've included it because the rest of the site is worth a visit
(or two!)
http://www.abovetheinfluence.com/facts/drugs-tobacco.aspx
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American
Lung Association: Facts & Figures
This ALA page is a gateway to seven pages of tobacco statistics,
including General Smoking Facts, What's in a Cigarette and
Trends in Tobacco Use. If you are looking for a specific fact
or statistic, this would be my first stop, as it is the most
comprehensive of today's picks. "Smoking-related diseases
claim an estimated 443,000 American lives each year, including
those affected indirectly, such as babies born prematurely
due to prenatal maternal smoking and victims of 'secondhand'
exposure to tobacco's carcinogens."
http://www.lungusa.org/stop-smoking/about-smoking/facts-figures/
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The
Scoop on Smoking
Ouch! "Smoking kills as many people who died in the Septemeber
11th attack (about 3,000) every three days." That's a
slap in the face, isn't it? The Scoop on Smoking, from The
American Council on Science and Health, is brimming with facts
about tobacco and its consequences. Visit to explore Health
Effects, True Stories, How to Quit and to take a few of the
quizzes. "If you thought that lung cancer was the only
type of cancer smokers have an increased risk of getting,
think again. See how tobacco savvy you are by taking this
quiz about the different types of cancer associated with smoking."
http://thescooponsmoking.org/
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Truth's
FACTory: Facts
"In the past, Big Tobacco fooled the general public into
believing they're just another industry providing a safe consumable
good. But that has changed now that secret internal tobacco
industry documents have been leaked to the public." Funded
by The American Legacy Foundation, a public health organization
created as a result of lawsuits against tobacco companies,
Truth pulls back the curtain of marketing to reveal the facts
about tobacco. Visit to watch their funky ads and play their
weird online games.
http://www.thetruth.com/facts/
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Why
Files: Nicotine Junkies
This National Institute for Science Education project is funded
by the National Science Foundation. Visit for the "fumin'
fact sheet on smoking science", a look at how the chemicals
in tobacco affect the brain, and how cigarette advertising affects
children. "Most new smokers are young. The median age of
starters is 16 to 17. And with so many smokers dying or quitting,
the industry must "replace" 3,000 former smokers each
day just to maintain its customer base. Tobacco representatives
deny that the industry markets to kids, but public-health experts
disagree."
http://whyfiles.org/024nicotine/ |
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One Hundred Days of School
Depending on your school calendar, your one-hundredth day of
school is probably coming up soon. Many teachers use it as an
opportunity to teach lower elementary grades number sense, or
just for the fun of it. Explore these websites for online and
offline activities, all about the number "100."
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Enchanted
Learning: One Hundredth Day of School
Enchanted Learning has an awesome collection of project ideas
for the celebration of one hundred days of school, such as Name
100 Animals, Write Your Name for 100 Seconds, Name 100 Countries
or Collect 100 Cans for Charity. Some of the printable worksheets,
including the cute One Hundred Days of School printable book,
are only available to paid members, but there are still plenty
of free resources here.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/themes/hundred.shtml
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Little
Giraffes Teaching Ideas: 100th Day of School
Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Flanagan has so many fun hundredth-day-of-school
activities that her class celebrates for a whole week. I like
her collection because she includes photos of the activities,
although not much in the way of annotation. "We estimated
how many paper clips we could drop in a full glass of water
before the water spilled over. Can you believe the water didn't
spill over, even after we put 100 clips in it?" For more
one-hundredth day activity ideas, follow the links to A to Z
Teacher Stuff in the header of the page.
http://www.littlegiraffes.com/100day.html
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Mrs.
Meacham's Classroom Snapshots: 100th Day of School
Mrs. Meacham is an elementary school teacher in Wisconsin, who
enjoys creating websites in her free time. Here she shares some
of the activities that she's done in her classroom for the hundredth
day of school. "100 Words: Students get a clip board and
a pencil and roam the room to find and write down 100 words.
No duplicate words are allowed." For most activities, Meacham
includes printable worksheets, although a few of the links are
broken. My favorite click is the printable six-page activity
book, "My 100th Day of School Book."
http://www.jmeacham.com/100th.day.htm
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Scholastic:
Max's Math Adventures
"My name is Max, and this is the truth./ I'm six and a
half. My best friend is Ruth. / We like to solve problems all
about math, / Like adding, subtracting, patterns, and graphs."
Two of Max's nineteen rhyming adventures are perfect for the
hundredth day of school: Counting Coins and A Sweet Story. Counting
Coins is about counting one hundred pennies by ones, twos, fives
and tens. A Sweet Story is about estimating the number of lollipops
and jelly beans in the candy shop.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/max/
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Starfall:
Hundredth Day of School
"It's the hundredth day of school. Let's count to 100!
Hurray!" This simple Flash game involves reading number
words, counting with tally marks, and counting to one hundred
by tens. In each frame, start the animations by clicking on
the girl and the boy, as there are two different animations
in each picture. For three printable activity sheets (Dot
to Dot, Missing Numbers and Write About 100), click on the
printer icon in the lower right of the game in the last frame.
http://www.starfall.com/n/holiday/hundredthday/play.htm
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Paul Revere
Paul Revere (1735 - 1818) was an American patriot best known
for riding on a borrowed horse from Boston to Lexington on April
18, 1775 to warn the colonists that British troops were approaching.
The next day, when the British arrived in Lexington, the colonial
minutemen were waiting for them.
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Archiving
Early America: Paul Revere, Messenger of the Revolution
"The Regulars are coming! The Regulars are coming!"
Be sure to turn your speakers on before arriving at this animated
slide show describing Revere's famous ride. "Paul Revere
had an illustrious career as an engraver, silversmith, watchmaker
and solider, but above all we will always remember him as a
patriot and folk hero in the name of freedom." Although
there are no links to more Paul Revere resources from this page,
you'll find more searching for "Paul Revere" in the
site search box.
http://www.earlyamerica.com/paul_revere.htm
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AmericanRevolution.org:
Revere Speaks
"I, Paul Revere, of Boston, in the colony of the Massachusetts
Bay in New England; of lawful age, do testify and say; that
I was sent for by Dr. Joseph Warren, of said Boston, on the
evening of the 18th of April, about 10 o'clock ..." Read
about the events of April 18, 1775 as written by Revere himself.
The colonial language can be a bit difficult to follow, but
as you read this, consider how Revere's account of that night
differs from the famous Longfellow poem.
http://www.americanrevolution.org/revere.html
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Kids
and History: A Paul Revere Virtual Museum
This virtual museum and Teacher's Guide was created by fifth-grade
teacher Kimberly Hamilton more than ten years ago. So, although
the site navigation feels a bit dated, the content is still
first rate! The exhibits are divided into five halls, each with
an offline activity or two. Start with Paul Revere's Ride (Exhibit
Hall 1) and pass through The REAL Story, Colonial Boston, Ride
with Paul Revere and Music of the Revolutionary War. Suggested
class activities include reading Longfellow's poem aloud, making
a paper model of the Revere House, and writing new lyrics to
Yankee Doodle or God Save the King.
http://www.kidsandhistory.com/paulvm/_welcome.html
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Paul
Revere Heritage Project
Created by the Boston University Graduate History Club, the
Paul Revere Project is a "resource that combines both basic
facts and in-depth research about the famous Boston silversmith."
Their goal was to be both interesting to beginners, and useful
for those wanting to explore Paul Revere in more depth. Categories
include Midnight Ride, Documents, Just Facts and Popular Myths.
For example, did you know that Paul Revere was not alone on
his Midnight Ride of fame? He was accompanied by two other colonists:
William Dawes and Samuel Prescott.
http://www.paul-revere-heritage.com/
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Paul
Revere House
Paul Revere's small wooden home in Boston's North End is one
of the city's oldest buildings. This National Landmark site
is my pick of the day because it includes photos of the house,
a Revere biography, and lots of details about Revere's famous
ride. The best clicks, however, are in Just for Kids. They
include a printable Paul Revere crossword puzzle, ideas for
classroom activities, and a colonial-era recipe for dried
apple snacks.
http://www.paulreverehouse.org/
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Ellis Island
Today's online field trip takes us to Ellis Island, which served
as the portal to almost all American immigrants arriving between
1892 and 1954. Although some were turned away, 98 percent of
those examined at Ellis Island were allowed into the country.
In 1938, my mother, along with her mother and father, were among
the new arrivals.
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Ellis
Island Foundation
Under the leadership of Lee Iacocca, the nonprofit Statue of
Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation restored the Ellis Island Main
Building and created the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. "The
Museum tells the inspiring story of the largest human migration
in modern history. Between 1892 and 1954, twelve million immigrants
were processed at Ellis Island. Today more than 40 percent,
or over 100 million, of all living Americans can trace their
roots to an ancestor who came through Ellis Island." Are
you the descendant of an Ellis Island immigrant? Search the
Ellis Island/Port of New York Records for your family. The search
function is free, but registration is required to view the results.
http://www.ellisisland.org/
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History.com:
Ellis Island
Ellis Island is explored from many different perspectives in
this collection of twenty-two videos. Topics covered include
The Statue of Liberty, Taking the Citizenship Oath, as well
as tours of Ellis Island, and a look at the "dark underbelly"
of Ellis Island as seen through the eyes of photo journalist
Stephen Wilkes. The front page only shows thumbnails of a few
of the videos. To see the complete set, first click "Videos
(22)" then select "Show All." The interactive
exhibit Then and Now, shows side-by-side photos of Ellis Island
(one hundred years ago and present day) taken from the inside,
the outside, and from the air.
http://www.history.com/topics/ellis-island
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NYPL
Digital Gallery: Ellis Island Photographs
"William Williams (1862-1947) collected these photographs
while he was Commissioner of Immigration for the Port of New
York at Ellis Island, 1902-5 and 1909-13; they came to the [New
York Public] Library with the bequest of his papers." Photographers
were drawn to Ellis Island because of the variety of human stories
found there. To view the pictures, click "See all Images."
From the first thumbnail view, you'll need to click twice to
see a full-size photo. Now you can use the Next and Previous
buttons to scroll through the entire collection.
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?col_id=165
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PBS
KIDS: Big Apple History
For elementary students, this interactive lesson from PBS KIDS
tells the history of New York city. From the front page, you
can jump directly to the Ellis Island article, Gateway for Millions.
Click on "Historical Document" to read a first-person
account of Marie Ganz's entry into the states. "I was only
five years old when in the summer of 1896 we joined [my father]
in America, but I remember well the day when he met us at Ellis
Island. He was like a stranger to me, for I had been not much
more than a baby when he left us on our Galician farm."
http://pbskids.org/bigapplehistory/index-flash.html
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Scholastic:
Interactive Tour of Ellis Island
This interactive slide show from Scholastic.com is my pick
of the week. The story of Ellis Island is told through photos,
audio, and video. The clickable map guides you through seven
stops, from Arrival to Journey's End. Along the way you'll
learn about Ellis Island, as it was experienced by the millions
of immigrants that passed through it. "The single busiest
day in Ellis Island history came on April 17, 1907, when 11,747
immigrants were processed for admission into the United States.
Some of them had been waiting days just to get on to the island."
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/immigration/tour/
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Internet
Magic
Do you believe in magic? These magic tricks, created by webmasters
and performed over the Internet, are a unique breed of magic,
designed for an online audience. Abracadabra! Enjoy.
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Mulawa
Magic
"Mulawa" is an Australian aboriginal word meaning
"shadow of trees" and it "is what we call our
two [Australian] acres ... it is near tropical Townsville
and is an idyllic place to live." The author introduces
his eight tricks humbly "It's very difficult to entertain
you in cyberspace but ... here goes ..." Two of Mulawa's
card tricks (A Little Miracle and Take Five) are completely
different from anything I've seen before. Don't miss them.
http://www.mulawa.net/mulawa/magic/
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Internet
Magic Tricks
This site is a collection of four interactive magic tricks,
starting with the Magic Clock Trick. "Start with your
finger on the 12, and think of a number, between 1 and 12.
Don't tell me what it is ;) Spell out your letter, moving
your finger one space for each letter in your secret number."
The other tricks are Magic Disappearing Card (which is a a
version of Simeon's Magic Cave, see below), Pick a Card, and
MindReader.
http://www.internetmagictricks.com/
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Museum
of Talking Boards: Web Ouija:
Ask your question by typing it into the "Ask" field,
then hover your mouse over the Ouija pointer (no clicking)
as the Ouija board reveals your answer. "If you are disappointed
with what the Web Ouija tells you, despair not: we have several
others for you to try." In addition to these interactive
Ouija games, the Museum of Talking Boards houses a history
of the board game. "No other single, mass-produced item
quite captures the imagination of the American public like
the Ouija board. Is it just a toy as many claim, or is it
a portal to the spirit realm where one may find the answers
to life's many mysteries?"
http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/WebOuija.html
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Peter
Answers
Thrill and confuse your friends when Peter knows the answer
to seemingly impossible questions, such as "What did
Mary eat last night for dinner?" or "What color
is Joe's tie?" Ask your friends to come up with a question,
and then have them say the answer out loud while they concentrate
on sending the answer to Peter. In order to fool your friends,
you will need to learn "the trick." There are plenty
of explanations online, but I like this one best: http://www.peter-virtual-tarot.com/trick.htm.
http://peteranswers.com/
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Simeon's
World of Magic
"Pick a card, any card." Simeon's Cave of Magic
is my favorite of Simeon's tricks. Everyone I showed it to,
played the trick several times and walked away still thinking
about it. How does the computer know your card? Is it the
whisper? Is it the location of your mouse? If you do figure
it out, remember: a magician never tells. Several of the games,
such as Football Magic and Travel Telepathy, are based on
logic. See if you can figure them out, and then design your
own magic game!
http://www.simeonmagic.com/
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STAR
Students And Teachers Against Racism
announces their new website that offers insight into the Native
American perspective to teachers and educators.
http://www.racismagainstindians.org/
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Changing
Winds Advocacy Center
Through presentations, classroom sessions, curriculum, fund
raising, charitable works, and multi-media efforts, we seek
to raise public awareness of the stereotyping, discrimination,
racism and other unique situations facing Native Americans.
http://changingwinds.org/
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