One of the perennial favourites at our house is checking where in the world Santa is. NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, makes this possible with a special web site and phone number that kids can use to track Santa’s progress on Christmas Eve.

To view Santa cam videos or to see where Santa is on a map of the world, go to NORAD Tracks Santa and select your language preference. Do take some time to look around the site, as there is a goodly amount of interesting information available there. It will only take a few minutes of browsing for a fascinating homeschool or holiday project to suggest itself! Remember to come back periodically throughout the day & evening, too! Updates are posted regularly.

There is also the option to track Santa in 3D, using Google Earth. We tried this last year, and it was a blast! If you have this software already installed on your computer it’s a snap to get the three dimensional tracker running. If not, you can get a free copy here (there’s even a link on the download page, that leads directly to the NORAD site!) This year it will be possible to track Santa on your cell phone too. So if you are away from your computer you can continue to watch for Santa updates. Please check the web site for details.

For those who prefer email, you can send your message to noradtrackssanta@gmail.com. Finally for those who prefer an old-fashioned phone call, you can reach a live human being who will tell your child where Santa is, by calling toll-free 1 (877) HI NORAD (1 877 446-6723.) (Those outside the U.S. & Canada can call 1 (719) 556-5211, but unfortunately this is not a toll-free number.)

NORAD and its predecessor CONAD have been tracking Santa for over 50 years. It all began as a misprint in a store flyer, that gave a phone number for kids to call & speak to Santa. Rather than giving the store’s phone number, the number that was printed was actually the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” Then Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup, thought he was being pranked when the first call came from a youngster wanting to talk to Santa.

His military training kicked in, though, and he quickly found a way to make the best out of the situation. He instructed his staff to use their radar to locate Santa, and thus began a tradition! From then on, kids could rely on NORAD to tell them where Santa was on Christmas Eve. Now NORAD has a whole operations center dedicated to tracking Santa, NTSOC (NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center) located at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The center is staffed by NORAD personnel, their family members, and friends, all volunteering their time on Christmas Eve to make sure the kids of the world will have up to the minute information on Santa’s voyage.

NORAD uses four methods to track Santa: 1) radar; 2) satellite; 3) special Santa cams; 4) fighter jets. Each year Canada selects four CF-18 fighter pilots for the honour of escorting Santa safely through our country. This year Captain Benoit Bouchard and Captain Matthew Maurice of 3 Wing Bagotville, Quebec will each fly a jet beside Santa, welcoming him as he enters Canadian air space. As Santa makes his way west he will be escorted by Major Kirk Soroka and Captain Dan Walters of 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta. Escort duties will then be turned over to American jet pilots flying either F-15’s or F-16’s.(Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find the names of the American pilots, but if anyone has that information please post it to the comments area & I’ll add them to this post!)

NTSOC opens on December 24th at 6:00am EST (5:00am CST, 4:00am MST, and 3:00am PST) and remains open until 5:00am EST (4:00am CST, 3:00am MST, and 2:00am PST) on Christmas Day.

Many thanks to all of the generous folks who have kept this wonderful program running throughout the years!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

Last year the folks from JibJab also offered the option to “Scrooge Yourself,” which apparently is not available this year. Instead, I thought it would be fun to “elf” the old gent himself! Here he is (right, in the still image before the video begins) in a cool disco number with his creator Charles Dickens (center) and the first artist to ever draw him, John Leech (left.)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

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Charles Dickens is perhaps the greatest author of the Victorian period, and Scrooge is of course one of his best known characters. Dickens first published A Christmas Carol in December of 1843, with lavish decorations and hand coloured illustrations which he commissioned from political cartoonist John Leech. At the price of only 5 shillings it was an accessible book, and sold 6,000 copies within days of its publication.

Dickens and Leech, like many of their peers, were concerned with the welfare of the lower classes. Although A Christmas Carol was originally written to give Dickens quick money to pay off a debt, it was also an opportunity for both author & artist to address social issues of the time. The conditions of the working class and those who lived in the poorhouses are as important to the novella as the message of Christian charity and brotherly love or the new, abbreviated and family-oriented Christmas celebration that Dickens popularized.

The story has been translated, and adapted for stage and screen numerous times. Perhaps the most significant adaptation was Dickens’ own: he began to give public readings of A Christmas Carol in 1852 when he was invited to read the story at a fundraising event. When he repeated the performance for a working class audience some days later, Dickens was a huge hit. In the years that followed, he condensed and adapted the story for a listening audience and took to the road to give readings. He would continue to perform these until he died.

The adapted text, which may be a better fit for those whose students are not yet able to read the original text themselves, can still be had today. A free online copy is available at Gaslight. The original 1843 edition, and several others with illustrations by a number of artists including Arthur Rackham, can also be obtained free of charge. The Online Books Page has a list of various sources here.

For those who would like to spend some time exploring the novella, a number of unit studies are available. Here are links to a small selection:

A Christmas Carol Unit Study (Brandenburg Studies)
Suitable for pre-reading children (with support) through teens; good ICT component; focus on living conditions and Christmas traditions in Victorian England

Reading Records for A Christmas Carol (Fortunately For You Books)
Suitable for children about 11 years and up; the focus in this study is mainly on the skill of making lists from a work read, which is crucial to literary analysis, note-taking and other learning activities

Novel Ideas - Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (New Learning Publishing)
A child-directed study that requires no additional adult preparation; suitable for children about age 8 and up
N.B.: This study is part of CurrClick’s Stocking Up Your Shelves sale event, and is available at a significant discount until 31 December, 2008

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This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Public domain images, courtesy of Free Clipart Now and Wikimedia Commons. John Leech image, copyright, courtesy of Victorian Web and used here for educational purposes only. Video courtesy of JibJab. Visit the ElfYourself site for complete copyright information, or to make your own video. Thanks!

OK folks, we’ve got our first major crop of school closings for the season! You can get an up to date listing on CJAD radio or on your usual morning TV news. Here are the schools affected by closures on 10 December, 2008:

English Montreal School Board:

Edinburgh Elementary in Montreal West, Willington Elementary, Marymount Academy, Royal Vale School in NDG - All closed for students and staff due to power failures

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Riverside School Board:

Mt Bruno Elementary - closed due to a power failure

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Sir Wilfred Laurier School Board:

Crestview Elementary, Franklin Hill Elementary, Genesis Elementary, Hillcrest Elementary,  John F. Kennedy Elementary, Jules Verne Elementary, McCaig Elementary, Mountainview Elementary, Our Lady of Peace Elementary, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Elementary, Pinewood Elementary, Souvenir Elementary, St Jude Elementary,  St Paul Elementary, St Vincent Elementary, Terry Fox Elementary, Twin Oaks Elementary, Lake of Two Mountains High School, Laurier Senior High School, Laval Junior High School, Laval Liberty High School, Mother Teresa Junior High School, Phoenix High School, Rosemere High School, Mountainview High School,   CDC Laurier Vimont adult centre, CDC Laurier Pont Viau

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Schools for Special Populations:

Peter Hall schools - closed for students, OPEN for staff
Montreal Oral School for the Deaf - closed for staff and students
Vanguard schools (St Laurent, Westmount and Laval) - closed for all students and staff

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Independent & Professional Schools:

Académie des pompiers in Mirabel - Radio-Canada reports the school is closed today
Collège d’Anjou in Montreal East - Radio-Canada reports the school is closed today
Collège Letendre in Laval - closed
Collège Reine-Marie - Radio-Canada reports the school is closed
Ecole Bilingue Notre Dame de Sion - closed
École Rudolf Steiner in Montreal - Radio-Canada reports the school is closed today
Externat Mont-Jésus-Marie - closed today
Faith Christian Academy in St-Lazare - closed
Kanehsatake Education Center - all three schools (Aronhiatekha, Rotiwennakehte, Ratihen:te) closed
Ms Edgars and Ms Cramps School - school is closed 7 the AM rehearsal is cancelled; please watch the web site to know if this evening’s concert will take place
Pensionnat du St-Nom-de-Marie - closed
Queen of Angels Academy - closed
Solomon Schechter Academy in Côte St Luc - closed due to power failure, however the 4pm teachers meeting will be held as scheduled

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Not sure if your child’s school is closed due to inclement weather? I have a list of contact information for Quebec’s public school boards. Just click the Quebec School Closures? tab above or use this link.

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This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

The ever popular Elf Yourself web site has returned for another holiday season. If you haven’t yet tried it, you might want to give it a whirl. It’s great fun with the kids’ pictures - or you could pick some historical figures & work it into your educational activities for the day. Here are Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton dancing a Charleston!

Public domain images of our three gents, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Many thanks to Heidi of Southpaugh Homeschool, who has bestowed a Butterfly Award upon me! Heidi is a wonderful lady who has been supportive of my blog, almost since the very beginning. I hope you will take time to visit her blog too. There is always something interesting to read, and quite often a good lead on a book, a movie or even a freebie to enjoy.

As part of the conditions for accepting the award I have been asked to nominate 10 other blogs. I want to say that some of the links are for web sites with more than just a blog, but all do contain some kind of blog or ongoing posting by the author(s). Regardless of the content or the type of material posted, they are all well worth a visit! Here they are, in no special order:

1 ) Becky at Farm School

2 ) Deborah at Diary of a Mad Editor

3 ) Sonya at Montreal Homelearners

4 ) Debra at NotebookingPages.com

5 ) Tamu & Emru at HealEmru.com

6 ) Dana at Principled Discovery

7 ) Hobbes at Stories to Shorten the Road

8 ) Crimson Wife at Bending the Twigs (I’m having difficulty posting my comment on your blog, Crimson Wife, but I hope you see this in the linkback)

9 ) Kate at Diamonds & Toads

10) Angie’s corner of Associated Content

I will be around to “see” each of you & leave a quick message so you can pick up your own awards. You may choose to accept or decline the award, as you wish. If you accept please abide by the following:

1. Put the logo on your blog
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you
3. Nominate 10 blogs that you follow

4. Add links to those blogs
5. Leave a message to those nominees on their blog

Thanks!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!