Hangman Escapes!

News Alert! Hangman has escaped from the gallows in a daring helium balloon stunt! A small red bird is believed to be his accomplice! Any persons with information about these fugitives is asked to contact authorities. They are believed to be unarmed and not very dangerous at all! (In fact, this reporter believes hangman was unjustly accused of his crime, whatever it was. But that's a story for another day.)

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Hangman is a lot of fun but it's too morbid. If you are looking for something that plays just like hangman but without the creepy gallows, you might like this version of the game. The PDF printable version is free!

There is also an interactive PowerPoint version of Happy Hangman. It works on SmartBoards, too. It requires PowerPoint version 2002 or newer on a PC or PowerPoint version 2011 or newer on an Apple computer.

The Happy Hangman PowerPoint game is a lot of fun. It has sound effects and animations. You can use any word up to twelve letters. If you want more than twelve let me know (or if you have a little PowerPoint acumen you can probably figure out how to add more pretty easily.) Either way let me know if you would like more letters, or if you have any feedback at all. I had a lot of fun making it. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Its good for Grades 1 - 6. To be honest, I use it with my high school students.(I call it "Airman" instead of "Hangman.") They complain and say its corny but they still have fun when we play it.

Here's what some actual teachers had to say about using Happy Hangman in their classroom.

"This is great for the end of lesson, or when there is a few minutes left over before transitioning to the next subject/special/etc"

"This is so much more fun than the old hangman. Just what I need for a student reluctant to learn spelling."

During game-play, the airplane flies across the sky. The clouds drift down so the man appears to be ascending. The balloons make a “popping” sound when clicked. The letters make a typewriter sound when revealed. The bird squawks and flies away when the red balloon is popped. (It returns in a later part of the game). “Letters Used” turn black when clicked.

There's more details about the game in the free preview that you can download at this link.

Word Origins 101 - Serendipity

I was walking along the sidewalk with my three year old daughter this afternoon, coming back from kite-flying and monkey-bar romping at the playground. She stopped suddenly and exclaimed, "Look!" There on the ground was a little yellow happy face magnet, smiling back up at us. We took it home and it now has a happy new home on the fridge, next to the Jelly Belly magnet.

The little magnet she found is remarkably like the one that dots the "i" on my web-site header at the top of this page. This got me thinking about the word "serendipity." I've used it a lot but never much thought about where it comes from. I thought it might be somehow related to "serene," but it turns out the story behind serendipity is a lot more interesting than I could have imagined.

It was coined in 1754 by a British chap the name of Horace Walpole (1717-92) who was the 4th Earl of Orford. He used it in a letter to the Isle of Mann; he said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip," whose heroes "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of." The name is from Serendip, an old name for Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), from Arabic Sarandib, from Sanskrit. Simhaladvipa, which means "Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island." Source

So the short of it is, the word serendipity comes from a word that means "an island where lions live." A totally unexpected and weird little fact. That's cool.

And, even more interestingly, we learn from all that that Sri Lanka was originally named "the island where lions live."

On another note, the photo of the magnet was taken by my daughter with her Vtech Kidizoom camera. It's a great little camera that is super easy to use. At $40 there are cheaper digital cameras out there, but they aren't nearly as durable and kid-friendly. My daughter's preschool teacher even uses a couple of them in her classroom for projects that involve photography. They come in orange and pink.

Ponyboy and the Gang Get a New Look!

It's been 52 years since they were teenagers banging around the streets of Tulsa!

I updated the PowerPoint with some cool new illustrations and backgrounds. Have a look! Thanks to MMG for the superb illustration of the Outsiders!

Pediatrics can be so Pedestrian (not really)

pod, ped
foot or child

Most of the time, roots make sense. Knowledge of roots helps student decode unfamiliar words. However, sometimes they don't make sense, or they have multiple meanings that cause confusion. Ped or pod is just such a root. Its origins are both Latin and Greek. Sometimes it means "foot" as in pedal or podiatrist. Sometimes it means "child," as in pediatrician. Confusing, right?

How can the same root mean two totally different things? The answer may tell us something about ancient Greeks' attitude toward children. In Greek, child is paidos. Paidos derived from podos. Apparently, they didn't think very highly of children because the word they chose for them derived from their word for "foot." A child was thought of as someone who was merely "at the foot" of someone else.

Words in which ped or pod means "foot"

pedal, bipedal, podiatrist, pedestrian, tripod, impede, podium, pedestal, peddler, pedicure, macropod, pedigree, pedometer

Words in which ped means "child"

pediatrics, pedagogy, pedophile, pediatrician, Pedialyte, pedagogue, pedagogy, pediatrician