It won’t be long before trick-or-treaters will be showing up at your door. This year, BOO-tify your home for Halloween with these scary ideas:

 

Ghastly Graveyard – make different sizes and shapes of headstones, paint them gray (or cover with gray paper), then add some eerie saying on each one using paint or a marker. You can even light the tombstones with a jack-o-lantern. Cut a hole in the back of a jack-o-lantern and place it in front of the tombstone. The candle inside the jack-o-lantern casts a nice flickering glow over the tombstone.

 

Scary Door Wreath – Start with a basic twig wreath, then simply glue on scary things like bats, spiders, eyes, webs, etc. made from clay, cardboard, or buy inexpensive, plastic ones. Finish it off with a scary saying or silly name sign like ‘The Ghouls’.

 

Spooky Window Art – You can find patterns and scenes for this craft in a variety of places, including the Internet. Cut them out of black construction paper and tape them on. Or get adventurous – make them out of car-window film so they cling to the window.

 

Eerie Luminaries - Light the path to your haunted mansion with these clever milk or water jug luminaries. Using a black marker, draw or trace scary scenes onto the sides of the jug. Then use either a candle in sand or an electric light to illuminate your luminary. Place them along the path to your haunted home.

 

Pumpkin Totem Poles - Add Halloween fun to your landscaping by stacking small pumpkins on a stick or steel rod, draw or carve faces, then stick them into the ground in the garden or lawn.

 

Ghostly Getaway - This cheerful ghost family will greet trick-or-treaters at your door. Tear an old white sheet into small squares. Drape a square over a small plastic-foam ball, tie ribbon bow around the "necks", then mark a face on the cover of each ball.

 

Scary Driveway Scenes - Using the lighter shades of sidewalk chalk, draw scary scenes and  eerie faces on the driveway leading up to the front door.

Tofu, also known as bean curd, is a protein-rich food made from the extracted curd of soybeans and is an extremely versatile food, used in salads, main courses, drinks and desserts. It originated in China and was introduced to Japan in the 11th century. The Japanese word tofu comes from the Chinese word doufu, which means fermented, or curdled, bean.

 

Three main types of tofu are available in grocery stores:

 

Firm tofu is dense and solid and holds up well in stir-fry dishes, soups, or on the grill... anywhere that you want the tofu to maintain its shape. Firm tofu also is higher in protein, fat and calcium than other forms of tofu.

 

Soft tofu is a good choice for recipes that call for blended tofu, or in Oriental soups.

 

Silken tofu is made using a slightly different process that results in a creamy, custard-like product. Silken tofu works well in pureed or blended dishes.

 

If you haven’t yet tried it, you may be surprised to learn of the many familiar foods that can be made with tofu. Try these recipes:

Crispy Tofu Fries - http://www.tgmag.ca/tgo.v2e8/v2e8.10_eii.html

Tofu Pizza - http://www.tofu.bc.ca/recipes/entrees/pizza.html

Tofu-based Onion Dip - http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/business/steephill/tofu.html

Two Bean Tofu Chili - http://www.tofu.bc.ca/recipes/entrees/2beantofuchili.html

Tofu Tacos - http://www.tofu.bc.ca/recipes/entrees/tofutacos.html

Tofu Pumpkin Pie - http://www.urbanfare.com/chefs/tofu_pumpkin_pie.htm

Roasted Soy Nuts - http://www.silcom.com/~noster/soynuts.html

Trivial Turkey Tidbits:

 

• The name ‘turkey’ has a few suggested origins:

-         from a frightened wild turkey's call which sounds like "turk-turk-turk".

-         from the American Indian name for the bird; "firkee".

-         from the word for peacock in the language of India; "tuka".

• Turkeys have lived in North America for ten million years.
• Canada ranks sixth in the world in turkey production.
• Most of the turkeys raised on turkey farms are flightless White Hollands.
• Adult turkeys have approximately 3,500 feathers.
• Farmers compost turkey feathers, spreading them out on fields, then plowing them under in the spring.
• The male turkey is called a ‘tom’ or ‘gobbler’, the female is called a ‘hen’, and the baby turkeys are called ‘poults’.
• A turkey has 157 bones!
• According to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest turkey raised was 39.09 kilograms (86 pounds) -- about the size of a large dog.
• Turkeys’ heads change colour when they become excited.
• The growth under a turkey’s chin is called a ‘whattle’.
• A ‘caruncle’ is a red-pink fleshy growth on the head and upper neck of the turkey.
• A ‘snood’ is a fleshy growth on top of a turkey’s beak.
• Only male turkeys gobble. Hens make a clicking or clucking sound.
• The average turkey hen will lay 110 to 115 eggs during a 28-30 week period.
• Turkey skins are tanned and used to make cowboy boots and belts.
• Turkeys can drown if they look up when it’s raining.
• More turkeys are eaten at Thanksgiving than for Christmas and Easter combined.

A preventative vaccine shot is the most effective way to decrease complications and reduce the impact of the flu. The best time for vaccination is early October to mid-November. The North American vaccine is developed annually to work against three strains of influenza virus, based on trends in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

There are many myths about what predisposes a person to catch a cold and what makes one person catch more colds than another. Factors that may increase the risk of catching a cold are fatigue, emotional stress, smoking, mid-phase of the menstrual cycle, and nasal allergies. Factors that do not increase the risk of catching a cold include being out in the cold, health status, nutritional status, and enlarged tonsils.

 

Echinacea may help prevent colds, but research studies are not conclusive. Vitamin C does not appear to protect people from catching colds, but it can shorten the duration of a cold by half a day.

This global database we call the Internet can be a wonderful resource for homework related information for students of all ages. A search based on a specific topic will yield many suitable sites. It can also be the perfect way to show children just how useful the Internet can be. Check out these sites as examples:

http://www.fishbc.com/adventure/wilderness/animals/ - animals of BC

http://mathforum.org/math.topics.html - math resources by subject

http://www.webmath.com/ - over 100 instant-answer, self-help, math solvers

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/ - the Geometry Junkyard ...a great resource!

http://www.itools.com/lang/ - language tool lets you look up words or translate them

http://www.atlapedia.com/ - Atlapedia Online - maps, key facts and stats on countries

http://school.discovery.com/sciencefaircentral/ - science fair central

Cool Web Sites

 

Crab Volleyball

Wanda, age 7, says, “You move your crab back and forth, and make him jump to get the ball back to the other crab. It’s fun. And the crabs are cute.”

 

Halloween Crossword

Marcie, age 10, says, “I love doing crosswords, just like Gramma. This one is all about Halloween – with words you use around Halloween time.”

 

Warp the Witch

Bernie, age 8, says, “I warped the witch’s face a whole bunch of times. You can make her look really funny, or really mean and scary. Just reset it to try again.”

 

Mummy Island

Jacob, age 9, says, “I want to be a mummy this Halloween. So this trivia game was perfect for me – to make me a better mummy. I didn’t get all the questions right, though.”

If you are one of those computer users who like to keep your fingers on the keyboard as much as possible and hope not to use the mouse unless you have to, here are a couple of ATL tricks that you’ll find helpful:

If you're using either Netscape or Explorer, you can go back / forward via the keyboard. Just hold down your ALT key and use the arrows.

Oh, you can also use ALT with the "Home" key to skip back to your homepage with Explorer.

Sometimes you'll get e-mail from an acquaintance with an important virus announcement, an interesting news item, facts you didn't know, or asking you to sign a petition to help a little girl dying of leukemia in Maskataslan. These messages are often interesting, can sound plausible, usually cite impeccable references, and are most often untrue. They are known as "Urban Legends."

For example, how many of you have read how coca-cola can melt teeth within two days? The petition to help the women of Afghanistan whose civil rights have been eliminated?

Never forward these to a mailing list no matter how important you think it is, it is way too off-topic. But if you must, before you forward it to someone else, check out the facts at Urban Legends Reference Pages.

To prevent splitting wood when driving a nail into wood that is likely to split, turn the nail upside down and blunt its point with your hammer. The flattened nail tip is less likely to split the wood.

And to increase a nails holding power (the resistance to pullout), drive the nail in at an angle, or toenail it. If driving more than one nail into a board, drive one at one angle and another at a different angle for added strength.