HOT SPOT week 10

Your Final Summer Sizzle!

It is almost time to head back to school, so why not take time to reflect on all of the fun things you have done and learned this summer? Have you read any interesting newspaper articles this summer? Have you read any good books? This week’s HOT SPOT activity focuses on exploring new worlds in literature. Speaking of reading, we hope you have been keeping track of your favorite articles in your Summer Times Reader Log.

After school starts, all participating students who completed their reading logs will be entered in a drawing to win some great prizes including free admission passes to Muvico Theaters, ice cream for a year from Working Cow Ice Cream, cool merchandise from Busch Gardens and a Dell computer with flat screen monitor and DVD burner donated by Data Balance. Send your completed logs to the address below to be entered in the drawing. If you missed a week or two, just be sure that all 10 boxes of the log are filled out with information from different days you read the newspaper. Don’t forget that you and your parent or guardian must fill out the back page of the log in order to be eligible for awards. If you have misplaced your reader log or need a new one, you can call the reader hotline or go to our NIE Web site.

This Week's HOT SPOT activity

Newspapers are a great source of information, and newspaper articles can be entertaining. Some book authors even pull the ideas for their stories from the pages of the newspaper, where truth is often stranger than fiction! Many times authors will create stories based on real-life occurrences. Look through the St. Petersburg Times for an article or cartoon that would make an interesting story for a children’s book. Write down the facts in the story. Now, create your own children’s book based on those
facts. Be creative. Share your story idea and the original article with other students across Tampa Bay on this Summer Times Reader Blog. Also, share your Summer Sizzlin’ Times Reader experiences with others. Just click on the comment button below to share your thoughts.

HOT SPOT Week 9

Summer Readers: Keep Sizzlin'

Statesman, philosopher, inventor and printer Benjamin Franklin said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” The $100 bill sometimes is referred to as a “Benjamin” because Franklin’s image appears on it. In today’s world, saving Benjamins (and Georges and Abrahams!) is important. People are learning to be more careful with their money and to live on a budget. Everyone should have a budget: families, businesses and the government alike.We all need long-term and short-term budgets and long and short-term goals for improving the quality of life. This week’s HOT SPOT sponsor, McDonald's, will help you stay within your budget and spend those Benjamins wisely.

This week’s HOT SPOT activity

This week, look for stories in the St. Petersburg Times about individuals who earn large salaries. Make a list of the things you like about that person’s job. Discuss how, if you had the same job, you would do the job in the same or different ways. What would you do with your money? Are you a careful spender? Do you have a savings account? Imagine you have just been paid one million dollars for a brilliant idea. Look in the Times for advertisements or stories about things you would like to buy, as if money were no object. Cut them out and paste into a collage of your “dream” shopping list. If the prices are not listed, research how much each item costs. Now imagine you have one Benjamin, $100, to spend. What item or items could you afford with $100? What would you buy first? Why would you buy these items?  Share your thoughts with others in this blog. Just click on the comment button below to share your thoughts.

If you want to participate in the Summer Reader program, go to tampabay.com/nie/summer for details on how to get started.

HOT SPOT Week 8

Summer Readers: Keep Sizzlin'

Everything that makes up our surroundings and contributes to our ability to live on Earth is part of the natural environment. Protecting our environment is a concern that everyone, no matter what his or her age, can share. We hope this week’s HOT SPOT inspires you to learn about the environment. This week's HOT SPOT sponsor is the Museum of Science & Industry (MOSI).

This week’s HOT SPOT activity

MOSI’s new adventure has quite a bite. Dinosaurs! is a 5,000-square-foot exhibition that brings guests up close to creatures that once roamed the Earth more than 150-million years ago. Did you know that dinosaurs may have sipped the same water molecules you used when you brushed your teeth this morning? There's as much water in the world today as there was thousands of years ago. Actually, it's the same water. During this week, look in the St. Petersburg Times for pictures of things that contain water. Cut or print out all of the pictures you find to create a collage. At the end of the week, write a poem about the images you found and the importance of water in our lives. Post your poem on the cabinet above the sink, on the bathroom mirror or on the refrigerator to remind your family to conserve water. Share your poem with others in this blog. Just click on the comment button below to share your thoughts.

If you want to participate in the Summer Reader program, go to tampabay.com/nie/summer for details on how to get started.

Surrealistic style still sells!

Have you read this week's Hot Spot ad about surrealistic ads and how we still use them today? Here are some surreal ads and a comic from the 7/24/08 Times. Can you identify what type of surreal treatment is being used? Try looking at ads from other days of the week, like Sunday, for even more surreal appeal! Use the comments bar below to tell us the day, page number and what the ad looks like and we will post it here! (Tip: You can click on pictures and they will appear in larger format.)

Phantom of the Opera

Ritz Carlton Resort

Blue Martini

Zits (cartoon panel)

HOT SPOT Week 7

Summer Readers: Keep Sizzlin'

Artist Salvador Dali was a Surrealist, which means he depicted scenes and objects in dreamlike or bizarre fashion. You are probably familiar with his famous “melting clock” image. This week’s HOT
SPOT is all about the world of newspapers and one of newsprint’s greatest fans, Salvador Dalí.

This Week's HOT SPOT activity
As a Surrealist, Salvador Dalí used techniques to challenge people’s ideas of reality. Sometimes the artist would use transformation, turning something familiar into something unusual or disturbing; dislocation, putting something where you wouldn’t expect to see it; and juxtaposition, placing two things near each other that don’t usually go together. One only needs to look through the advertisements in the St. Petersburg Times to see the influence of Surrealism in our culture. Whether it’s a lizard selling car insurance or people playing Frisbee across a mountain range, the techniques of juxtaposition, dislocation and transformation are so familiar to us that we barely even notice them until we step back and consider what’s really going on. During this week, look for photos, cartoons and advertisements that depict a form of Surrealism. Paste the examples you find on a poster board. Create your own style of collage with the art you have found. What is your favorite image? Share your thoughts with others. Share your thoughts with others in this blog. Just click on the comment button below to share your thoughts.

If you want to participate in the Summer Reader program, go to tampabay.com/nie/summer for details on how to get started.

HOT SPOT Week 6

Summer Readers: Keep Sizzlin'

Now that summer is in full swing, you have some free time to enjoy some of the wonderful museums of Tampa Bay. This week’s HOT SPOT, Great Explorations The Children Museum, is one of those museums. At Great Explorations, you will learn about science through creativity, play and exploration.

This week’s HOT SPOT activity

Think about what the bay means to you. Do you like to swim, go fishing or boating, and watch wildlife? Can you think what school subjects and outside activities might prepare you to work in the environment and help to protect it? Look through this week’s St. Petersburg Times, find and clip out as many articles, photographs and graphics as you can that focus on this week’s theme: environment and the Tampa Bay Estuary. What you are creating is called a clip file, which is a collection of articles cut from newspapers and magazines on a particular topic. You can keep these clippings in a file folder or notebook. If you are using the e-Edition of the Times, you can print out the items you find, or make pdfs and create an electronic clip file. You might want to supplement your St. Petersburg Times clip file with articles and pictures you find in other publications or on the Internet. Be sure to include the source and date of your clipping, for history’s sake! What can you do to improve the health of the Tampa Bay Estuary? Share your thoughts with others in this blog. Just click on the comment button below to share your thoughts.

If you want to participate in the Summer Reader program, go to tampabay.com/nie/summer for details on how to get started.

HOT SPOT Week 5

Summer Readers: Keep Sizzlin'

Now that school is out , you have some free time to concentrate on YOU! Summer is a great time to focus on exercise. Do you know what it takes to stay fit and healthy? Reading is a great way to exercise your mind. Moving is a great way to exercise your body. This week’s HOT SPOT focuses on your mind and your body. You can exercise and have fun at this week's HOT SPOT sponsors, YMCA of the
Suncoast, YMCA of Greater St. Petersburg and Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA.

This week ’s HOT SPOT activity

Did you know that more than 60 percent of American adults do not get enough physical activity? Even if you can’t get to the gym five times a week, you could start making small changes in your daily routine, by parking further away at the mall if you drive, or taking the stairs. The St. Petersburg Times is a great place to look for ideas or special events where you can get a fun workout and a nutritious treat. Throughout the week, look in the Times for places to get physical and eat healthfully. Don’t forget to check out the advertisements as well as the articles. Create a list to share with your family and see if you can get everyone off the couch! With all the new knowledge you have, create a health and fitness poster with photos, ads, cartoons or slogans you have found in the Times this week. What’s your favorite form of exercise? Maybe you’ll inspire others to get fit by blogging about it. Just click on the comment button below to share your thoughts.

If you want to participate in the Summer Reader program, go to tampabay.com/nie/summer for details on how to get started.

HOT SPOT Week 4

Summer Readers: Keep Sizzlin'

This week people around the nation will take time from their busy schedules to celebrate Independence Day. This week’s HOT SPOT will take time to honor the important values and rights our forefathers and mothers fought for, including one that is near and dear to every newspaper’s heart, freedom of speech. This week’s HOT SPOT celebrates the United States and its freedoms. Speaking of celebrating, you can celebrate your freedom from school with our HOT SPOT sponsor, Celebration Station.

This week’s HOT SPOT activity

French writer and Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus once wrote, “A free press can of course be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad. . . . Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worse.”  Camus believed that it is your duty as a citizen to stay informed!

As you read the St. Petersburg Times this week, look for articles that cover issues you need to be informed about. Create a chart listing these issues. Which issues do you want to see elected officials address, and how? Make a list of local issues and state issues. Look for news about political candidates in the Times this week. How do the candidates plan to address the issues you care about? Share your ideas with other students across Tampa Bay. Just click on the comment button below and start blogging!

If you want to participate in the Summer Reader program, go to tampabay.com/nie/summer for details on how to get started.

HOT SPOT Week 3

Summer Readers: Keep Sizzlin'

It’s not the heat; it’s the humidity. Florida is known as the Sunshine State, if you’ve ever spent a summer in Florida, you know it also could qualify as the “Hot State.” Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, our state is influenced by warm, tropical moisture, especially in the summer. Florida summer is in full swing, despite the calendar saying it has only been here officially for a few days. Is this making you hot under the collar? If you need to escape the sizzling summer weather, then cool down with this week’s HOT SPOT, Circle K.

This Week's HOT SPOT Activity

Have you noticed summer’s afternoon rainstorms appearing with more regularity? Meteorologists use many tools to forecast and keep close watch on thunderstorms. Your local National Weather Service office has meteorologists and technicians working around the clock to keep an eye on the weather. The weather page on the back of the Sports section in the St. Petersburg Times is a great place to keep an eye on future storms. Go to tampabay.com for immediate updates.

Have you ever wondered how different weather conditions affect your moods? Find out by creating a data chart. You can use the Times weather page to collect data for this activity each day. At the end of the week, use your data to create a line or bar graph. You also can keep a chart of your results. Keep a mood chart, too. Does the weather affect your mood? Share your thoughts with other students across Tampa Bay here at our Summer Times Reader Blog. Just click on the comment button below and start blogging!

If you want to participate in the Summer Reader program, go to tampabay.com/nie/summer for details on how to get started!

HOT SPOT Week 2

Summer Readers: Keep Sizzlin'

Museums are full of things that make you think. In fact the word museum is derived from the Latin term “muses,” meaning “a source of inspiration,” or “to be absorbed in one’s thoughts.” The Florida Holocaust Museum is a source of inspiration. One of the largest Holocaust museums in the country, this museum is dedicated to teaching members of all races and cultures to appreciate the essential value of human life.

This Week's HOT SPOT Activity

Anne Frank is one of the best-known diary writers in history. The young Jewish girl detailed her life in hiding in an attic in Amsterdam during World War II, protected by a Dutch family as Nazis rounded up Jews during the Holocaust. Even in the face of evil around her, she clung to her ideals, “because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

The St. Petersburg Times is a good source for stories about people of all ages helping others. Each day this week, look in your edition’s regional section for local profiles of people who are “truly good at heart.” Make a list of positive characteristics for the people in the articles you find. Do you know  someone who makes a difference for others? Share your stories with other students across Tampa Bay here at our Summer Times Reader Blog. Just click on the comment button below and start blogging!

If you want to participate in the Summer Reader program, go to tampabay.com/nie/summer for details on how to get started!

HOT SPOT Week 1

Summer Readers: Start Sizzlin'!

We are lucky to live in Florida where so much sea life is easily accessible. A walk on a beach, a paddle down a local river or even a peek into a nearby retention pond will expose you to all types of creatures that live in or near the water. You can read in the St. Petersburg Times about the creatures that live in the waters and woods around us and what is being done to protect their habitats.

This week’s Hot Spot activity
If you read this week's Hot Spot activity on Monday, June 9th, you learned about the Coral Reef Gallery at the Florida Aquarium, an artificial reef modeled after the coral formations of the Dry Tortugas off the Florida Keys. Housed in a 500,000-gallon tank, the reef provides the base for a community of more than 1,600 coral reef residents. Artificial reefs provide habitat for all kinds of marine plant and animal life. On land, structures also provide habitat for wildlife. Insects live in and around our homes; birds often nest around buildings or under bridges; mice take shelter in our cities.

Look in the St. Petersburg Times for photos of manmade structures that could make good habitats for animals, birds or plants. Cut out the pictures and write down why these structures make good habitats. If you read something interesting about Florida wildlife this week, be sure to share it with other students across Tampa Bay here at our Summer Times Reader Blog. Just click on the comment button below and start blogging!

If you want to participate in the Summer Reader program, go to tampabay.com/nie/summer for details on how to get started!