Rats and Other Rodents - April 4

Thursday, April 4, 2024

Today is 404 Day, Hug a Newsperson, Carrot Day, Burrito Day, Cordon Bleu Day, NATO Day, Tell a Lie Day, Vitamin C Day, Walk Around ThingsDay, and World Rat Day.

Today's Birthdays
Songs of the Day
Poem of the Day - April is National Poetry Month
Today's Theme: Rats and Other Rodents
Watch

ON THIS DATE

• 1814 - President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia.
• 1941 - Twelve nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
• 1964 - The Beatles hold the top five positions on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.
• 1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee.
• 1973 - The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City are dedicated.

BIRTHDAYS

• 1802 - Nurse and activist Dorothea Dix
• 1869 - Architect Mary Colter
• 1913 - Singer-songwriter and guitarist Muddy Waters
• 1928 - Novelist and poet Maya Angelou

SONGS OF THE DAY 
Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy - LISTEN
Ratt - Round and Round - LISTEN
Beatles - Can't Buy Me Love - LISTEN
Beatles - Twist and Shout - LISTEN
Beatles - She Loves You - LISTEN
Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand - LISTEN
Beatles - Please Please Me - LISTEN

POEMS OF THE DAY 
Maya Angelou - On the Pulse of the Morning
Robert Burns - To a Mouse
Robert Browning - The Pied Piper of Hamelin 

THEME:  Rats and Other Rodents

• Grades PreK-1 - Sesame Street - Miami Mice with The Count (5;03) - VIEW
• Grades K-5 - PBS LearningMedia - Beavers (Available in Spanish) (4:42) - VIEW, READ, DO
• Grades 1-3 - PBS LearningMedia - Wild Kratts - Greatest Creature Builder (1:40) - VIEW and DO
• Grades 1-3 - PBS LearningMedia - Wild Kratts - Building a Beaver Pond (1:49) -VIEW and DO
• Grades 1-5 - PBS LearningMedia - Kratts Creatures - Beavers Have Lumberjack Teeth (2:32) - VIEW 
• Grades 3-12 - PBS LearningMedia - WildTV - Squirrel Rehabilitation (4:44) - VIEW and DO
• Grades 3-6- NHPBS - NatureWorks - Adaptation - Beavers - READ
  
• Grades 3-6- NHPBS - NatureWorks - Adaptation (14:45) - VIEW
• Grades 4-10 - PBS LearningMedia - Prairie Dogs (Available in Spanish) (2:55) - VIEW, READ, DO
• Grades 4-12 - NHPBS - Wildlife Journal Junior - Rodentia - READ
• Grades 6-12 - PBS LearningMedia - Nova -  Do Rats Feel Empathy? (3:33) - VIEW and DO
• Grades 6-12 - PBS LearningMedia - Nature - Rescuing and Relocating Beavers (6:05) - VIEW, READ, DO
• Grades 6-12 - PBS LearningMedia - Deep Look - Watch These Frustrated Squirrels Go Nuts (3:10) - VIEW
• Grades 6-12 - NHPBS Video - Deep Look - Kangaroo Rats Are Furry, Spring-Loaded Ninjas (4:06) - VIEW
  
• Grades 6-12 - NHPBS Video - Nature - Chipmunk Showdown (2:25) - VIEW
• Grades 9-12 - PBS LearningMedia - It's Okay to Be Smart - How Do Squirrels Find Their Nuts? (2:08) - VIEW
• Grades 9-12 - NHPBS Video - It's Okay to Be Smart - Beavers: The Smartest Things in Fur Pants (4:41) - VIEW

WATCH

NHPBS - 11.1 Comcast (2/802) More Options

GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE - Merrimack vs. Academy for Science and Design
Thursday, 4/04 from 7-7:30 pm NHPBS
It's the first game of the GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE quarterfinals. Three-time champion (2023, 2021, 2020) Merrimack High takes on the tough team from the Academy for Science and Design. GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE Streaming Video

NH EXPLORE- 11.2 Comcast (11/801) More Options

CHANGING PLANET - Episodes 1-3
Thursday, 4/04 from 2-5 pm NH EXPLORE
Every year over seven years, conservationist M. Sanjayan anchors a global storytelling effort to monitor seven iconic locations across the planet. Featuring the latest science and emphasizing local voices, each location represents a unique biome and a litmus test for change happening across the planet. CHANGING PLANET Streaming Video

NH WORLD - 11.3 More Options

POETRY IN AMERICA - Walt Whitman
Thursday, 4/04 from 2-2:30 pm NH WORLD
In 1855 Walt Whitman declared "The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem." Poetry In America celebrates the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman's birth with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, playwright Tony Kushner, poets Mark Doty and Marilyn Chin, and a chorus of National Student Poets, discussing Whitman's powerful and timeless work. POETRY IN AMERICA  Streaming Video

POETRY IN AMERICA - Walt Whitman - The Wounded Dresser
Thursday, 4/04 from 2:30-3 pm NH WORLD
Actor David Strathairn, playwright Tony Kushner, composer Matthew Aucoin, opera star Davóne Tines, physician-writers Rafael Campo and Abraham Verghese, and historian Drew Faust discuss how the trauma of the Civil War shaped American history. POETRY IN AMERICA  Streaming Video

POETRY IN AMERICA - Richard Blanco - Looking for the Gulf Hotel
Thursday, 4/04 from 3-3:30 pm NH WORLD
Richard Blanco's poem "Looking for The Gulf Motel" transports readers to 1970s Florida, recalling a Cuban-American family’s vacations on the sparkling sands of Marco Island. Blanco and international superstar Gloria Estefan join a chorus of Cuban American adults in Miami, and middle school students in New York City to reflect on family and what it means to call a place home. POETRY IN AMERICA  Streaming Video

POETRY IN AMERICA - A.R. Ammons - Cascadilla Falls
Thursday, 4/04 from 3:30-4 pm NH WORLD
Picking up a hand-sized stone near a rushing waterfall, the speaker of A.R. Ammons’s poem “Cascadilla Falls” is catapulted into the cosmos. Planetary scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton, composer DJ Spooky, geologist Daniel Schrag, poet Joshua Bennett, CEO Larry Berger, and philosopher Rebecca consider Ammons’s window onto the vast workings of the universe. POETRY IN AMERICA  Streaming Video

POETRY IN AMERICA - Evie Shockley - You Can Say That Again, Billie
Thursday, 4/04 from 4-4:30 pm NH WORLD
Billie Holiday’s haunting song “Strange Fruit” winds beneath the unsettling, satiric humor of Evie Shockley’s poem “you can say that again, billie.” Shockley, jazz singer Cassandra Wilson, historian Robin D.G. Kelley, actor LisaGay Hamilton, novelist Beverly Lowry, and radio host Nick Spitzer discuss the history of racism, violence, and artistic tradition in the American South. POETRY IN AMERICA  Streaming Video

POETRY IN AMERICA - Robert Frost - Mending Wall
Thursday, 4/04 from 4:30-5 pm NH WORLD
Do good fences really make good neighbors? Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” asks surprising questions about the role of walls in civil society. Host Elisa New gathers Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, author Julia Alvarez, political commentator David Gergen, Frost biographer and poet Jay Parini, poet Rhina Espaillat, and former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith to delve into this classic poem. POETRY IN AMERICA  Streaming Video

Pressroom Contact

Carla Gordon Russell
Director of Communications
crussell@nhpbs.org
(603) 868-4339