Weekly Cleaning Chart

The other night, my new roomies and I decided on a chore list. I delegated myself to making the list! I really like to do organizing projects, so this was fun for me. Since I had been working so hard on my Benchmark Interview (entrance into student teaching), which I had yesterday and passed, I decided to take time out and work on this chart last night. These are my results:

I found these little animals on a free clipart site. They were too cute to pass up. It just helps make the clothespins more individualized.

Nail Polish + Eye Shadow

 A friend of my family's (Nita) gave me a fun little activity to do. Since I had been feeling really crafty lately, but haven't had a whole lot of time to do anything!

Here are the basic steps:
1) White nail polish (must have ball to mix)
2) Eye shadow (color of your choice)
3) Crush eye shadow
4) Transfer eye shadow into bottle of nail polish (this may be a little tricky, you may want to have a piece of paper underneath to catch what doesn't go in the bottle.
5) Shake, Shake, Shake!

The color comes out matted, so when you put it on it is best that you put a clear coat of polish over it.

Here are my pictures from the adventure: Roommate Dani helped out!

 Note: the color will be lighter than you actually chose, and it may appear a little unmixed in the bottle at first, but just keep shaking it! Anyways, I chose to put a dark purple and pink!

Illustration Research

Here I am in the library for the umpteenth time this semester already. This time, I am in the juvenile section.. oooooo. :P Anyways, I have been doing some research for my Children's Literature class. I am enjoying looking at all of the books. Among the thousands of books to look at (I wish I had time to read them all) I found a few cute ones that I thought I'd post. Mainly just for my memory.

 Library Mouse

Library Mouse is a story about a mouse named Sam that lives in a little hole in the library. He sits and waits all day long, then at night he comes out and reads all sorts of books. One night, he decided that he would write his own. So, the next few days, the mouse produced many little handmade books that the adults, children, and librarian loved. The only problem was, they didn't know who Sam was. The library left a note asking Sam to come in and do a "Meet the Author" day. Sam was confused as to why the others thought it was so difficult to write stories of their own... so, Sam set out a tissue box with a mirror inside and a banner saying "Meet the Author". This encouraged the children to create their own stories.

There's a Cow in the Cabbage Patch

 

This one is just a really cute rhyming book with great felt illustrations. It's kind of catchy too.

"There's a cow in the cabbage patch, moo, moo, moo!" "She should be in the dairy, what shall we do?" There's a dove in the dairy, coo, coo, coo!" "He should be in the birdhouse, what shall we do?"

Ducks' Don't Wear Socks

This books is about a little girl that starts out being very serious and meets a very un-serious duck, who does ridiculous things that he enjoys without being embarrassed about being himself. In the end, the girl learns to not take things so seriously and starts enjoying life and finally smiles.








Well, there ya' have it. I have been looking at books for far too long! (But, also not long enough... I could do this all day) But, I really need to get going on other homework.

Last First Day

Well, it is now my last first day of classes. As far as undergraduate goes. I had my first class at 11:15am which was Children's Literature. I have to say, I am very excited about this course. I think it will be very beneficial in associating literature and history. Today wasn't like how first days are expected to be, the professor runs through the syllabus quickly and tries to get everyone out as soon as possible. Nope, not like that at all today. I think that's a reason why I appreciate this class so far. The professor is serious about teaching this subject and wants to give an outlook on what class is going to be like for the rest of the semester. If you don't like the topics and conversation, than you can get out ASAP. Like I said before, I think this class is going to help me in the long run and get me thinking about how to incorporate reading into art projects. 

Today we did an overview of Children's Literature and the comparison of how children were viewed in the past to today. In the past, knowledge of history was taught orally because of a lack of a printing press and literacy (which was confined to a small portion of elitists). Children before the 15th century were seen as vile, dirty, and economically draining and in the words of my professor, "Evil Mini Adults."  Whereas today, children are now being sought to educate the adults. Learning from their innocence to reform our culture based on their lack of culture. Because of the industrial revolution and the printing press there became more opportunities for "common" people to learn. This also gave a wider horizon of book possibilities. Children in the past were basically shunned from reading books because they were based upon adult knowledge and the adults did not want to spoil their purity.

That's about all we covered today. We were also told that there will be a project that will be a major portion of our grade. There are three options to this: One, doing story-time sessions for an elementary school class with a paper at the end. Two, an analytical research essay. Or three, write and illustrate a book along with a proposal. Even though the last option is going to be the most labor intensive, I think I already have an idea for a book that I would like to talk with the professor about doing. I have to meet with her before hand in order to get the project approved though. Cross your fingers that all goes well. :) I was also thinking that this might be a good addition to my senior show. 

Anyways, I have now just finished my lunch and wanted to share with you my first day in my first blog. Off to Printmaking in a little while!