This week at my art class I read A House is a House for Me and The Two Sillies, both by Mary Ann Hoberman, but each illustrated by a different illustrator. Mary Ann Hoberman writes very fun rhyming stories. I also like The Seven Silly Eaters which has delightful illustrations by Marla Frazee.

A House is a House for Me would be a good book to use for a unit study about habitats. It explores all kinds of houses in a very fun way. It was illustrated by Betty Fraser. The illustrations are very detailed and can be enjoyed through several readings with new things to discover each time. I like them more each time I read it. I pointed out to the children in my class that many of the pictures in the book included stippling, which is a way of shading pictures with dots when you are drawing with ink.

The Two Sillies, illustrated by Lynne Cravath, is a very silly story as you might expect. The pictures are fabulous, full of color and drawn beautifully. I pointed out that there was some crosshatching in the pictures.
We did an art project involving lines in pen and ink.

Wabi Sabi, by Mark Reibstein (author), illustrations by Ed Young

Last week at the library, my 4 year old son found a gem of a book.  It was a quick trip so I just put it in our bag and didn’t get a good look at it until we got home.  Wow.  It is beautiful.  I am completely charmed by the illustrations and the story.  I highly recommend this to all parents who read to their children and to art teachers.  I took it to an art lesson I teach to children and read it to them.  We talked about the pictures and the message of the book, then we did some collage pictures.  The children were very interested in the book and seemed inspired when they sat down to do their own art.

Lera Boroditsky, an assistant professor of psychology, neuroscience and symbolic systems at Stanford University,  wrote a fascinating paper about her research into how language shapes the way we think.

HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK? [6.12.09

I read a few interesting articles tonight:

I enjoyed this article about the placebo effect.  It’s good to be reminded how much our attitude can affect our health.

Steve Pavlina has a blog about personal development that I look at regularly.  He  wrote about climate change and I was surprised to learn what an impact the meat industry has on the environment.

And then, I really liked this book review from the New York Times.  My favorite quote:  “If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer, then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe — conceivably — the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity.”

My dd6 asked me how paper is made. We watched a few clips on youtube and this is our favorite.  Now she wants to make some paper right away.

If you want to change your status from an armchair writer (ahem) to a productive, real writer, here are some great tips.

We had an errand to run in Encinitas so I checked to see what there was to do while we were up there and found a treasure.  I paid for admission, and by the time we were done looking around I decided we had to have a membership.  My kids love this place and they ask me often when we are going to go there again.  It isn’t a huge place, but it is big enough for many lovely twists and turns.  And the children’s garden is wonderful.  They have some great programs for kids.  I am very impressed and am hoping it will make a greenthumb out of me somehow.

Here’s a story from the BBC about a judge in Australia who just couldn’t admit he was speeding.  How absolutely sad.  Just think how different it would have been for him if he had just said, “I’m sorry”  and paid the fine.

An article on the BBC news page had some advice for memorizing numbers.  This might make the pain of memorizing math facts more fun.  We’ll have to try it.

My dd6 is extremely interested in Arabic lately.  My dh knows some Arabic and taught her a few letters and she loves it.  It has made her curious about all things Arabic.  I found a website called Islamic Playground that has a few games she can play to learn the Arabic alphabet.

I also found a great system for teaching the arabic alphabet based on the shapes of the letters, called the Abjad System.  It is interesting to see the way the letters are arranged here.