Five on Friday: Picture Perfect

I love rounding up my favorite finds on the internet and sharing them with you on Fridays. Here are some of this week’s treasures:

One.

Via my friend, MaryAnn’s, blog:

Creative Dad Takes Crazy Photos of Daughters

Loose tooth!

Two.

Ya gotta love this one!

Family Sings “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the Way to School

Three.

Love this new blog! Fashion, beauty, accessories, interior design, parties, food, music, AND New York!!!!! It’s like they called me and asked what kind of blog I’d most like to see out in the blogosphere. Heaven!

StyleWhipped

Four.

I found this one last week, but I didn’t do a Five on Friday post, so I’ll throw it in here. This blogging bride entrusted her wedding plans to her blog readers (like Today Show Plans a Wedding where viewers pick everything from invitations to honeymoon locale.) Check out The Very Bloggy Wedding!

Five.

Where the Twinkie meets the road!

A family friend went to The Biggest Loser Resort in Utah for 8 weeks and chronicled his experiences in a very honest blog, Drop That Twinkie. The pictures of the hikes he did (all 48 of them!!!) are breathtaking. It made me want to sign up for the program and get on the first plane to Utah!

Five on Friday: Books by Bloggers (or what’s on my bedside table)

The internet is a wondrous thing. It’s hard to imagine life without the ability to connect with people through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other online avenues. Blogging, especially, gives readers an opportunity to bear witness to stories they would not have known about otherwise. Over the last few years, I have followed several blogs written by women with compelling stories – a baby is born with Down Syndrome; a plane crash nearly orphans four children; a little girl with an unusual syndrome inspires a family to start a foundation to fight blindness. I have also had the pleasure of reading the works of fantastic writers – poignant, humorous, inspiring stories that would have been lost to me if not for the world-wide web. This spring, some of my favorite bloggers published books, and I wanted to share them with you today. {Click each book for a link to Amazon.}

One.

Stephanie Nielson had a picture book life: a handsome husband, four beautiful children, and a loving extended family. She chronicled her life as a mom on Nie Nie Dialogues, sharing the little things she did each day to fill her children’s lives with love and laughter. Then, in August of 2008, the plane in which she and her husband were flying crashed in Arizona, and Stephanie’s storybook life almost ended. Her book Heaven is Here, is a testament to the power of unwavering faith and abundant love. (Stephanie and her family were featured in People Magazine a few weeks ago.)

Two.

Photographer Kelle Hampton also had a storybook life with her handsome husband (hmmm, should probably get one of those), his two sons, and their daughter, Lainey. They lived in sunny Florida, and Kelle gave readers a glimpse into life-beside-the-sea through her blog, Enjoying the Small Things. When she gave birth to her second daughter, Nella Cordelia (love her name!), Kelle could tell there was something different about her. It wasn’t long before her doctor confirmed it: Nella had Down Syndrome. Filled with photographs, Kelle’s book will resonate with anyone who knows that life doesn’t always turn out the way you planned. Sometimes it’s even better than you could’ve imagined.

Three.

Rachel Bertsche was a newlywed when she moved to Chicago with her husband, leaving her BFFs behind in New York City. Although happily settled into her new life, Rachel missed the companionship of friends she could call for brunch on Sunday morning or a last-minute pedicure, and she knew she would need a shoulder to cry on if/when she and Matt had their first fight as a married couple. (Before moving to Chicago, Rachel was a writer and editor at O, The Oprah Magazine and had written articles for The Huffington Post, New York Magazine, and Teen Vogue, among others, giving her bona-fide writing creds)} She pitched an idea to a publisher: she would embark on a search for her new best friend, documenting 52 girl dates on a blog. Her book, MWF Seeking BFF, was published in December of 2011, and I absolutely loved reading it. Her writing is sublime, and her insights into what makes friendships tick are spot-on.

Four.

Jenny Lawson writes The Bloggess, the blog I wish I had written, and her book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened should arrive at my house on Monday. I can’t wait! You kind of have to read Jenny’s blog to get the full effect, but this is how she describes herself and her writing on the About Me page on her blog:

I write for Good Mom/Bad Mom on the Houston Chronicle, but I needed an uncensored space to say the f-word and talk about ninjas so I started this blog.  If you know me in real life you might not want to be here.  I also write a satirical sex column, a parenting column that will make you wish you’d decided to just stick with dogs and I twitter a lot.  Also, I can balance live cats on my head but no one will pay me for it.  Yet. I have a book coming out in 2012. I assure you, no one is more surprised about this than me.

Until my book arrives, I’m going to reread this post about Beyoncé, the giant metal chicken.

Five.

Anne Lamott was writing long before the internet was invented. Her book, Operating Instructions, is one of the most honest books about first-time parenting you’ll ever read. Anne also writes about writing and faith and finding your way in the complex world in which we live, and she does it with humor and grace. In the long-awaited follow-up to the journal of her son’s first year (in which she declared, “I’m probably just as good a mother as the next repressed, obsessive-compulsive paranoiac,”)  she and her son, Sam, co-wrote Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son. I just started it, and I’ve re-fallen in love with Anne’s way with words and her courage to tell it like it really, truly is. (Anne doesn’t have a blog, so if you want to read some of her writing, just Google her name.)

What are you reading? Let me know in the comments. I’m going to need a new stack of books soon!

P. S. Did you know that books have trailers now? Here is Rachel’s trailer for MWF.

Edited to add: My copy of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened arrived early!!! 🙂

Five on Friday: Warm and Fuzzy (and a critique)

One.

A dream is a wish your heart makes, and Lesley Carter’s blog aims to fulfill people’s dreams one bucket list item at a time. Her Bucket List Publication Online Magazine publishes articles about people accomplishing their own bucket lists – from exotic travel experiences to skydiving thrills. Over the last 6 months, readers have submitted their bucket lists to the website, and the author and her team (hubby Darren) are making their dreams come true, aided by contributions from readers. They recently helped a reader, Len, check off an item on his bucket list: riding in a Rolls Royce limo. Check it out:

Ride of a lifetime!

Two.

Just one word: brava!

Ashley Judd fights back.

Three.

The up side of social media and the internet: you get to find out about stuff like this. Pure joy!

Caine's Arcade

Four.

What did we do before time wasters like this? I guess we stood around the water cooler, talking about last night’s episode of Friends or dissecting the latest John Grisham novel (I’m reaching waaaay back here.) It’s hard not to get caught up surfing through a site like this because it’s just so darned clever!

This sloth kind of feels like you should update your blog more frequently.

Five.

Here’s a blog post about one of my favorite local designers, Sally Wheat. I love Sally (I taught her daughter two years ago) and I adore her style. Calm and soothing plus quirky and edgy – no one can pull that off like Sally!

Sally Wheat's living room

Worth Mentioning: My Cake School

Y’all know how much I love Cake Wrecks, an ingenious blog dedicated to misdecorated cakes of all shapes and sizes. I especially love the grammatically incorrect ones. I blame the teachers.

Anyway, today I came across a website called My Cake School. Cake decorator, Melissa Diamond, films cake and cupcake decorating tutorials in her home. From a simple granache-topped spider web cake to elaborate Mother Goose cupcakes, you, too can learn how to create colorful confections that will dazzle your party guests! All for the outrageously low fee of $30/year!!!

And look at these darling owl cupcakes:

{The little minister owl is made out of a Rice Krispy Treat!}

Check out the blog here. You can view pictures from some of the tutorials. You can preview two of the videos on the website here.

{I do not benefit in any way from promoting this site. I don’t even like cake. That’s not true, but I remain an uncompensated, enthusiastic endorser of this product!}

Worth Mentioning: Online Artisans

Alternately titled: On My Love of Online Shopping

I love to shop at stores like Ikea, HomeGoods, and Target. Also Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, and West Elm. And Home Source (great imported furniture), Louis Shanks, Danish Inspirations, Mitchell Gold-Bob Williams, Ethan Allen, and Kuhl-Linscomb. Basically, I love to shop for anything related to home furnishings and interior design.

I also like to buy accessories and artwork that you can’t find in any of the aforementioned stores. One of my favorite resources for artwork and accessories is etsy.com. I can usually find pieces that are unique, and I like supporting small businesses, so many of which are owned by women.

Some of my favorite online artisans are madebygirl, annechovie, and milkandcookies.

I have this poster from Jen Ramos at madebygirl:

I haven’t bought a frame for it yet (will probably get one at Ikea) but I plan to hang it in my office. I also like these prints:

You can only get one name on the ABC name print, or I would have sent one to Anna Jane. Rats. The LOVE poster comes in a variety of colors, as do most of Jen’s artwork. Jen also has a fun blog.

I adore these pillows from milkandcookies:

And these:

I think I could have an entire closet devoted to pillow storage so I could rotate my pillows seasonally. Or  monthly.

Anne Harwell’s (Annechovie) art was featured in It’s Complicated, a movie I watched solely for the interiors. This print is hanging on a bathroom wall in one of the character’s homes:

I also love these:

You may have seen this a few places:

As far as I know, the design was originally Anne’s (well, not the original British WWII poster, but the modern art!) Anne’s blog is here.

I was recently introduced to an artist from Montreal, Eve, who sells her art at etsy under evajuliet:

I simply must have this one, but I don’t know, en Francais ou Anglais? Really, I don’t know! Help me decide!

I could use one of those prints in every room in my house! Helena, a British blogger, is celebrating her one year blogging anniversary with some great giveaways, including art from Annechovie and Eva & Juliet, both of which I entered. I’ve never won a giveaway before; perhaps this will be my first time!

Another online artisan is Em Tanner of emtannerdesigns. I first saw her initial and big sibling/little sibling t-shirts in a local shop, Petite Maison. Em’s wares have been featured in magazines and on the Today Show and on shows like Jon and Kate + 8 (before it all went to hell in a handbasket!)

She has the cutest backpacks, water bottles, and now, iPhone and iPad covers:

She doesn’t have a cover for DROID yet (the manufacturer doesn’t make one) but she’s working on it! The second she does, I’m ordering it in the green polka dot (or maybe blue). I am a fan of Em’s on FB, and I swear, that girl is constantly working and blogging and mothering and facebooking – I think she must get about 3 hours of sleep a night! I wish I had her energy. Recently, people have been making cheap knockoffs of Em’s work. Jen from madebygirl has had the same problem. I certainly hope Anne from Annechovie licensed all of those Keep Calm and Carry On products!

In conclusion (haven’t written that transitional phrase since high school), shop online artisans for unique wares. Great for gifts for yourself or for others. Support small businesses while stimulating the economy. It’s a win-win, right?

Worth Mentioning: My Happy Blogs

 

{MadeByGirl’s Etsy Shop}

This little poster sums it up quite nicely. I really enjoy reading blogs, and if I can do my blog-reading with a Grande, Two Sweet ‘n Low Latte from Starbucks, even better!

Although I have a few friends in real life who blog, most of the blogs I read are written by complete strangers. I like getting a glimpse into the lives of people I never would have “met” if not for this newfound obsession. I have many of my favorite design/lifestyle bloggers in my blogroll, but there are a few blogs I’ve come across lately that I want to highlight. Some are in the house/design category, some in the humor category, and some are just unique expressions of people’s creativity. People are just so clever, and I’m amazed by the many ways in which these writers channel their passions and their gifts into something that makes me smile each day.

This new mom imagines what her daughter is dreaming about during naptime and creates photoshoots that capture whimsical little moments:

{Mila’s Daydreams}

Neil really turned lemons into lemonade with this blog about appreciating the awesome (thanks, Sarah P. H., for pointing me in the direction of this one):

{1000 Awesome Things}

Then there’s the perennially funny Cake Wrecks. Jen and her husband John not only track down the best wrecks in the business but also add snort-worthy captions to boot:

{Cake Wrecks}

I wish I were as clever as Molly, who writes this newish blog about the exciting lives of the people who live in our catalogs:

{Catalog Living}

Julia has a wonderful website dedicated to all manner of houses, but my favorite category on her blog is the one about bad MLS photos:

{Hooked on Houses} 

Do you have any sure-fire pick-me-up blogs?

Happy reading! 

{Linking to Melissa’s Inspired By party}

Worth Mentioning: A Popular Principal, Wounded by Government’s Good Intentions

This article breaks my heart and makes my blood boil – is it possible for those things to happen simultaneously?

Joyce Irvine worked her tail off to develop a positive, stimulating, creative environment in which students – many of whom were refugees – flourished. But because of low test scores and the district’s desire to apply for 3 million dollars in federal assistance, Ms. Irvine was removed from her principalship.

This article is an apt, if unfortunate, follow-up to last week’s Worth Mentioning post. Here is an example of an educator who worked tirelessly to advance her students’ skills and creativity but, caught up in the accountability game, couldn’t continue her quest for excellence in her field. No doubt, the school’s budding arts program – violin lessons and playwriting – will be replaced by kill and drill to increase test scores. Kill creativity, drill testing procedures. Kill a love of learning, drill  facts and figures.

It is impossible to net good test scores when the students who are taking the tests arrived at your school yesterday from another country. Impossible. If the students are young enough upon entrance and remain at the school for several years, you might, over time, gross acceptable test scores. But we are impatient in education – we want results now.

Children are not sieves through which we can pour knowledge, expecting gold nuggets to appear magically. It takes time, perseverance, and imagination to extract the best from our students, time Ms. Irvine apparently did not have.

If she had taken a more “traditional” approach and focused on “basic skills”, hammering phonics, fact memorization, and test-taking tricks, eliminating art, music, and recess, as so many schools have done, the children might have spent more time on task and achieved higher test scores.  But at what price?

I am not arguing against accountability in our school systems. I am arguing against a one size fits all approach. Children who have had the foundation for learning right from the start should demonstrate a greater level of skill than children who have not had such an advantage. And children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds should have the opportunity – and the tools – to catch up to their peers. The problem is that children with advantages have so many; even simple experiences, like going to the zoo or playing in the park, having books in the home, and engaging in conversations with adults help children develop a strong vocabulary, which leads to increased reading, writing, and thinking skills.

Imagine the difference in experience between a child who recently emigrated from a war-torn country in Africa and a child who takes horseback riding lessons, goes to summer camp, and spends vacations with her family in Mexico. Now throw both of those children into a standardized testing situation – which one do you think will be more successful? I know this sounds crazy, but I wish we had separate but equal accountability systems, a process by which all schools could be fairly evaluated, according to the needs of the students they serve.

I am frustrated. I am frustrated because our education system seems to care more about test scores than about children. I am frustrated because due to No Child Left Behind, creativity often takes a back seat to productivity. I am frustrated because an educator who was passionate about children, innovative in her approach, and willing to work harder than expected is going to start the 2010-2011 school year behind a desk in a central admin building instead of in the hallways of an elementary school.

I hope the new principal of this elementary school will be as passionate, innovative, and hardworking as Ms. Irvine was. I hope the students reap benefits from a change in leadership – and the $3 million that comes with it. I also hope the children don’t lose opportunities to develop their own passion and creativity in the rat race to churn out higher test scores.

 

Worth Mentioning: The Creativity Crisis

Have you seen this article by the authors of Nurture Shock? It’s in the most recent edition of Newsweek.

I was surprised to read this:

Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.

And this:

In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.

This article confirms what I’ve suspected for a long time: the standards-and-accountability (i. e. high-stakes testing) environment in America is actually hampering educational progress. Some of this is because teachers feel pressured to ensure their kids do well on standardized tests and simply can’t extricate themselves from “teaching to the test”. I have never taught upper grades in elementary school because of this, and I don’t really blame teachers for feeling that their hands are tied.

We have also pushed down the curriculum, because (ironically) enriched environments are making kids smarter, so they are able to handle more difficult curricula at an earlier age. The standard these days is for kids to learn how to read in kindergarten; obviously, to varying degrees of success, but it’s still the standard. At my school, we are moving toward expecting kids to know their addition and subtraction facts by the end of first grade and their multiplication facts by the end of second (national standards place these benchmarks in higher grades.) Yes, it’s true that most of the kids I teach are highly capable learners and should meet this expectation, but I wonder if we are not emphasizing mastery of basic facts over acquisition of skills in creativity, flexiblity, and real-life problem-solving (not word problems or textbook-generated problems.)

I especially liked when the authors talked about creativity not just being in art class. While I appreciate the arts (visual, dramatic, and musical) and want my students to develop their artistic skills, the classroom is my canvas, my stage. I am creative in my teaching, and I function best when I can collaborate with others to plan lessons that will stimulate my students’ creativity and thinking.

When we were studying geometry this year, I got out the geometric solids (wooden cubes, pyramids, cylinders, spheres, cones, rectangular prisms, etc.) for the first time and let my students play with them before I taught them the terminology of faces, vertices, and edges. One group turned the blocks into a bowling alley, using a ramp made out of a dry erase board to explore whether or not each block rolled, stacked, or slid. Boy, did they have fun, and it was loud! I debated in my head whether or not to let it continue – should I tell them “that’s not how I want you to use the blocks” and direct them to a more quiet, focused activity?

I decided to let them continue bowling (and turned off my hearing aids so I wouldn’t hear the laughing and screaming!) Of course, other groups caught on, and soon most of the kids were bowling with the blocks. I chose to let their creativity be their guide and see what happened when we sat down as a group to discuss what they had learned about the blocks. I figured if they didn’t learn what they were supposed to know, I could redo the activity with more guidance.

To my delight, when we sat down to talk about the features of each three-dimensional shape, they rattled them off – which ones could stack and slide but not roll, why some rolled in a straight line and some “spun around” when they rolled, how many faces, vertices, and edges each one had, and I think all of the kids raised their hands to contribute to the discussion instead of just the ones who usually “get it” before everyone else does.

I asked them where they had learned the information, and they said, “You taught us.” I then asked, “Did I really?” I  pointed out that they had turned our classroom into a bowling alley (surely not what I had planned for the math lesson!) but that I had chosen to let their creativity flourish instead of imposing my vision for their exploration. I told them I had experimented to see what would happen if I let them “go” and how pleased I was that they had learned exactly what the Teacher’s Guide wanted them to learn. 

I truly believe that when they revisit geometry in third grade, my students will remember bowling with the blocks and will be able to recall the mathematics because they were allowed to be creative with the materials.  We’ll see if my theory holds up!