Updated August 30/2010
New Articles of Interest For Teachers
songs@songsforteaching.com.
Our new
Songs
for Teaching® Blog is filled with useful and timely tips
from our contributors. See our newest articles:
Journal Writing in Early Childhood by Tonya Wright
The Educational Value of Fingerplays by Maryann "Mar." Harman
Using Shakers to Teach Important Concepts by Rachel Rambach
Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! by Jamie McElroy
Celebrate St. Patrick's Day! by Marla Lewis
Transportation and Safety Activities by Karen Rupprecht & Pam Minor
Multiplication Skip-Counting Games by Joyce Paultre
Also in our partner site, Literacy Connections:
Choosing Books for Preschoolers by Tonya Wright
Top 15 Best Movie Sequels http://listverse.com/2007/11/09/top-15-best-movie-sequels/
Top 10 Worst Movie Sequels http://listverse.com/2010/05/20/top-10-worst-movie-sequels/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheListUniverse+%28The+List+Universe%29
Index
Artistic uses for ordinary things Aug 25/10
find TV online Aug 23/10
Fun Tourist Attractions Aug 30/10
Metacritic Aug 9/10
1960 Flashback Aug 9/10
Pencil Sketch Aug 9/10
Shelfari Aug 9/10
Worldwide telescope Aug 9/10
Welcome to Fun Tourist Attractions! This website is devoted to giving you a glimpse into traveling, either before you book, or from your armchair with their Visual Tour Guide!
How does it work? Just click on one of the tourist attractions listed on the page from the featured pictures, or scroll down and select a location from the listing beneath them.
Once you’ve clicked on a destination, you'll be taken to its main page where you will find: Top Attractions, Good Attractions, and Popular Attractions. There is also a navigation menu for that destination on the left side of the page, it allows you to filter out attractions by: All, Cultural, Historical, Architectural, Restaurants, Active, Shopping, and Night Life. That makes it much easier for you to focus on what you want to do at a destination.
When you click into a specific location you will get pictures, a text description, maps, and even videos of the location. They even include recent blog posts about that location.
This site is a really useful tool for planning a vacation or just armchair travelling from your computer! Check it out today!
http://www.funtouristattractions.com/
Another 10 Artistic Uses of Ordinary Things
Posted: 14 Jun 2010 12:51 PM PDT
Artists see the world differently than other people. It is this special view of the world that makes them outstanding in their various fields. This list shows another ten artists who used their special perspectives to create unique works of art from otherwise mundane objects. If you have other suggestions for other artists that I should add to this list, feel free to add them in the comments.
10
Watermelons
Takashi Itoh is a Japanese food sculptor who specializes in carving amazing
designs on watermelons. The idea came to him after he saw a watermelon sculpture
at a Thai culture festival. Duly inspired, he started teaching himself how to
carve the fruit, and three weeks later, he mastered the craft. His carvings,
which can take up to ninety minutes to complete, include dragons, slogans,
cranes, tortoises and a series of athletic designs inspired by the 2008 Beijing
Olympics. He even made a self-portrait of himself on the fruit. For more of
Itoh’s delicious art, go
to his website.
9
Matchsticks
Scottish artist David Mach is a highly innovative artist who has created many
extraordinary artworks from ordinary materials, such as postcards, bricks and
coat hangers. His recent works include a series of 3D portraits of famous icons
like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, made from thousands of colored
matchsticks. The sculptures were made by painstakingly gluing matches, with the
tip facing outward to a fiberglass mold. Thus, the sculptures can take 500 hours
to complete, although occasionally after finishing a sculpture, Mach torches his
work and lets it burst into flames, as a fitting finale to his flammable art.
For more of his fascinating works, go
to his site.
8
Phonebooks
Alex Queral, from Philadelphia, is a sculptor with a difference. He creates
portraits of famous people from discarded phonebooks. He does this by first
making a freehand sketch of the person he will carve. Using the sketch as a
template, he then places it over the phonebook and starts carving the face into
the pages using an artist’s scalpel or razor blades. ‘It can be quite tense work
sometimes because it takes a long time to finish and when you cut something away
you can’t get it back again. Nearing the end of the carving and then suddenly
having it ruined by a careless cut can be pretty crushing. You have to start all
over again,’ said Queral. He now makes up to two new carvings each month and has
produced carvings of Barack Obama, Jack Nicholson and the Dalai Lama on the
discarded books. For more photos, go
here.
7
Corrugated Cardboard
Mark Langan, a self-taught artist, has perfected the art of using corrugated
cardboard to create intricate sculptural pictures. Each of Langan’s pieces was
visualized using no computer rendering; a simple sketch is used. Each artwork
entails cutting, layering and sealing the individual pieces using nontoxic glue.
Not only is the finished work beautiful, but it is totally
environmentally-friendly. To see more of his artwork, go
to his site.
6
Hard Drives
Miguel Rivers, a systems administrator, creates beautifully complex metal
sculptures from used computer hard drives. Rivera’s first project was a car out
of 33 standard 3.5-inch hard drives, which took an entire weekend to make. Now,
he has created other cars, motorcycles and robot-like figures out of the
metallic medium. For more photos, go
here.
5
Dollars
At the O.H.W.O.W. gallery in Miami, Florida, Scott Campbell, a Louisiana tattoo
artist, showed his works, with the highlight of the exhibit being a series of
laser-cut carvings made on several stacks of dollar bills. The unique collection
contains designs that showcase Campbell’s distinct tattooing style, including a
thorned rose, the Virgin Mary, and a handgun. For more pictures as well as a
sampling of Campbell’s tattoo art, visit his
website.
4
Tortillas
Los Angeles artist Joe Bravo is a painter. Nothing unusual about that, except
that his choice of canvas is not paper, but flour tortillas. He first dries the
tortillas naturally or by using an oven, then varnishes both sides so that it
could be painted on with acrylic. After finishing a work, he protects the image
from moisture by coating it with more varnish. His paintings are often inspired
by the texture and burn marks present on the tortillas themselves. Bravo has
created tasty images of famous icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Che Guevara, Ronald
McDonald and La Virgin de Guadalupe. He has earned such a reputation from his
tortilla art that he has sold some of his works for more than $3,000. For more
of his yummy art, visit his
site.
3
Crayons
Herb Williams, from Tennesee, creates whimsical sculptures and installations out
of that kindergarten classroom staple, crayons. He uses up to 250,000 crayons
for his artworks. Because of this, his studio is filled from top to bottom with
boxes of 3,000 single-color crayons, and he is one of the only individuals in
the world with an account with Crayola, where he gets most of his materials. For
more of his colorful art, go here.
2
Old reference books
Brian Dettmer, from Atlanta, Georgia, resurrects old reference books into
beautifully intricate masterpieces. In a process that he calls a ‘book autopsy’,
Dettmer seals the edges of the books he uses before performing ‘surgery’ on
their pages. Using surgical tools like scalpels and tweezers, he dissects
sections of the book’s text, leaving interesting text and illustrations intact.
Nothing is added or altered, only removed, so everything that’s left is in its’
original place in the book. Titles that were ‘operated’ on by Dettmer includes
‘Household Physician’ and ‘Webster’s New International Dictionary’. For more
photos, go here.
1
Light
Lichtfaktor is the name of a group of graffiti artists based in Cologne,
Germany. Only these graffiti artists don’t work with spray paints: they use
flashlights, neon tubes, glowsticks, LEDs and other mobile sources of light to
create dazzling shapes and brilliant swirls, that illuminate dreary cities with
their momentary glow. Then, using a special camera with a long exposure, the
group captures these light ‘sketches’ to preserve them for future appreciation.
The group, comprising of graffiti artists Tim Feshke and David Lupschen, and
video engineer Marcel Panne, also make videos of their art, using stop-motion
animation to make their light graffiti come alive. In one particular video,
entitled ‘Star Wars vs. Star Trek’, Tim and David made trash cans come alive,
staged a fantastic light saber fight, and ‘teleported’ themselves through the
gloomy streets of Germany. For more of their bright art, go
here.
TV
Welcome to TV.com, a site where you can find TV online!
You can watch your favorite television programs online, connect with other fans
of the shows you love, and get the latest TV news!
Navigation is pretty easy; just click Shows along the menu at the top to find
your favorite TV shows. Or you can use the search field and just type in the
name of what you’re looking for and then click the search button.
To connect with the community check out the Forums section. There you’ll find
community announcements, favorite blogs, and the most recent posts in the
forums.
If you’re looking for News, Listings, Photos, or People then you’ll need to
click More on the navigation strip. Those sections will then show up on a drop
down menu and you can click into them from there.
To get the most out of the site it is recommended that you register.
Registration allows you to write reviews, guides, and more. Just click the Join
link in the top right corner of the site, fill out the form or use Facebook to
Fconnect and login.
I think that this is a neat way to stay in the loop about what’s going on – on
the television!
http://www.tv.com/
~Amanda
Metacritic
Metacritic is the
prime place to get critical reviews for DVDs, Games, Movies, Music, and
Television.
I suggest starting your visit by clicking the links: Learn more about us, and
What is a Metascore? These sections of their About Us area are highly
informative, especially the metascore because that explains the ratings that
what you’re looking for got.
On the main page you’ll find the different categories of reviews: Movie, DVD,
TV, Music, and Games – with the latest reviews highlighted. You can click the
title of the category to be whisked away to its page where you can find more
reviews for that category.
Another way to use the site is to just type in what you’d like to see a review
of in the search field at the top of the page. You can use the dropdown box next
to the blank search field to narrow your search to a specific category.
This is a great site to get the latest reviews for anything you want to see,
play, or listen to before you spend money or time on it. I like to invest both
my time and my money wisely. Check it out!
http://www.metacritic.com/
~Amanda
Shelfari
Welcome to Shelfari, a virtual bookshelf site that lets you keep track of the
books you’ve read, what your friends are reading, and discover new books.
I recommend you start your journey at Shelfari by taking the tour offered on the
main page. Just click the Take the Tour button. This will allow you to brief
yourself with all the different things you can do at Shelfari. If you like what
you see then at the end of the tour click the Join Now button. That will take
you to registration form where you need to fill in your name, a working e-mail
address, and create a password; after you’ve done that click the create account
button.
Depending on the e-mail address you provided it will give you the option to sign
into your e-mail address so that it can access your contact list, this will let
you and your friends share your bookshelves with each other. You can also choose
to skip this and come back to it later. If you login in to your e-mail address
and let it search your contacts it will also give you the option to invite your
friends. You can skip that and move forward as well. That’s it! You’ll be logged
in and ready to add books to your shelf.
Adding books is easy, and the site walks you through it the first time you’ve
logged in. I recommend grabbing a book, or putting in the title of something
you’ve read and enjoyed so that you can get started right away.
First you’ll search for the book, either by the title or by the author, and then
you will select your book from the list. After that you’ll be given the option
to rate and review it, set it to private (in case you don’t want to share the
title with your friends). Next you’ll enter all the details you know about the
edition you own or if you don’t own it you can add it to your wish list. After
that the next step is to tag the book so it is easier for others to search for,
and then last, but not least you’ll be whisked off to the Done button where you
can also discover more options of what you can do with the book you added.
Anytime you want to add another book just do a search for it and click the add
button and you’ll be able to do everything you did for the first book you added.
This is an awesome way of keeping tracking of what you’ve read, what you’re
reading, and what you’d like to read.
I use the site to keep track of my book collections; I collect different series
of books, and with Shelfari I can make sure I haven’t missed any or that don’t
buy books twice. I also use it to keep track of books I see and want to read but
don’t have the cash to pick up on the spot. It works a lot better than keeping a
list in my wallet, that’s for sure!
So check it out today, and get started on your own virtual bookshelf!
https://www.shelfari.com/
~Amanda
Live it up, bookworms! Rate or add to this tip
here! The printer-friendly version is
here!
Pencil Sketch
A few weeks back, it
was my friend’s birthday and I wanted to draw a pencil sketch of her for her
birthday card. The only glitch was that I have two left hands when it comes to
sketching. So, what did I do?
No, I didn’t bribe my next door, art school student neighbor. I just went back
to my trusted friend: Photoshop. So, how would you like to learn how to draw a
pencil sketch in Photoshop? If you're interested, follow along with me!
First, open up your image.
Make a duplicate of your background layer. Name it Layer 1. Turn this layer to
black and white by desaturating it. To desaturate, click on
Image, Adjustments,
Desaturate (or press Shift +
Ctrl + U).
Now, make another copy of the Layer 1 and let’s call it Layer 2. Invert the
Layer 2 by pressing Ctrl+I.
Your image should look pretty weird now.
Now, change the layer mode of the Layer 2 to
Color Dodge. Don’t worry too much if you can’t see
anything in the image. This is how it’s supposed to be. The next step decides
how your image (or sketch rather) will end up looking.
Here we need to Gaussian Blur the image (Filter,
Blur, Gaussian Blur). For our purpose here, I have used a radius
value of 10.
We are almost done. As you may notice, our "sketch” is black and white. If you
want to add some color to it, you can play around with the opacity settings of
Layer 1. Keep tweaking it until you get the sketchy effect that you are looking
for.
This is what I ended up with.
You can also always experiment with a lot of the other filters and come up with
something that is entirely different. If you want to give the image a papery
touch, you can use Filter, Artistic
Underpainting with the
texture type as Canvas.
Now, go ahead people, do me proud. This is your chance to be a Photoshop
Picasso!
~Yogesh Bakshi
1960’s Flashback
The title of this
site says it all, get ready to flashback to the 60’s here! The site goes through
what was happening in 1960’s year by year. So you’ll be able to explore 1960
through 1969.
What kind of information will you learn? You’ll learn about the economy,
entertainment, what was happening in the news, and a whole lot more. To navigate
through these different sections use the side menu on the left. To change year,
click the year you want to visit at the top of the page.
If you liked exploring the 1960’s be sure to check out the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s
at the top of the page.
Navigation through the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s is exactly the same as you navigated
through the 1960’s.
My favorite statistic to track throughout the different years was the change in
the life expectancy numbers. It was interesting to watch the years rise because
we’re living longer these days.
This site is a blast to the past, so check it out and enjoy!
http://www.1960sflashback.com/1960/Economy.asp
~Amanda
WorldWide Telescope
Wouldn’t be awesome if you could get images from best ground and space
telescopes in the world directly on your computer? Well guess what? You can!
WorldWide Telescope lets you do exactly that. They even offer you two ways to do
it! You can use their web based client, or you can download the Windows client.
What is a WorldWide Telescope? - There is a whole section devoted to answering
just this question. Check it out to find what exactly it is!
Take a Tour – that’s right you can take guided video tours, and you can do it
one of two ways. If you downloaded the client you can access it from within the
client and take a guided and interactive tour where you’ll explore what you see.
The other option is to select a tour from the list and then watch the tour. I
think that this feature is excellent in allowing you to see if the Windows
client is really something you want to download.
The benefits of downloading the Windows client is that you can create your own
tours, and got on interactive tours where you are free to explore at your own
pace in your own direction at any time.
This is a fun way at looking at the galaxy, check it out today!
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/Home.aspx
~Amanda