My Old School

Last weekend I visited my Alma Mater where I met my wonderful husband:

The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana is a large sprawling campus that is gorgeous at any time of year (yes, even in the winter).  We were so blest last weekend to have a perfect autumn day to walk the campus.

We walked around campus with my Arizona family, including our kids.  It felt strange to be there with the kids, but they enjoyed it.

On a campus this old, time seems to stand still.  The same stately buildings where we (mostly) studied look exactly the same.

There are so many memories floating around that place, and I felt wistful thinking about the time I was there and the friends I met (especially my husband).  I realized I am living the life I could only dream about when I was there.

Then I remembered trudging across the frozen tundra in -25 degree wind chill on the January night I met my husband and reminded myself why we live in Arizona :)

cindy

The Art of Learning

On Saturdays, it's my job to teach my 11-year old son, because my husband does it all week.  I teach Language Arts and Art.  Language Arts is fine - I'm pretty comfortable with that - but Art is another issue.  I am creative, but not artistic.  I can craft, but don't make me draw a picture.  There is a lot of picture drawing involved in this class.  There are no patterns involved.

As part of this teaching gig, I'n learning about elements of art.  Line, color, shape, texture, are part of my vocabulary now, but only to the extent of appreciation.  Today we were learning about balance.  The easy type of balance is "formal."  It's the easiest to understand because it's simple symmetry.  We also learned about radial balance, in which items "radiate" from a single point, frequently unseen.  The best example I can give is a fan.  Finally, the last form of balance we learned about was "informal" or asymmetrical balance.  That one was the most interesting, but also the most difficult to understand.

As part of the lesson, Christian and I had to walk around the house looking for examples of each type of balance so he can sketch them.  Here's his example of formal balance (symmetry):

What I realized is that there is a natural sense of balance in all kinds of things.  I didn't realize that what I find myself doing when I take pictures is trying to achieve a type of balance, especially asymmetrical balance.  (Photography is the closest I get to being an artist, and I'm hardly a good photographer.)  But, I will say that learning some of these elements of art might make me a better photographer, so at least my scrapbooks (if I ever make them), will be more interesting.

One of the best things about working with my son is that I get to channel my inner teacher.  I've taught a bit, mostly informally.  I really like it.  If I weren't a lawyer, I would like to be a teacher.  But doing this one-on-one with my son is a great opportunity to connect with him on a totally new level.  It's awesome to see the lightbulb go on when he grasps a new concept.  So, with something like art, we're learning together.  Cool.

cindy

Wordle

Do you sometimes feel like everyone knows about something you don't?  I had that feeling tonight when I found my daughter playing on a website called Wordle.  Once I looked at it, I realized how many of you are doing your word art.  Shame on you for not sharing!  I'm still not great at this, but I'm having fun trying.  (Please excuse my screen shots, I haven't figured out how to get these images in anything larger than a thumbnail)

Just so no one can accuse me of failing to share . . . Wordle is a website where you type words or paste text and it creates a word "picture".  The more you use a word, the larger it appears.  The picture above represents some of my labels from Straddling the Gap.  

You can use the "Randomize" button to create different font, colors, backgrounds without trying.  Here are words A to Z in two different settings:

Our school has started to use this as a way for kids to practice spelling words - isn't that clever?  It makes it fun to practice their spelling words (and it's great for mom because Wordle has spell-check.)  Here are Mackenzie's spelling words this week:

You can also design your word art the way you want.  You can pick from a bunch of fonts, align horizontal, vertical or any which way, choose colors and backgrounds.  I'll warn you now - it's pretty addictive - not Pinterest, but great for a half hour or so.  However long you like to do it, your elementary kids will LOVE it.

cindy