Coloring in the Lines...

1. When I was a child, I would always color out of the lines. When I was very little, people told me it was fine to color out of the lines. But, as I got older, I was told to color inside of the lines. I got mad at the people that told me to color inside the lines because I wanted to do my own thing and if tat was coloring outside of the lines, then that was what I wanted to do.

2. To me, creativity is using your imagination or ideas to create art. I do consider myself to be creative, but only a little. I only consider myself a little creative because I like making art, but I don’t really use my imagination or ideas.

3. I critique my own work a lot. I always feel like my work needs to be absolutely perfect in every way. I feel like my work is not good enough if I don’t like the way it looks and one thing is out of place.

4. I try to stay both original and personal in my work. To do that, I try to portray my personal life in an original way that no one else has done before.  

5. Rejection has never affected my creative process. I know that being rejected is something that happens to every artist, and it is nothing I should be ashamed of. I know that as long as I keep trying, I will eventually succeed.

10. If I became the President of the United States, the first thing I would do would be to take the United States out of war. I would take us out of the war because we don’t belong there, it is not our problem.

11. When I leave this world, I would like to be remembered in a creative way. I would like to be remembered as the artist I never was and as an inspiration for other people.

Toy Story

Hi! My name is Britney and I am a Barbie doll. I have a lot of friends, and we always do things together. We have gone on numerous adventures together, but my favorite one was the time we went to the beach. It all started when the seasons changed and summer came. This summer was not a summer like any of the previous ones. Every day, it was very hot and very humid, worse than any summer before that. We usually get a pass to the local swimming pool, but this year they were closed because they were renovating the pool and locker rooms. Every day, we would sit around in our house and try not to do anything, since it was so hot. On one of these days, Courtney suggested going to the beach. We decided to go the next day, since we wouldn’t be able to spend a long time at the beach that day. So, the next day, everyone piled into two cars and off we went. When we were about halfway there, tragedy struck. Ken got a flat tire on his car, and he didn’t have a spare tire. For the longest time, we couldn’t figure out what we should do. Then, I got an idea. Half of us would go to the nearest gas station and get someone that could help us. We would bring them and a tire back to the car, and have them change the tire for us. Then, as we continued to the beach, we would drop them back off at the gas station. My plan worked, and we were excited to finally get to the beach. Then, as if having a flat tire wasn’t bad enough, we hit traffic. From the moment we hit the traffic, we could tell that we were not going to be going anywhere anytime soon. We turned on the radio and found out that a truck had rolled over about ten exits ahead of us and it was blocking all lanes of the highway. We didn’t know what we were going to do, since we couldn’t get anywhere at all. Finally, about three hours later, the truck was moved off of the highway and the traffic started to move. When everyone started to move again, we didn’t know if we should just go home or keep going to the beach, since it was about dinnertime and we would not get to spend any time at the beach if we decided to go there. We were just about to go home, when Courtney had an idea. Her idea was that we should still go to the beach, but rent a hotel room and stay the night. We could go to the beach the next day, and then go home. Everyone thought that was a great idea, so that is what we decided to do. We had a great time at the beach, and nothing bad happened to us on the ride home. We knew we had to do this again, so we planned a day and hoped that nothing would go wrong. Since then, we have gone to the beach plenty of times and nothing bad has happened to us. However, this adventure is my favorite and I hope nothing like that happens to us again.

Critical Thinking: Social Development

1.     Parents, other adults, and peers influence a child’s social development. Many children inherit their parent’s characteristics and personalities. Parents that constantly criticize their child will find that their child will most likely have low self-esteem. However, parents that give their children lots of praise will find that their children will most likely have higher self-esteem. Other adults can also influence a child’s social development by what they say to the child.  A child will either have high self-esteem or low self-esteem based on what others say to them. A child that has lots of friends will most likely have higher self-esteem than a child that does not have a lot of friends.

2.     A parent should let their child make some social mistakes by themselves. The mistakes should be ones that will help their child in the future, not ones that will ruin the rest of their life. The only time a parent should intervene is when the child is putting something or someone in jeopardy, or when the child is going to be greatly affected by what they are about to do.

3.     There are many connections between social and emotional needs. One of the connections is that a child needs to feel good about themselves in order to reach out for friendships. On the flipside, a child may need friends for support and to feel good about themselves.

4.     This fourteen year-old has not been taught interpersonal skills. This child has not been taught to wait their turn. The child has not learned/been taught that it is important to wait your turn for things. This lesson should be taught at an early age, so the child will know how to behave as they grow older. This lesson should be taught by telling the child that they need to learn to wait their turn to do things. If the child does not wait their turn, then there will be consequences until they learn to do so.

5.     I would handle the first situation by being firm, and telling my ten-year-old that they are not getting the game, even though he says that all of his friends have it. Chances are, most of his friends do not actually have it and he will just have to wait until he is older to get the game. I would handle the second situation by making my child apologize to the older woman. Then, I would tell them that it is important to wait their turn to get somewhere, and that they have to be respectful of people that are older that them. I would handle the third situation by telling my child that even though it seems like a big deal right now, it will not be such a big deal later on. I would tell them that gymnastics is not all about winning. It is about being part of a team and having fun, no matter what happens. I would handle the fourth situation by telling my children that it doesn’t matter who broke the toy. The toy is now broken, and there is nothing we can do about it. There are other toys to play with, not just this one. I would handle the last situation by letting my child know that it is okay to meet new people. I would tell them that nothing will happen to them, and I will be right beside them the whole time.