"The Creature in You!" Craft

A few days ago in the Activity Room, we decided to try a new craft project that we tentatively called "the Creature in You!" This craft was designed to encourage the kids' creativity, and it worked great!

To do this craft, all we needed were markers, scissors and blank sheets of paper.

• First, fold the blank, non-lined paper in half.
• Next, write your name in big, cursive letters on the half-sheet.
• Then, take a pair of scissors and cut around your name. Be sure to get into all of the little spaces!
• Unfold your new "name/shape." Voila! The shape inside is the "Creature in You," color it or design it as you wish!

The kids had creatures of all different shapes and sizes, and they were encouraged to fill in all of the blank space on the paper while making it into some kind of monster, alien or other wild creation. The kids all had a great time doing this craft project; in fact, some of them did two or three different creatures, and two kids did both their first and last names.

It's a fun craft, is easy to do and created really cool works of art that all of the kids who participated should be proud of.

Above: Each child's name, written in cursive...

Below: ...the "creatures" within each name!

Winter Party Photos!

On Wednesday, December 22nd, we had a Winter Vacation Celebration for the kids of 808-812 in the Activity Room! For most of the kids, the next day (Thursday) was just a half-day, then they had an entire week off. To celebrate, we had a mini-party complete with snacks, drinks, candy, a movie and a Guitar Hero tournament!

Above: Our pre-movie spread: microwave popcorn, Cheetos, Kool-Aid, Reese's Cups and Hershey's Kisses.

After all of the kids got their snacks and drinks (we went through 8 bags of microwave popcorn...these are some hungry children!), the movie started. We watched the newly-released Despicable Me, a computer-animated tale about an evil villain who ends up having his heart melted by three orphaned children. The kids loved the movie, and spent most of the time laughing their heads off at the antics of the "minions" on the screen.

After the movie ended, we moved on to the second part of the party: the Guitar Hero tournament. When we usually do "Playstation Wednesdays," Guitar Hero is often the most popular game. This time, we had a tournament: the kids were allowed to choose their own song, and whichever player got the highest percentage of notes correct won the whole tournament.

Above: Kids focused on the action during the Guitar Hero tournament.

At the end of the tournament, we had a real shocker: a three-way tie for first place, as three different kids got scores of well over 90%! The kids decided that they'd be fair and split the prize, a giant Hershey's chocolate bar, three ways.

A great time was had by all, and the kids all got candy canes on the way out the door. It was a great way to start off Winter Vacation.

Helping Kids with Simple Machines

Recently a couple of kids from 808 had a project for school where they had to build a simple machine out of supplies they had on hand (i.e. no tools necessary). They had been studying simple machines for a while in class, and they now had to put their knowledge to the test.

Using tape, scissors, cardboard, paper, markers and a lot of creativity, we were able to create two really cool simple machines. Unfortunately, we were only able to snap a picture of one of them.

The first one was built by Sirak, and isn't pictured. Sirak used a roll of scotch tape, two small pencils, tape, manilla folders and scissors to create a wheelbarrow, which contains two simple machines: the wheel-axle and the lever.

Sirak, with some help, was able to get the wheel to actually roll, and then used scraps of paper colored gray to simulate rocks.

Abdullah was originally going to make a see-saw, but decided that it wasn't challenging enough to create. Instead, he decided to use a wedge and make an axe. He also put in a little extra effort and turned his scrap paper into a piece of wood for the axe to sink into. Abdullah created this cool tool using manilla folders, paper, scissors and tape.

Above: Abdullah used his simple machine (a wedge) and turned it into an axe, complete with a piece of wood to chop!

Each kid did a great job on his machine; now we just have to hope they both got A's!

Activity Room Artwork

With the help of Cailin, the kids of 808-812 have learned how to make a lot of new artwork in the Activity Room. These projects include everything from painting t-shirts to learning how to draw cartoons and graffiti. Check out the picture below for a sample of the work that the kids have been doing.

Looks like we have some talented young artists here on Memorial Drive!

A Desktop to Remind You of Home!

We recently updated the desktop image on all of our computers, using an image created and edited by a member of the CLC staff. This new desktop can be seen in a smaller size below, but must be seen on a big computer screen to be appreciated!

The desktop features a lovely picture of the Charles River taken from the viewpoint of the river-side apartments of the 808 Building.

We hope that the picture reminds our residents of home, even while they're in the Computer Learning Center.


-CLC Staff

More Celebrity Sightings at 808!

A few months back, there was a post about the power of GIMP, the freeware image-editing program. A few days ago, we dusted off the program and fired it up again, allowing the kids of 808-812 to see their heads on the bodies of their favorite celebrities, athletes and even cartoon characters! Check out the familiar faces that are now the newest 808-812 celebrities!

Above: Paulos, who wanted to be "the fat guy from Family Guy"
Below: Desi as his favorite singer, Michael Jackson, in the "Thriller" video.

Above: Doodie making his silliest face as the President of the United States.
Below: Davonte is the new face of the $100 bill.

Below: Davonte, Jhkyos and Feldano are the Celtics' newest "Big 3," just in time for the start of basketball season.

Want to start making your own funny pictures? Download GIMP here.

Want to put your face on a playing card, a logo or on any kind of money from all over the world? Check out a cool website that allows you to do just that here.

Adding Accent Marks

When typing in English, we often type in shorthand or abbreviated form (like OMG!, G2G, etc.). We usually ignore accent marks that we find in foreign words like résumé and replace them with regular a's, e's or i's.

However, when typing or writing in a foreign language, these accent marks are usually important, and can in fact be essential to properly understanding a word or phrase. So how do we add these marks? There's not a key on your keyboard for adding "é" to a word, right? Mine just has a regular "e."

Actually, your keyboard is all you need to add all kinds of accents to your typing. Pretty much every accented letter you need can be accessed and added to your type by entering its "keyboard code," which can be entered by pressing and holding the "ALT" key and entering the particular letter's four-digit code.

For example, you can type the letter "e" with an "accent aigu" (which is what the little line was called in my high school French classes) by entering the code ALT + 0233, which gives you "é."

As the French would say, voilà! It's that simple. Of course the trick is finding out all of these codes, but we've got a great link for you: Arnold Winkelried's Tip Sheet on Special Characters.

Here, towards the bottom of the page, Winkelried has created a table of pretty much every special character you need. Simply scroll through the table and find the accent you need, then look two columns to the right. That column is the code for Windows, which will be some combination of ALT + four numbers.

Three important notes:

• You must use the number pad at the right of your keyboard to enter these codes; you can't use the number bar on the top of the keyboard. Make sure your "Num Lock" is on before entering the codes, or they won't work.
• There are different codes for capital and lower case accented letters.
  
• These codes only work on Windows computers. If you have a Mac, you can still use the above link; you just have to enter a different combination of keys.

So there you have it. Next time you want to type in a foreign language, you'll have all of the proper accents!