Who Else Loves Creativity & Making Things?

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories by Wirrow and other artists.




It is an underground book.

You won’t be able to find in bookstores, amazon.com, or Books-a-Million.

I purchased it because I’m a big fan of wirrow’s art.

Click here to see wirrow's art.

The book focuses two creative aspects: writing and drawing.

Many people had contributed to this book. They had submitted one or two page stories with a piece of art, including wirrow.

Some of the stories were funny. Some of them were inspirational and thought-provoking.
Some sad -- or funny if you have that type of humor.

I felt and thought that they were inspirational.

These tiny stories encouraged me to write, draw, and create more.

My favorite story in the book was called “The Diver” by wirrow. It showed a picture of an astronaut in the stars, but the character was afraid of heights. The same picture was reversed on the bottom half and the astronaut appeared to have been a diver among the star fish.

I think that was a creative little story.

The book was published by HitRecord.org. It is a neat web-site all about creativity. People contribute and share their writing, photography, music, paintings, videos, and pretty much anything (as long as it is creative).



Click Here -- if You Want to get the Tiny Book of Tiny Stories for yourself. It could inspire you to become more creative!

The Tiny book of Tiny Stories reminds me of two other books that you may want to check out too. If you like The Tiny book of Tiny Stories then you'd probably like these two tiny books too.

Check these other two books out here...

Want to Learn More About Becoming Creative?

Here are my top three book recommendations on being creative:

1. The war of art: break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles. (This one is in my top ten all-time favorite books.)

2. Creativity now

3. Journal Spilling

You owe it to yourself and the world to use your talents to give this world something.

I hate to see grave yards because they remind me of wasted potential.

How many great plays, books, movies, artwork, and things did people vision, but failed to create while they had the chance. I admire people who DO it. Rather it be -- play a guitar -- sing -- write poetry -- paint -- draw -- write a book -- develop computer games -- landscape -- develop a beautiful garden -- build houses -- build ships -- put ships in a bottle even.

-- Go do something creative.

All my friends are dead shows a dinosaur. He is sad because he is the last dinosaur. It also shows an elder man who says all of his friends are dead. What comes next? It is sad. People grow old and die, but it could encourage people to do something with their lives.

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories has something like that too. It shows a man who says when he was younger he wished to be something. Now he is older and he wished he was younger.

My advice. Don't wish to be something, but take action and Do Something. And mess up too. Some people only want perfection. They're so afraid they'll mess up -- they don't try. Here is an example: What if my novel turns about bad and people don't like it. I best not even start on it to save myself heart-ache. laugh aloud. Many authors who hated their books were surprised to discover so many people loved reading them.

Here are the three books I suggest that could help you to get more creative in your life:

And of course -- if you want to learn more about becoming your greatest -- then check out my self-help book here:

Reading Lady -- Book Pack Ideas

My friend Megan is a 5th-grade teacher. She posted information on her facebook that she had been busy creating book packets for her students.

Listen to this… well, read this:

Megan said:

I teach fifth grade, and what a teacher friend and I do is give the students a
selection of books. The students put down their first three choices. Stacey
(teacher friend) and I make sure each student gets one of the three choices.
Then the students are placed in their "Book Club."

The packet is a student guide of activities for the students to complete each day in Book Club. They have to find two words a day they don't know, summarize, and discuss with each other. The teachers are simply there to monitor and make sure students are on track. Also, we have students gain a deeper understand of the content they are reading through asking deeper level questions.

I love how Megan is getting students to read. Hope the children are having fun with it.

Megan also suggested an amazing web-site that I didn’t know about: ReadingLady.com

Megan has a blog and resources created for teachers. Think recreational therapists working with children may find use with her blog. She has various assessment tools for teachers. Haven’t had time to review all of them myself. Hope there is something a recreational therapist could use to help children. Of course, as you already know, biblio-therapy (therapeutic use of books) is one of my favorite facilitation techniques.

Will keep you posted when I learn more from Readinglady.com and how it can be useful for recreational therapists, too.

http://www.readinglady.com/

Here is a link from the readinglady for a literature group session.

It has some self-awareness questions that could be use for group activities:

http://www.readinglady.com/mosaic/tools/Lit%20Circle%20Roles%20student%20booklet.pdf

Reproducible activity sheets

The complimentary workbook for my best-selling self-improvement book has tons of reproducible activity sheets.

You could use this for individual or group sessions. Theses sheets are designed for education, self-improvement and motivation.

There are 12 chapters that are full of valuable sheets, including:

self-concept/ self-awareness
therapeutic journaling and success journaling
biblio-therapy and reading for self-improvement
modeling successful
people
obtaining a personal coach or mentor
cinema therapy
happiness
and feeling your best
social support/ building a network
doing good/
volunteering
health and wellness
motivation
techniques

you can order a copy of the book from Amazon.com

you can search inside the book on Amazon, too.

Go here:

http://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Revealed-Complimentary-Journal-Becoming/dp/1442180684/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267246295&sr=8-3#noop

FREE E-Book of Motivational Quotes!

Download my FREE E-book.

It's called: Magical Spellbinding Quotes for Motivation.



http://www.hiddensecretwisdom.com/magic <---

A Charlie Brown Christmas

A Charlie Brown Christmas Play was performed at an undisclosed residential treatment facility somewhere in the two Virginias. The American cartoonist, Charles M. Schulz would have been proud. Would loved to have known his thoughts on our performance of his, “Charlie Brown Christmas.” Please note that although we performed a Christmas play that I’m not advocating for any one religion. Children at facility had practiced for this play since Thanksgiving. The kids helped with making the stage props and decorating the ballroom. They put in months and months of hard work for a spectacular 20-minute performance.

Scripts for the play were found online. However, it left out a few parts. We added a few lines and a few characters, too. We had the soundtrack to the Charlie Brown cartoon, which was good for the scene where all the children dance.

Here are some photos of the props for your enjoyment:


Here is the sign that was posted outside of the ballroom for the play.

It reads:

You're invited to A Charlie Brown Christmas Play Performance. Date: Mon. Dec. 21st, 2009. Time: 12:30. Location: Ballroom. Free cookies.

Here is a close-up picture of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree and the sign.

Fully decorated stage prior to the performance featured in picture above. Snoopy’s dog house is on the far left with the commercial pink Christmas trees. Snowflakes created by the children hung from the ceiling. Shroder’s piano is front and center. Behind it is a brick wall covered with snow. “A Charlie Brown Christmas Play” sign is attached to the screen. There’s a secret behind the screen. A larger tree is hidden there. Peanut characters take the Charlie Brown Christmas tree behind the screen to decorate it. The screen is raised and a fully decorated tree is there. Charlie Brown comes around the corner and says, “Hey, what’s going on here?” The children all yell, “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown” and they sing “Hark the Herald Angel.” Lucy’s psychiatric booth is on the far right of this picture, too.

Christmas tree decorated. Of course, you’ll notice it is a different tree. It was more colorful than shown in picture. It had fiber lights that were different colors, which, in my opinion were very pretty. Camera flash prevented these colors. One of the children had hidden the “Charlie Brown tree” under the table. This tree was shown when the screen was raised giving the impression that the children had quickly decorated Charlie’s tree. It was a surprise that shocked the audience. They didn’t know about that little trick.

Shroder’s grand piano featured above. This amazing little prop was fully designed and created by my crafty co-worker, Paula B. RN.

Snoopy light decoration featured in picture above. Teacher, Kim H., picked this decoration up for the play.

Lucy’s psychiatric stand with can for collecting nickels featured above. This prop and the can was completely designed and created by my good friend and co-worker, Melissa W., the children’s individual therapist. Had a better picture, but accidentally deleted it. It showed the sign that says, “The Doctor is Real In,” just like the cartoon.

Christmas trees! Do they resemble the ones in the Charlie Brown cartoon? Hope so. They were created by the children, of course. Look closely and you’ll see Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree behind the pink tree in the center.

Snoopy’s dog house. It’s been decorated. You can see a “first place” ribbon on it. This prop was created by the children, my co-worker, Melissa W. (individual therapist) and myself, (recreational therapist).

Eleven characters were in our performance, including: Woodstock, Snoopy, Pig Pen, Frita (with naturally curly hair), Rerun, Charlie Brown, Linus, Shermy , Sally, Shroder, and Lucy.

Therapeutic Benefits of Play

Therapeutic benefits for play. Of course, children are at our residential treatment facility for therapy. They’re there to get help. Although this play was designed to be fun and entertaining, it also served a greater purpose in accordance with the kid’s therapy needs. The play allowed the children to work on several of their own needs.

Each kid in the play had therapeutic goals that were achieved through the use of this “play/ recreation activity.” Goals varied according to individual needs of the child. Here is an example of one goal: a.) increase confidence and esteem as evidenced by performing in front of a live audience. Here is an example of another goal: b.) increase teamwork and co-operation as evidenced by working together with peers to practice for play and to create stage props.

Other skills enhanced by this play included: socialization, creativity, leadership, to learn to listen more attentively, be aware of what’s going on, be responsible and prepared. The kid’s also had greater acceptance of self. Some children who have difficulty with speech even improved their verbalization through the repetition of lines.

Here are a few YouTube Video-Clips of the classic Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon for your enjoyment, too:

Therapeutic benefits of stories for children!

“Story Time” always grabs my attention as a headline in a newspaper. As you already know, I’m a strong advocate for reading and literacy. You’d especially know this if you’ve read my best-selling book, Discover Hidden Secret Wisdom, which suggests that a person can become fulfilled in life by reading more books. Even a portion of the profits from this went to the non-profit, First Book. They provide free books to children in need addressing the number one factor facing literacy: access to age-appropriate books.

Laughing, smiling, and attentive children were shown on the front page of the Register-Herald Newspaper (Beckley, West Virginia) on Nov. 21, 2009 with the caption, “story time.”

Puppet show performances were provided for children last Friday at Stratton Elementary (Beckley area). These shows were based on various children’s stories.

I enjoyed the note in the picture caption that read:

“The stories are used to illustrate self-esteem, vanity, greed, tolerance, bullying, and stranger danger.”

It appears that there are several therapeutic values from these stories.

I’m very pleased that these puppet performances are being provided for children in Beckley!

Here are some activity ideas:

a.) Volunteer to read to children
b.) Develop a puppet show for children
c.) Have your kids read books and develop their own puppet show (with use of paper-bag puppets).
d.) Discuss the story with the child. How did that story make you feel? What do you think is the major lesson in the story? What did you learn from the story? How could you use this lesson in your life?
e.) Buy a child a book.

Source:

http://www.register-herald.com/local/local_story_324230340.html

Turn photos into coloring sheets

Lights, camera, color is an amazing program at Crayola.com.

It allows you to turn photos into coloring sheets.

You can add fun and interesting backgrounds, animals, Disney characters, and more.

I wish they would have had this when I was younger. I would have had a blast creating coloring sheets.

I believe you may need to pay or enter a code to print the pictures, however.

I hit the “control” botton and the “SysRR/ Print Scrn” at the same time to copy the full page.

I then opened the paint program on my computer.

Then I went to Edit and I hit paste, which pasted the full web-page/ screen shot.

I used the edit button to cut out the small coloring sheets and saved them as jpg files.

I’ve attached two pictures that I had designed with the “lights, camera, coloring program at Crayola.

I hope you enjoy it.

Here is the link:

http://play-zone.crayola.com/play-zone/index.htm#/LCC

Here are my two coloring sheets that I had created:

Need a book to read?

It's True: You Really Can Discover the Secrets to Anything And Here's How...

Read, read, and read if you want to succeed. That’s it. Books are filled with hidden secret wisdom.

However, you must be an avid reader to learn the secrets.

My book, “Discover Hidden Secret Wisdom” basically points out that a person should become a lifelong reader and booklover.

Here is a problem. Have you ever finished reading a book and felt disappointed only because the book was over and you didn’t know what else to read. I’ve felt this way after finishing a great book.

For The First Time, New Breakthrough System Reveals Must-Read Books for Anyone.

I was reading some magazine while waiting for a haircut yesterday. Right before my name was called, I saw an ad for an amazing web-page. Basically, you type in the last book you read and the author’s name. The web-site will generate a list of books that you’d probably enjoy reading.

Here’s the link: http://bookseer.com

I typed in one of my favorite all-time books, The Success Principles by Jack Canfield.

Bookseer recommended tons of books many which I had already read by my favorite personal favorite authors, including: Napoleon Hill, Joe Vitale, Wayne Dyer, Anthony Robbins, Mark Victor Hansen and others.

However, I did discover several must-read book that I was not aware of.

The top one on my list is: Instant Analysis by David Lieberman (another one of my favorite authors).
I was not aware that this book was on the market.

Several other book titles grabbed my attention, including: Mindset: the new psychology of success and beyond empathy.

Therapy dogs and Wii

Two interesting articles have been published online:

1st: Need to learn how to read? Check out this article on therapy dogs in West Virginia:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/10/22/dogs.irpt/index.html

2nd: Seniors use Wii for health and fitness:

Check it out here:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/19/senior.exercise.wii/index.html

With love,

your friend, Danny

Attn Grand Parents: 100 free activities

I just saw a commercial online for GrandParents.Com. They announced “free activity ideas.”

As you may already know, I’m a recreational therapist for children at a residential treatment facility.

Sometimes parents or grandparents will come in to visit their child.

They often ask the recreational therapist (that’s me) for activity ideas.

Of course, I want to step in more and address needed identified in the patients treatment plan through the use of these sessions.

Naturally, I don’t want them to just be “activity sessions” or “just visits.”

Of course, I already provide group recreational therapy sessions; however, I want to move into doing some family therapy services, which I think a recreational therapist is very suited for doing. I had read in an article once that claimed the recreational therapist was the new family therapist.

The recreational therapist could provide recreational therapy interventions to help reunify the family and meet many needs. I think we’re being under-utilized in this setting.

Thanks for reading this blog entry.

Here is a gift for you. It is a link for the electronic book, “100 free things to do with your grandkids.” People who work with the elderly may also find this e-book useful.

Here is the link:
http://www.grandparents.com/gp/fllpg/dnld/?clktrk=topicspage-elementary-text9-1