Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 281
Pareidolia
Hello Everyone
l bet you don’t know what the title of this week’s blog post means.
ln fact, a lot of grown-ups wouldn’t even know what this word means.
So if you learn about it you will be especially clever, won’t you?
The word pareidolia is actually pronounced par-eye-dole-ee-ah.
So that has got that out of the way. And now l can tell you what it means.
lt is like a trick of the eye – or probably to be more exact maybe – a trick of the brain.
lt is basically seeing something that has a random shape but imagining in your brain that it looks like something else.
The word comes from two Greek words which translated mean ‘instead of’ and ‘shape’.
Let me give you an example to help me explain the idea better.
Do you ever look up into the sky and see white fluffy clouds – and see them as faces or animals?
That is pareidolia.
You might see a patch of wet on the pavement as the wind is drying up the puddles after the rain and see a shape of a person. This is your brain making it into a thing that you recognize because of memories of things you already know about.
ln other words, we see things that are familiar to us – and faces are one of the first things we see as a tiny baby because people keep peering into our cot at us.
Have you ever looked at the Moon and seen a face?
The Moon does not really have a person’s face but we can make out two eyes and a mouth because we already know what faces look like. The shapes we see are really craters on the planet’s surface but because we are so used to seeing that pattern as a face we think we can see a face on the Moon.
Pareidolia is found in lots of different places.
You might see it in the bark of trees or in stones or rocks or strangely-shaped vegetables or even on the back of a beetle.
You might see it in things that have been made – like clothes or bags or pipes or light sockets.
Some pareidolia is amazing and some is really funny.
lf you see things that aren’t really there, because it is pareidolia, don’t worry about it, it is just a normal, human reaction.
Some people get frightened when they see black, looming shapes in the darkness and think they are ghosts. This is your imagination working overtime, maybe because you were frightened of the dark to start with.
Some people think that pareidolia that they see is a message – maybe from God.
They think that they are being given a sign that they should do something or believe something.
Whenever people see strange phenomena like this, they certainly like telling everyone else about it. Many photographs of pareidolia are shared on the lnternet.
Some people have seen well-defined faces on their toast and sold it for a lot of money on e-Bay!
So if you see someone in your toast tomorrow morning – don’t put butter on it – put a frame around it and keep it very dry!
But if it is on the surface of your hot chocolate – take a picture of it quickly because it won’t be around for long.
Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!
lf you like my blog, please support it by telling all your friends and followers about it.
Thank you!
And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bill: What happens to lazy clouds that won’t get up in the morning?
Bob: l don’t know. What happens to lazy clouds that won’t get up in the morning?
Bill: They become fog!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
A cloud that looks like an angel
(unusedwords.com)
Serious face
(emorfes.com)
Funny face
A potato face
Someone is watching you!
You have to love these!
(smrt.ccel.ca)
(boredpanda.com)
Wow!
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
Life nowadays is very competitive, and it is more important than ever to study well at school. There are more opportunities for people to do interesting things than at any other time in human history.
So if you want to do well in life and make sure that your dreams for your future are not just castles in the sky – build a firm foundation under them.
A lot of children have not been able to go to school recently but that doesn’t mean that you can’t stop learning.
There are lots of things to learn on my blog for a start!
Bill, Bob and Emily try hard to do well at school.
It is important to remember that it is a rare person who is good at everything, and so most people have strengths and weaknesses.
That means that you may be good at some lesson at school but not so good at others.
A lot of children strive (try very hard) to get good marks and so I asked Miss Pringle, who is a very good teacher, to give you some hints on how to become an A grade student.
These are her top tips. They will take you through your whole school career.
NUMBER ONE
When you produce any piece of writing it is always a good idea to write out a plan first.
Then when you start writing your piece will be very organized. This is much better than just writing down ideas as you think of them. It is the fastest way to increase the quality of your writing.
Even if you are in an exam and you don’t have much time, you should always take a few minutes to write a plan to keep you on track – whether it is for a story or an essay.
Brainstorm some ideas – number the ideas up in the order in which you want to write about them, grouping similar ideas together.
When you write your ideas in full, write a clear beginning, middle and conclusion to your piece of writing.
NUMBER TWO
When you have lessons you should always pay attention. Information does not sink into your head from the atmosphere – you have to actively take it in yourself and this requires effort and concentration. Your teacher does half the job (the teaching) and you have to do the other half of the job (the learning).
Only when these two halves come together will the job have been a success!
Just ‘doing time’ in a classroom is not enough!
And if you review your notes regularly, you will find that the information will be retained in your mind more easily.
Of course, you have to take lots of notes in class to check back on in the first place!
Write them in class and then read them back in the evening. Don’t wait for an exam to loom on the horizon before you start looking at them!
Learning is like eating, your brain takes time to digest new information just like your stomach takes time to digest food. Reviewing notes regularly throughout the school year is a really good idea.
NUMBER THREE
But learning your lessons is only part of your education.
In order to become a really good student, you should do extra work outside school.
This sounds like a terrible idea, I know, but it does not have to be hard work; it can be reading story books or visiting zoos or museums. Or it can be looking up more background information online about the topics you have been covering at school. If you write about things in your essays that have not been covered in class – your teacher will be very impressed!
NUMBER FOUR
It is useful to be continually learning new words.
This will help you in your lessons, to understand books, write good stories and understand English comprehension tests.
Do not try to learn lists of new words.
This is boring!
It is also very difficult to remember the meaning of words when you try and learn them this way.
To remember a word and what it means, it is much better to ‘learn it in context’.
That means to learn a word from seeing it in a story or next to a picture, or even from a crossword you are doing.
It should be fun!
If you see a new word in a story that you are reading, don’t ignore it, don’t let it pass you by, don’t let it get away from you – check it out.
Guess what it means first of all by reading it as it is inside the story, and then check with a dictionary to see if you were right. Guessing and then checking is a good learning strategy.
This is called guessing from context.
Learning a word which is positioned inside a sentence helps you to understand how it is used much better than seeing it by itself.
You also need to know how to pronounce it and how to spell it.
A good dictionary will tell you how to pronounce a word – but you have to understand the symbols that tell you that and they might be too difficult for you to understand, so you could ask a grown up or big brother or sister to help you. In English, the way a word is spelled and the way a word is said doesn’t always go together in a logical way.
You can also find websites that will help you with this.
You might think that people who read a lot are good spellers; but this is not necessarily the case. In order to learn how to spell a word, you have to concentrate on learning how to spell it – just knowing how to read it does not seem to be enough.
When you have found some new words, start a collection in a little notebook.
Divide the pages into two (vertically).
Write the new word on the left of the page and the definition on the right side beside it.
Decorate the pages with pictures if you want to, or write example sentences containing the words.
Keep going back to your book and testing yourself from time to time.
Put a piece of paper over the side of the page that has the definitions and read the list of all the words you have collected in your own little dictionary.
Can you remember what they mean?
The more you keep checking your book, the more you will remember the words and their meanings.
When you see how many you forget, you will understand why it was important to note them down rather than just trust them to memory, and the more you keep looking, the more you will remember them.
Salty Sam says
Be a smart learner!
So there you are, I hope that helps.
To put effort into your education will pay you back as you go through life.
And if you think you need help – ask for it.
Only you can fill your head with your education – nobody else can do it for you.
It is usually the first responsibility most people have to take on in their lives – to take responsibility for your own learning and examination grades.
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Quick Quiz
Do you often see animals in the clouds?
Can you find these animals?
- lesrutt
- nislo
- frigesaf
- koymens
- dooccisrel
- resba
- sleenthap
- ihopps
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A LlTTLE KNlTTED MERMAlD
This little mermaid is easy to knit as long as you pay close attention to the pattern and concentrate on the counting.
This mermaid has a green tail, pink body and white hair but you could have a blue or dark green or mauve tail, you could use apricot or tan or brown colour yarn for the body and any colour hair you like.
You could make several mermaids in different colours and give them all names or you could make the mermaids in the same colours and give them different colour hair or just different colour bows in their hair to tell them apart.
Do not over-stuff the mermaid’s tail otherwise she will not be able to sit down. In fact, put very little stuffing in the very bottom of the tail in order to keep it flat.
Knit the mermaid’s tail in garter stitch and the body and arms in stocking stitch.
MERMAID BODY (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and green dk yarn cast on 12 stitches
Knit 1 row
Knit 1 row
Decrease 1 stitch at the beginning of the next 6 rows of garter stitch (6sts)
Knit 1 row
Knit 1 row
Increase 1 stitch at each end of the next row
Knit 1 row
Increase 1 stitch at each end of the next row
Knit 1 row (10 sts)
Knit 16 rows of garter stitch
Change to pink yarn
Knit 20 rows of stocking stitch
Don’t cast off (cut the yarn so that you have a length to put through your stitches)
ARMS (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and pink dk yarn cast on 8 stitches
Knit 8 rows or garter stitch
Don’t cast off (cut the yarn so that you have a length to put through your stitches)
TO MAKE UP
- Sew up the sides if the mermaid using over-sew stitching with right sides together
- Turn the mermaid right sides out
- Sew across the base of the tail with wrong sides together
- Sew up the sides of the arms with right sides together
- Turn the arms the right way out and bind some yarn tightly around the wrists to make hands
- Put a tiny amount of stuffing into the arms
- Sew the arms to the sides of the body
- Stuff the mermaid
- Pull in the top of the head
- Bind some yarn around the neck and waist and secure the yarn into the seam
- Sew on a face using grey yarn (the eyes are French knots made by wrapping he yarn over the needle 3 times)
- To make the hair wrap some yarn sideways around a pack of playing cards 20 times
- Slide the yarn of the pack and hold on tightly to the loops then sew across the strands attaching them to the top of the mermaid’s head to make a fringe
- Then wrap the yarn around the pack again 30 times then sew this to the mermaid’s head to make a centre parting along the top of the head (so the first loops will go down the back of the head and the second group of loops will fall each side of the head)
- Cut the loops of yarn at the bottom when all the strands are secured to the head
- Trim the hair along the bottom to neaten the hair
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- Turtles – lesrutt
- Lions – nislo
- Giraffes – frigesaf
- Monkeys – koymens
- Crocodiles – dooccisrel
- Bears – resba
- Elephants – sleenthap
- Hippos – ihopps
For an Embroidery Stitches Chart
Check out Blog Post 3
