Welcome to my corner of the Shorthand website. My name is Yellow
Teddy and I live in Orpington, Kent, with some people, lots of
goldfish, and my friends Brown Teddy and Dino. Dino is the
friendliest dinosaur in Orpington. I am learning some
shorthand because I like drawing and making shapes.
I am writing my name and it says YELO TEDI. When I started I was
given some postcards with shorthand words written on for me to play with,
so that I could make a game out of guessing what each bit meant. To
begin with I was not sure which shape meant which sound. It was hard
not to ask, but I worked it out eventually. I really like puzzles so
this was just perfect for me!
The first thing to do is to work out what is the best thing to write
with. The cotton bud was good because the shape is big and bold. The
paintbrush has a water chamber in the handle, so you could write for
some time with the pink watery paint. I quite liked the bamboo stick
(which I grew in the garden some time ago). It is cut for fancy
writing, so I need to get someone to make a more pointed one that
will bend a bit more. The word says "shorthand" and it is
one of my favourites.
I was given this card and told it looked like
something in the garden. I thought the end bit was a handle for me
to hold it, but realised what it was when I went past the pond. You
can see from the photo that the goldfish were expecting crumbs! Now
I know what the dot is, because it's the same as in Teddy and they
are both near the end. I wonder if "fishy" would have another dot as
well? Hmmm. But I'm still not asking, because it's still a game, and
I will find out in the end. The card was done in painting crayons so
I enjoyed spreading the red with water and making it look more like
a fish.
My plan is to make some shorthand buns, and if they are
successful, I will take photos for you to see. Next time we have
spaghetti, that is going to be really really interesting because I
suspect it will be laid out on my plate very carefully. UPDATE: We
came home really hungry and instead of making short HAND of the
spaghetti, we make short WORK of it – maybe next time!
The next card had the word "seed" on it and we went for a walk to
look for one. I found a sycamore seed that looked the same as the
shorthand. And here it is!
I also made a "brass rubbing" with crayons and it looks just like a
dragonfly wing. That is because it is a wing! They are brown when
ripe, so I can't grow a tree from this one.
Catherine & William
I really felt she was waving to me! Now that people
will be interested in knowing everything she does from now on, I
wonder if she will start a secret shorthand diary that no-one else
can read?
Learning shorthand is so much easier when you have a
willing helper to look up sets of words. Here is Dino using the
onscreen dictionary to find all the words beginning with CH -
chocolate, cherry, chopped nuts, cheese, chestnuts, chipolatas,
chutney, chapattis, chunky choc chips, the list goes on . . . I see
Dino has been tidying the supplies/toy cupboard, and I am glad the
one with the biggest teeth is guarding my favourite red ink. I
really feel I can write faster with red ink, it must be the
excitement!
Someone gave me all the
shorthand practice sheets so I could draw pictures on the back, but I thought it would
make good wrapping paper. I asked for the JPG of the Christmas Story
shorthand and printed it very large on a big sheet of pink paper. I
can't read it but I like the squiggles. This must really be the
present that Says It All.
 
Merry Christmas and
Happy New Year – Seasons' Greetings
I have edited the plain Christmas message GIF to make
it more colourful. I am not sure if the
dots are stars or snow. I think they are stars because if it was
snow, all the words would have a layer of white on top of them. Dino
is sure the white bit is sugar icing with edible holly shapes and
bits of glacé cherries. If I
printed some in strips and joined them in circles, maybe I could make a
paper chain for my bedroom. I
have been told that everyone who visits my page is free to use the
pictures for their home-made Christmas cards. If you send out your
shorthand cards very early in December, Kind Aunties always end up
realising that you need more pens, pencils and shorthand notebooks
for Christmas. K.A.'s are surprisingly good at knowing what is on
everyone's mind . . .
Here is a link to my own website:
www.yellow-teddy.org.uk
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