Call me crazy...

...but I want this apron. It would only look more beautiful with painty hand smears.

Via IceMilk Aprons.

Ms. Kristen-Crayon can has kitteh?

Kitty place setting.

No kitty here...

Kitty bed in a (usually) sunny nook.

Nope, not here.

Kitty potty.

Not here, either.

No, not yet. But everything is in place...

What's in a name?

Names I've been called, so far:

• "Ms. Dudley."
• "Mrs. Dudley."
• "Dudley."
• "Ms. Dugley."
• "Ms. Ugly." (This student has a speech impediment. 'Dudley' is a tough one for him.)
• "Ms. Douglas."
• "Ms. Art."
• "Teacher."
• "Mr. M___________." (Students often call me their homeroom teacher's name, but I notice it a little more when their teacher is the opposite gender.)
• "Mom."
• "Grandma."
• "Annoying."

"I'm through accepting limits, 'cuz someone says they're so..."

Today's new record time for getting to school: 38 minutes on the road. On a good day, I make it there in 45 minutes. Most days it's anywhere from 55 to an hour and 5 minutes, approximately. Today was an excellent day, traffic-wise. It's unfortunate that I have to chalk it up to Columbus Day and the diminished volume of commuters. Can it be Columbus Day every day?

I made it home in about 35 minutes, but that makes sense when you leave school at 8:00pm. No traffic. Tonight I cranked the stereo loud and pretended that I had Lea Michele's voice, most notably on "Defying Gravity" and "Don't Stop Believin'", complete with exaggerated facial expressions. It was awesome.

Dads 'N Donuts.

Meeting the parents of students you love to teach is kind of like meeting local celebrities. Today was the PTA-sponsored Dads 'N Donuts. (And no, I did not avoid the leftovers in the lounge. Next year I need to think about how the donuts are for DADS, and I'm not a dad, now am I?) The kindergarten triplets I mentioned a few posts back? They brought their dad in to meet me as he was leaving the school this morning. Swoon! He said that they hear a lot about art class at home (hopefully more than the pants-wetting incident, at this point), and I gushed about his little ones. It was just too cute-- triplets ushering their dad into the room to meet me. Maybe I'll meet Mom when Moms 'N Muffins rolls around... and maybe I'll skip out on the leftover muffins. One can only hope...

Sugar skulls? Success (so far).

That's one happy skull!
He'll be even happier when he gets his nose back next week.

The first grader who drew and painted this sugar skull asked me, "Can we do this every year?" To which I so eloquently said, "Uh... yeah!" I mean, I plan on switching it up from year to year, but it's kinda hard to resist a direct request. And conveniently, I have variations on Dia de los Muertos sugar skull units lined up for my first, second, and third grades. So she just might be doing it again-- but differently-- in second and third grade. We'll see how it goes.

I've only taught the first grade version to one class and so far so good. Most of them didn't know about the holiday, and they rightfully confused it with Halloween at first. One student asked, "So we're supposed to be happy when people die?" as I was trying to explain that it's not a sad holiday, even though it's honoring those who have passed. I told him no, we're not usually happy when people die, but we can celebrate the good life that they led and we can recognize our happy memories. That brought him around. I got surprisingly little resistance from the students. I was prepared for at least one student to balk at the idea of drawing a skull, maybe too creeped out by it. I should have paid more attention to the possibility that (male) students wouldn't want to draw flowers, which is what happened. Marigolds go along with Dia de los Muertos, but most of the boys selectively left them out. There were eyepatches and horns and crazy cobweb crowns instead... and maybe that's not in keeping with the Mexican holiday, but it's in line with artistic awesomeness, so it's all good.

We'll add color with tempera (mixed with white) next week. I thought it would be a one lesson unit, but it turned into two once I realized it took over half of class (45 minutes with first grade) just to intro the unit and draw the skulls with white oil pastel. More to come as we actually approach the holiday!

Prototype.

Special thanks to Deep Space Sparkle for lesson inspiration.

So many unanswered questions.

I am grading some writing that I had my fourth graders do before starting their visual art. The big ideas we're working with involve luck, risk, and chance. One of the questions I asked was, "What risks have you taken that have paid off? What did you learn from them?"

My favorite answer thus far:

"There was a beehive in my room. I put on a raincoat and got a baseball bat and ran into there and smacked the beehive and lived."

I love my job.