Here's to you, Mr. President

To kick off our learning about Presidents, my class painted the above mural of George Washington. It's a pattern I purchased online from this amazing blog (http://www.artprojectsforkids.org) and then added my own touch - instead of doing it in oil pastels with real-life colors, we painted it in shades of blue. This let the kids mix the paint (which they love) and see what happens when you add black or white. They didn't quite get how it would turn out since the 8x11 sheet in front of them looked like a paint-by-number of sorts and everyone's section looked strange with all the curves, but they couldn't believe the result when I put it all together up in the hallway. Everyone in the school stopped to stare as they walked by. You can imagine how good that made my students feel!

Remember how my school doesn't have art? Well, this was the first project the second grade class right next door had noticed us doing. "What? Ms. White's class gets to do art??" To which their teacher replied, "They've been doing art every Wednesday since the beginning of the year." So today I gave them an art lesson about how to mix hues of red and the result was the Abraham Lincoln mural. To my kids, me teaching this other lesson meant that class was copying us. Some got quite vocal (and indignant) about not wanting to be copied by another class. I don't think they quite understand imitation is the sincerest form of flattery yet.

Wonder what they'll say when each class in the school does a mural like this? My principal loved these so much, he wants me to teach it to everyone. Maybe the start of my official art teaching career, thanks to the Presidents.

In honor of Valentine's Day

"In those days, we finally chose to walk like giants & hold the world in arms grown strong with love & there may be many things we forget in the days to come, but this will not be one of them." -Brian Andreas, Storypeople artist

The brand new Mr. and Mrs. Duane Fisher, 1974

The brand new Mr. and Ms. Brad White, 2010

Classroom Pics

Recently, my students wrote character essays and had to pick one of the school's 6 Pillars of Character as their topic. It is worth clicking on this essay and reading this very long sentence about Trustworthy. It's supposed to be several sentences about Trustworthiness, but you get the idea.

I am loving the new table arrangement in my room - everyone has more space and the special few who need a desk now have them. The kids love the new table names and I am hoping to subliminally help them memorize the planets, just like we did the continents with the last table themes.

The weighted blanket I made for a student turned out surprisingly well for making it up as I sewed. The pockets are filled with baggies of pinto beans for weight and as soon as the child put it on, she was in love. The weight really comforts her and hopefully this will help her keep better control of her tantrums. I also made a seat cushion out of the same material and filled it with rice for another student. It doubles as a lap weight and it seems to have made a difference in his behavior as well. Maybe I should have gone into OT...

All my students have been begging to have a Valentine's Day party. I told them we had too much to learn to stop and party. What they don't know is I am going to make them write Valentines to each other full of compliments - specially paired with a student they don't necessarily get along with. Oh, and I got my first box of chocolates already. Sometimes, it is nice to be the one in charge.

The Small Things

Mondays are long.

Looooooooooooong.

I leave for school around 6:15am, arriving about 7am and am in full school mode until dismissal at 3:15. Then I leave my kids with another teacher while I hop in my car, hoping to beat all the parents out of the parking lot, and drive to downtown Phoenix where my grad classes are held. This is about an hour drive, or more, depending on traffic. Then I am in class until 9:15pm. This is followed by the drive back to Chandler, where I arrive home just after 10pm.

A 15 hour day where I need to be on almost the entire time.

As to the silver lining of these days: on my way out of town, a stop at Sonic for a grape-cherry slushie - half off since it's happy hour from 2-4pm.

Delicious. Now off start my second class of the night...

Joshua Trees

I told Brad he needed to post the next time since this is supposed to be about both our lives. But he is at work and wouldn't know what to post anyway, so I'll do it for him:

He is loving his job and working at the airport suits him. The hours are not always the best considering some shifts start at 5am and others end at 12am but the faster pace is great. He often gets compliments from his customers on his service. Woooooo.

Back in the classroom, things are going decent. My feeling of things being under control quickly

disappeared as behavior regressed to beginning of the year bad and several students got sick. But I made some major changes with the seating arrangements and gave everyone more space to work which helped. My highlight lately was wrapping up our recent unit on drawing by looking at Georgia O'Keefe paintings, drawing our own flowers, and then painting wet-on-wet watercolor (getting the paper wet first, then painting). Several have really gotten into the idea of drawing what you see, not what you think something looks like. It was great to watch their faces as they saw the watercolors spread across the paper.

And to all you back in the Midwest who had snow days this past week, you will be surprised to know that it was cold here too! So cold, the school called indoor recess in the morning as students came to school. Haha, of course, I didn't think it was that cold and wanted to remind them what doesn't kill them only makes them stronger, but I refrained. Maybe going out in that cold would teach them to not wear shorts and to bring a jacket to school. Probably not.

And finally something about the title of this post - the drive between Phoenix and Las Vegas is beautiful but deserted most of the way with only 3 tiny towns along the road. You are driving along the desert full of nothingness and suddenly are in a National Joshua tree forest. They are pretty sweet to look at and not something I had ever seen before moving to the southwest.

The varying landscape in this state never ceases to amaze me.