4 Years...of marriage and teaching Art!

Today is our fourth wedding anniversary and in a week and a half I get to start workshops for my fourth year teaching Art!  My husband has been with me through it all - He encourged me to change my undergrad major to Art in my junior year when I was second guessing myself. He picked me up from across campus at 2am so I wouldn't have to walk to my car alone after long nights in the studio printmaking and throwing on the wheel (or he'd stay with me and do his studying in the clay room or where ever I needed to be at those crazy hours!).  We got engaged at the end of our senior year of undergrad, shortly after I decided to apply for the Art Education masters program.  I started my teaching program 2 months before our wedding, began my practicum 2 days after our honeymoon ended, and student taught during a good portion of our first year of marriage. We spent our first anniversary mopping the floor and painting shelves in my first, very own classroom (with help from our amazing friend, Jen!).  He got to listen to me cry over dinner and a bottle of wine at the end of my first week in a school where I had been eaten alive by my 8th graders.

I am so thankful to have a husband who supports me 100% in my work, reminds me to take breaks for myself, and can always find a way to make me laugh no matter what kind of a day I have had.  He is truly phenomenal!

I have come a long way as a teacher in the last 3 years (I no longer get eaten alive by my middle schoolers, for example) and am looking forward to a new year at my school with a new principal and new teachers in grades K, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8!  Although I am sad to see my outstanding (very supportive of the Arts) principal and several terrific teachers move on to their new jobs, I am excited about the fresh ideas and energy that will come to our school with the new faces.  It should be an adventure!

In year 4, I hope to share more about my classroom management techniques with you in addition to the project posts (my intention was not to be solely a project poster but that is all I have done so far! Oops!).

I will leave you with some images from my bachelorette party 4 years ago (it was very tasteful, so don't be worried!).  My super creative maid of honor, Rose, threw an art and color themed party for me (this girl would be an unbelievable event/party planner - let me tell you!) and one of the games was to create an original image of me with my groom-to-be based on Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss."  They crack me up...especially because of the weird pictures of us she chose to use for them! 


I have since done a similar project with my 6th graders using magazine pictures and scratchboard (but that will have to wait for another time!).  Enjoy!

 

Eeek!

I missed making a post last week and am going to try to get back on track!  Things have been busy inside and outside of the Art room...we had our annual school auction a couple of weeks ago (the theme this year was Masquerade...see the felt bird mask I made to wear to the event!) and I donated 2 "Teacher Treasures" with other teachers in the school.


The first treasure I did was a basketry class with the school Librarian.  She is an expert basket weaver and is really fun to teach with!  We set the limit for the class at 5 students so that we can give lots of individual attention.  This year we had 2 second graders, 1 third grader, and 2 fifth graders (all girls) and they did a great job!  We gathered in the Art room after school and I had the girls wash the tables with shaving cream (fun and it gets all of the gunk from oil pastels and glue off of the table in no time!) while I got the water basins for soaking the reeds ready.  The Librarian brought all of the reeds and tools (and her expertise) and guided the class from measuring and cutting their own reeds all the way through finishing their rims.  Very impressive!  To make a beginner basket it takes about 3 hours and all of the girls ended the class with a unique basket to take home!  The picture you see is the third grader weaving.  She was so thrilled with the beautiful, hand dyed reed that our Librarian brought.  She decided to use red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple (in rainbow order of course)!


For the second treasure, I always team up with one of our awesome first grade teachers and take 4 first graders out to lunch and to a performance at the Children's Theater (we have a great family at our school who donates the tickets and even lets us use their car [which has all of the necessary booster seats] to cart the excited kids around).  This year we enjoyed Annie.  Now that the teacher treasures are over with I hope I will have more time!

Here is one more non-art-room project that I have been working on!  My husband's cousin just had her first baby (a girl!) and I used freezer paper stenciling to make her a custom onesie (it is hard to tell in the photo, but I mixed the screen printing ink to match the green from the super cute BabyLegs I bought for her).  Freezer paper stenciling has become a new hobby of mine - it is so fun!  If you have never tried it, I highly recommend it! 

Please stay tuned for more art projects from the Art room!  I'll try to do a better job with posting consistently!