Vol. 4, No. 334, November 30, 2019

4334 - Birch Tea.

Today most of my female relatives gathered for a tea party baby shower for my cousin. It was a fun way to celebrate on a snowy afternoon. To prepare for the party, I wrapped the shower gift from my sister's and mom, tying everything with pretty pink bows.

Vol. 4, No. 333, November 30, 2019

4333 - Cookie Colors.

Today was our traditional family Christmas cookie baking day. This year we made six different kinds of cookies. One cookie was Peanut Butter Blossoms; when we looked at the cookies at the end we noticed a large discrepancy in the well-doneness of the cookies. Someone suggested making a value chart with the cookies. I agreed that it would be cool, but sounded like a lot of work. In the end we made a chart using a sample of 5 cookies. I arranged them in a flower to make them fit better within the photo frame.

Vol. 4, No. 332, November 28, 2019

4332 - Giving Thanks.

Today my family hosted Thanksgiving. We
had a house full with about 30 people, and enough delicious food to feed an army. As part of the hosting duties, I was in charge of decorating tables. I found some fall napkins. They were new and well starched. Someone asked if I was going to make a turkey. So with the help of Eleanor, I ironed the napkins and folded one into an origami turkey. I needed to use a paperclip to hold everything together. It made a great centerpiece.

Vol. 4, No. 331, November 27, 2019

4331 - Snow Day.

I think a good portion of the state didn't have school, they either had a scheduled vacation day for Thanksgiving or they had a snow day like I did. I used my time off to help get ready to host Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, but I also made time to do a practice run for salt dough ornaments that I plan to make next week with my TK class. I used the dough to make small gift tags. I'm not sure I am loving how they are turning out, but I will wait until they are completely dry and painted to make my final judgement.

Vol. 4, No. 330, November 26, 2019

4330 - Snow Cute!

Tonight I brought Eleanor out for her first romp in the snow. By romp I mean that we bundled her up, then laid her on the deck and moved her arms and legs while she started to fuss because the snow was landing on her face. She was adorable in the process. Here is the result of her first snow angel.

Vol. 4, No. 329, November 25, 2019

4329 - Crazy Train.

Doing Paper Mache with Kinders is crazy! Yet, here I am in year two doing it again. It's really going pretty well. During the first rotation, I only had one student gone, and was only brought to tears one time! Only one more rotation (4 days and 7 classes) to go and I will be done with Paper Mache for another year! The Kinders are making Winter Ornaments. After the Paper Mache, they will get to choose between a snowman, a penguin, or a reindeer.

Vol. 4, No. 328, November 24, 2019

4328 - Teamwork.

Today, my family and I put some finishing touches on the family room remodel. We still need to hang pictures and setup the craft area, but the TV area is up and running! Now we can move on to decorating for Thanksgiving.

Vol. 4, No. 327, November 23, 2019

4327 - Snowflake Sparkle.

Today I was invited to watch Queen CeCe in the Willmar Holiday Parade. We met up with her briefly before the parade and I was able to snap a few pics. While CeCe was fixing a snowflake I tried to take an artsy picture. This was as good as I could get.

Vol. 4, No. 326, November 22, 2019

4326 - A Thousand Words.

My sixth graders are starting their Identity Color Wheels. I decided my examples were all too complex and and I needed to make a more simple, student friendly example. This circle shows some of my favorite things.

Vol. 4, No. 325, November 21, 2019

4325 - Keep Em Coming.

I added a step to my grade 1 Texture Shoe Fish lesson, which meant creating another example. Students use the texture of the bottom of their shoe to create the body of a fish and then use crayons to draw in the rest. Then they glue their fish to a background which they will with underwater things. They draw forat with pencil,  then Sharpie and finish with Construction Paper Crayons. This examples shows both the pencil and Sharpie steps.

Vol. 4, No. 324, November 20, 2019

4324 - Floral Fullness.

Now that my second quarter 6th grade classes got their flowers hung on the wall, I decided to post another pic of the Van Gogh Flower Vase. When I chose the location for this vase, there was not a TV. So we are working with it and expanding outward rather than upward.

Vol. 4, No. 323, November 19, 2019

4323 - What Happens Happens.

As I was cleaning at the Middle School, I found two oil pastel stubs. They were tiny so I decided I would just throw them away. Then I thought, what would happen if I smashed them together on a paper? I decided to try. The end result is neat. I wanted to do a black watercolor wash over the top,but I didn't get time. Maybe tomorrow.

Vol. 4, No. 322, November 18, 2019

4322 - With A Little Help.

This morning a 7th grader asked for help making her clay rose. I won't do a student's work for her, but I will make a miniature version as a demo so they can have it on hand to look at while they work. I made all 3 miniature Rose's as I was demoing. None of them were constructed well enough to save, but they were fun to make.

Vol. 4, No. 321, November 17, 2019

4321 - Funniest Home Videos.

Tonight my brother, parents, about half of my aunts and uncles, and I gathered to celebrate what would have been my Grandma’s 85th birthday. The highlight of the evening was watching home videos, most of which were recorded by my uncle. We watched some from when my dad was younger, but the ones I enjoyed the most were the videos from the early 90’s, aka when I was alive. I only made brief appearances in the videos we watched tonight, but one was Halloween of 1990 when I was dressed up like a nun. One of my favorite videos was from 1993,  it was my uncle giving a silent tour of my grandparents house shortly before they moved out and my family moved in. It was fun to see what it looked like before we lived there as I don’t really have memories of it then. The best part of this video was that every time my uncle got to a mirror, he stopped and waved for the camera. After an evening of listening to my aunts and uncles share memories about different events as we watched and try to identify everyone in the videos, I walked home and was mesmerized by the sway of my sweater shadow. I snapped a pic, making sure to stand in a portion of the road without tarred cracks.

Vol. 4, No. 320, November 16, 2019

4320 - If You're Happy.

As I mentioned before, this week, my Kinders have been learning to draw facial expressions. To wrap up the unit, they drew and colored a self portrait. I decided to make an example so they could see how to color. The complexion is off slightly, but I like how the eyes turned out.

Vol. 4, No. 319, November 15, 2019

4319 - Experiment.

Today one of my 7th graders asked how slip was made. I told him I just ground up dried clay and mixed it with water. Then he asked what would happen if you just stuck the dried clay in water. I told him it basically works the same way, it just takes longer, unless you have thin pieces of dried clay. I had some clay available, so I decided to demonstrate. I love how the clay starts to look like a topographical map as it absorbs the water. It is way more fun to look at in person.

Vol. 4, No. 318, November 14, 2019

4318 - No Show.

Today was a creatively busy day. I did a clay flower demo,  drew and started to color a self-portrait, and made some Sharpie art as I was testing the Sharpies. Yet when I got home from work, I had nothing to show for my efforts. So you get a picture of the newly laid floor instead. Over the last week, my dad and I, with scattered assistance from the rest of the family, have been laying the new flooring in the family room. My job is to choose the tile order while Dad puts the tiles into place. Then I inspect the work to make sure that there are no gaps in the tile. The floor is not quite finished yet, but we are getting really close.

Vol. 4, No. 317, November 13, 2019

4317 - Floral Frenzie.

In case you haven't noticed, I like flowers. As my 6th graders were finishing up their Van Gogh flowers, I worked on my own flower, another rose. Looking at it now, I got a little carried away with the white and didn't have enough black worked in.

Vol. 4, No. 316, November 12, 2019

4316 - Improvements.

For the last year and a half, I have been teaching my Van Gogh flower lesson using a how to draw flowers worksheet that was made for a Georgia O’Keeffe flower project, where the flower petals go off the edge of the page. I decide it was time to update my worksheet, so I set to work designing the worksheet. With the help of my elementary school light table, I drew the flowers in each box. I can’t wait to make my packets for next quarter with the new worksheet.

Vol. 4, No. 315, November 11, 2019

4315 - Technology Woes.

Today I was getting ready to teach for the afternoon and saw that SMART Technologies needed some updates. I figured it would be okay to start updating now and if it needed a restart, I could do that between classes or at the end of the day. Well I was wrong! As I was starting my second class of Kindergarten, a notification popped up asking if I wanted to save my files. I clicked cancel, because I didn’t want to restart now and I figured that was stop it. Nope, not only did the file I was using close, the entire app disappeared from my computer. I was frustrated, fortunately my Kinders bared with me as I tried different things like restarting the computer. It didn’t work, so I went old school. Instead of drawing on the SMART Board, I would draw on the White Board. This was working, however, we were drawing emotions, which required redrawing the head over and over again. Then I got smart. I remembered that I had a Doc Cam, I could simply display the worksheet that the students had and make my own hard copy of the assignment. I used the Doc Cam again for the first grade lesson, texture fish. Students used the texture on the bottom of their shoe to make a fish. Normally I just draw the parts out on the SMART Board for students to see. Today, I made my own example in class.

Vol. 4, No. 314, November 10, 2019

4314 - Pancake Petals.

This morning I was assigned to make pancakes for breakfast. I decided to get creative and make a flower pancake. I used a spoon to draw the initial shape. After it cooked for a bit, I filled it in with more batter. Apparently I didn't let it hook for long enough, because the initial lines were hard to see. I sharpened the lines with strawberry jam and used chocolate chips for the center.

Vol. 4, No. 313, November 9, 2019

4313 - Twining.

I wasn't motivated to make art today, and even considered skipping today's project all together. Then Littlest Miller laid down on my lap while I was watching TV and gave me permission to do her hair. With her laying on my, my options were limited, and I just did a simple mini bun. She thought it was pretty cool and decided I should have one to match. She even made sure it was on the same side as hers. Then she asked to take a selfie together. The way we were sitting makes it look like both buns are hers.

Vol. 4, No. 312, November 8, 2019

4312 - Displayed.

Good teachers are always adapting and improving their lessons. This quarter, I decided to have students cut out all of their Van Gogh flowers. They will still put one on the wall for our collaborative collage, the other 3 will be mounted on a background paper. I put together this example using 2 flowers that I made and one flower that was given to me by a student. The student’s flower wasn’t blended very well, so I added a little bit more color.

Vol. 4, No. 311, November 7, 2019

4311 - In Progress.

I've been working on a color wheel creature as an example for my first graders. They painted a color wheel, and then used it as the body of a creature. The next step was to color. Sometimes when the students are coloring, I get time to color as well. This week, I was only able to get the creature colored. My plan is to finish coloring the background soon, maybe even tomorrow.

Vol. 4, No. 310, November 6, 2019

4310 - A Little Fishy.

One of my Kindergarten students was gone today, on the last day of our Mouse Paint Color Wheel project. Students mixed paint on day one and painted raindrop shapes. On day two, students cut out the shapes and glued them to form a color wheel, then they added pink circle ears. On the final day, students were drawing eyes, whiskers, tails, and noses. I finished the project for the absent student, because the way our curriculum is set up, there isn’t much time for make-up projects.

Vol. 4, No. 309, November 5, 2019

4309 - Happy Holidays.

Tonight as I was watching The Little Mermaid Live, I pondered what to do for my project and I remembered the cork from the bottle of wine we had with dinner, still in the corkscrew. I used a paring knife to carve the cork into a heart shaped stamp. The only stamp pad I could locate was green, so I grabbed an envelope and started making green hearts. As I looked at it, I decided the shape was more leaf like than heart, so I flipped the envelope over and tried again. This time I made a small forest. The trees seemed lonely, so I used a Sharpie to create a stipples background. The finished scene looks very wintery, I think this is because I was subconsciously inspired by all of the Christmas commercials I was seeing on TV.

Vol. 4, No. 308, November 4, 2019

4308 - Seated.

I spent the morning in meetings with a splitting headache. After lunch the drugs finally kicked in and I could focus on my work. My biggest task of the afternoon was seating charts for my new classes at the middle school. I decided to try something new. I laminated the blank seating charts then printed the students separately so that I could tape them to the chart making them moveable if the initial chart doesn't work out.

Vol. 4, No. 307, November 3, 2019

4307 - Too Fast.

I can’t believe that Eleanor is already 6 months old. She has grown so much. I was able to spend the afternoon with her for another photo shoot. Unlike her newborn photo shoot, she was awake, but we did have to stop for frequent snack breaks. Eleanor really enjoyed playing with/trying to eat the pumpkin, even though mom wouldn’t let her have the seeds. In the rabbit picture, we asked her to give the bunny a hug and she put her hands up instead.

Vol. 4, No. 306, November 2, 2019

4306 - Dancing Daisies.

Today the Miller Littles invited me to their dance recital. I gladly accepted the invitation and decided to quickly make flowers for them for after the recital. I used dandelions that I had previously made for the center of the flower and attached left over Halloween candy for the petals. I made flowers for Oldest Miller, Youngest Miller, and for S, F, and N who were also in the recital. All 5 girls danced beautifully and I was so glad I went. The girls were excited to get flowers as well.

Vol. 4, No. 305, November 1, 2019

4305 - Catching Up.

Early in October I took senior pictures for a friend, however, I was so busy I had been putting off looking at them. Now with the play over, quarter grades submitted, and a relaxing Hulu date with a friend, I had time to start for sorting, deleting, and editing. Here are a few of my favorite shots.