The First Full Week of School This February!

Sometimes you just need to go off track and just play....  :)    One of my 5th graders was having fun decorating his hand while finishing his landscape...

My Smartboard covered with directions and student examples... inspired by this pin and this pin.
4th grade is working on the 3-D cityscapes...

3d grade is working on Op Art hand forms....

They just started them this week... next week I will have them add visual texture to the background with rubbing plates.

Anyone who was done early took a circle sheet ( warm or cool color ) and designed a circle. I'm saving them all in a box to create a large collaborative piece. I will have different grades do different size circles or different shapes, haven't decided yet...

2nd grade has been fingerprinting hyacinths! We added details with oil pastel and a border from painted paper scraps.  

Sorry for the glare... I took the pictures after they were hung on the bulletin board in the front hallway at school.

Kindergarten is creating tulip fields... they are printing the tulips with the tines of a plastic fork, inspired by this pin.  I showed the classes a short video about the tulip fields in the Netherlands.
Next week they will add details with oil pastels.

They had so much fun they wanted to keep printing tulips on activity paper! This sweet Kinder worked carefully around her wet tulips to add details! It was too wet to take with her so I will give it to her tomorrow to take home. Isn't it beautiful? 

Well, that's what we have been up to this week, it is the first full week of school we have had the entire month of February!  Next week it will be March ( yeah! ) sorry February, but I'm so done with Winter this year! It's not over yet though... there may be flowers in the art room but it is going snow again here Sunday into Monday,  6 to 12 inches ( oh yeah...)  

Oh well, for now I will just have to live Spring vicariously through my students Spring flower creations! 

Hope you all have a great weekend! 

Mrs. "C"  :)

Torn Paper Hearts - 1st Grade

What do you do with a 1st grade class that is way ahead of every other 1st grade class? You make torn paper hearts!

This is my example ( on my truly disgusting, dirty white board, yuck!!! )( I hate white boards... give me a chalk board any day! )  This actually started as a sub project for a couple of kindergarten classes one afternoon when I had to leave early.  

I tore up a bunch of painted paper scraps from our "share" box in the art room. ( if we cut something from painted paper we never throw out the scraps! If the student does not want to keep their scraps for a project at home they put it into the "share " box and we ALWAYS find a use for them! )

I pre-cut some really big hearts. I gave simple directions to glue the painted paper scraps all over they paper to cover it. Pieces could be kept the way they were or torn into what ever shape/size they wanted.

This was the perfect activity for a crazy Wednesday before a huge snowstorm ( that evening and into the next couple of days on and off ).  

I also put crayons on the tables and gave the kids the option of coloring in some of the white spaces between the painted paper shapes.

Some of the kids were very meticulous where they placed their paper pieces...

Some finished pieces... they came out really cute! the kids were excited to take them home for Valentine's Day! 

Remember this snow pile outside my classroom window from the other week?

Well, this is what it looks like now...

It is the entire length of my windows and then some... there is so much snow on the roof that's  now melting that we have MANY a leaky ceiling in our classrooms! 

One of my 3d graders was looking at the ceiling on Thursday afternoon... I asked him what he was looking at and he said that something had just dripped on his head! Ok, everybody at that table was quickly moved and my recycling can was placed under the leak. Some classes have  three/four leaks they're catching! 

It has been in the 50's the past two days and today it rained ( a lot ) which although there is some minor flooding, it's awesome because it is melting the snow! ( yeah! ) 

On a different note...

I am taking my first on-line class in March at The Art of Ed.

I'm excited to start! Is any one else out there taking it? or have taken it? Have you taken any other classes from The art of Ed? Which ones? Did you like them? 

Hope every one has a great weekend! Talk to you soon!

Mrs."C"  :)

A Moment of Time...

Gorgeous daffodils on my kitchen island... close your eyes and smell them... it's Spring :) ...

Banana bread cooling on the counter... house smells yummy... ( one plain and one with mini chocolate chips )

a cup of tea...

It's snowing again... about 3 inches so far... thought it had stopped but it started again... I'll go scrape the driveway later...

Everyone is gone to work or school, this is my last vacation day for President's Day.  The cat( Sweetie Pie, although she wasn't so sweet last night! She was a menace and kept waking me up crawling all over me and head butting me to rub her ears! It's the middle of the night! Go to sleep! I had to close the bedroom door, to which she then sat outside the door and meowed! )  and I are enjoying some Jane Austin... I have a great fondness for Jane Austin, alas I am the only one in the house that enjoys her stories, I am usually met with eyes rolling and "uuuggghhhhhh..." if I put one the movies on when others are home ( sure, now the cat's resting...)  There is something to be said for being the only one home when you have been cooped up with everyone through 5 days of continuous snow storms! ( OMG! I just looked up and it's snowing like crazy out there! I can't see the mountain across the street! ) 

I finally finished my blue shawl that has been laying around here for the past several weeks, Meredith, from Mereknits suggested I should name it the Snow Day Shawl and so it is! 

It's a pretty pattern, I found it through this pin.  I used the pattern as a guide but changed it up a little...

I washed it up on hand wash with a little baking soda, the yarn had a funky smell...  it's Red Heart Unforgettable-Tidal . I have used it before in other colors and it works up nicely with a lot of drape. It washes up very soft but it's acrylic and does have a weird smell until you wash it! 

Well, I'm going to have a piece of banana bread and enjoy my peace and quiet while I can! Tomorrow it's back to school, I left last Wednesday and I am coming back on Wednesday! At this point I have no idea where we are or what we are doing! I'll go through my plans later on tonight... 

Hope everyone is having a good week so far... nothing against February, but hurry up March! 

Mrs."C"  :)

My Frozen World...

This is my back yard from my dining room window( because you can't get into the back yard at this point with out a dog sled...) it is completely drifted in with several feet of snow...  Just to give you a little perspective, that dark circle thing in the left corner is the top of a 3 foot chimanea that is on a stone platform that is built into the wall about 1 ft off the main ground...  There are actually two tiers of rock wall behind it. If you go to this post from August 2012 and scroll to the bottom of the post you can see what it looks like without the snow, HUGE difference!

We are one underground bomb test at Picatinny short of a mini avalanche! ( the mountain that my property is on is connected to a military base about 10-15 miles away as the crow flies. They design ammunition and test it underground, when they test the whole mountain shakes! ) I have lived within 20-25 miles of the base all my life, whenever there is a boom or shudder in the ground people just look at each other and say," Picatinny..."  They have a great waterpark that we were members of for several years when my kids were little.

My grill further under...

The side steps going into the back from my deck... my daughter decided to go on a treck through the yard yesterday...

This view is from my driveway looking up into the back... my daughter fell into a drift up there behind the fence yesterday and sank up to her waist, she's just under 5 foot tall... there is a 6 foot rock retaining wall behind that snow pile... somewhere... the picket fence is only 1/3 showing at this point...

I have to trim back this pile about 2 feet, I had trouble backing out of the garage yesterday afternoon. There's no where to go, the snow pile from the previous picture is taking up a 1/3 of the driveway...

This is said giant snow pile taking up the driveway...

My driveway...( yes, we shovel this... my husband's quad is out of service and it's not in the budget to get it fixed right now(sigh) so we old school it...)

This Blue Spruce is about 30 feet tall... ( I planted it with my husband when we moved in 14 year ago, it was only 4 feet tall...)

looking down onto my front walk from the steps... there's about a foot of sidewalk hidden under the snow on the right...

This is facing the stairs, I tried to dig a pathway for the utility and oil guys( on the left) so they can get to the other side of the house, there's actually a stone walkway under there, someplace, somewhere...

The side view off my porch... my pathway I dug got snowed in. (again...)

Well, that's my frozen world at the moment. It is going to snow again this afternoon 2-4 more inches... I give up at this point and I'm like, whatever...  

This is the mountain I look onto from the front of my house. I have big windows on the front and when I look out from my chair I only see the mountains ( not the street as I am up onto the other side of the mountain)  I look out and think how beautiful it actually looks from this angle...

We were only house bound Thursday since it snowed ALL day, non-stop... Friday was a continuation of clean-up, but we were out running errands in the afternoon. I am attempting to organize the insanity of the past couple of days from my kitchen, laundry room area...

I'm doing dishes, laundry, straightening up boots, jackets, etc... that were drying by the back door... I have dried salt to wipe up everywhere again... I think that out of every thing drives me the craziest... that and constantly tripping over boots that are drying in the kitchen...

Well, enough procrastinating, work to do! (just looked out the window, the snow has started again... sigh...) On a bright note it's going to be in the 50's next week for a few days ! Yay! That will melt a good chunk of this mess! To everyone out there in frozen land, stay warm! 

Mrs."C"  :)