Winter Art

So I feel like my blog is usually just me rambling and/or b*tching about whatever I feel like... and I've decided it's time I actually show you something I've done in my classroom.

My old school in New Orleans is a charter school with an arts-based curriculum - which means that we had a lot of time to work on fantastic art projects. One of my favorites was our winter tree/snowman artwork. I decided to share it with my team at my new school.

The kids use crayon to complete their winter scene, then paint over the entire background with watercolors. Then - and here's the wow factor - you sprinkle salt on the picture. The salt absorbs the water where it touches, and it creates a "snowstorm" effect. Pretty cool, huh?

I apparently neglected to realize that this project only works on watercolor paper. Unfortunately several teammates did the project with so-so results using cardstock and drawing paper. (Sorry, guys!) I trekked out to the store and picked up the incredibly expensive so worth it supplies to complete our work. I think they came out well:

Merry merry!

The Library Fairy

Something extraordinary happened in my classroom.

Yesterday, when my kids went to their enrichment block in the media center, I noticed that my library corner - something I take great pride in - looked a hot mess. The stuffed animals, bean bags, and pillows were strewn about willy-nilly, there were papers and pencils left on the floor, and even - gasp - books overturned on the floor getting wrinkled and probably stepped on by 8-year-old feet.

Not ok.

Not when I have spent dozens of hours and probably thousands of dollars building up a library of books so that my kiddos will have enough to read every day.

I had a meeting to go to, so I had to leave the library corner the way it was. In general, leaving a mess behind with a close of my classroom door is not a problem for me. But this time, I was not happy about it.

Cut to this morning.

When I entered my classroom, what should I find but my library corner roped off with notes reading that the Library Fairy had closed the library until further notice because it was not being respected.

Well, obviously I took this very seriously with my students. I explained to them when they arrived that this was how I found everything this morning, and I was as mystified as they were. It prompted a very important and long overdue discussion about respect for our classroom materials.

They have been mistreating the library corner, so it is closed.

They have been tearing up cap erasers and throwing them at each other, so there are no more cap erasers in the cap eraser basket.

They have been too noisy when they line up, so they will practice silence for the beginning of lunch.

I am sorry, but I am done. It is December, and they are in third grade. I don't expect them to act like miniature grownups, but I do expect them to pick up after themselves and take care of the materials that the school, myself, and their parents bought them. You should have seen the look on their faces when I showed them the book about Degas that I found upside down with bent pages on the floor and told them that it cost me twenty dollars during my trip to New York this summer. I explained that I am not rich, but that I am happy to buy them all the books I can so long as they treat them with respect.

Thank goodness that Library Fairy's got my back. ;)

You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry...

Oh, the holidays. It's a really fun time to be an elementary school teacher.

And I don't even mean that sarcastically.

Seriously, guys - how many of you with regular jobs out there get to make holiday crafts and read Christmas books at work?

So anyway. I'm not one of those crazy-obsessed-my-entire-month-of-lesson-plans-is-holiday-themed teachers. But today, I decided to read a short Christmas-themed picture book to demonstrate "Reader's Thoughts." That is, we read the book, and every time someone had a thought/question/opinion/epiphany about the book in any way, we stopped and talked about it. I'm trying to get them to think more deeply when they read, so this was our first step.

I chose to read Olive the Other Reindeer, which is a precious book about a dog who thinks she's one of Santa's reindeer. I suggest you give it a look.

Anyway, when discussing what we thought the genre was, my friend - we'll call her Humbug for the sake of this story - says, "Well this book obviously has to be a fantasy because Santa's not real."

Y'all. My heart sunk to my toes.

Literally one of my biggest fears is a child discovering that there's no Santa in my classroom. (When I was about 10 and I found out, I was devastated, and I told a family friend who was a few years younger. To this day I feel it is one of the most shameful things I've ever done.) Children have such a short span of childhood nowadays; I can't get over what my students know about (s-e-x stuff and everything!), watch (Paranormal Activity!), and play (Call of Duty!). The thought of them losing one of the few sources of wonder and magic in the world while in my classroom is horrifying.

And I'm not naive. I know that in the third grade, it's probably half-and-half as far as believers go. However, I am not about to let my non-believers ruin it for the rest. So after Humbug came out with that, there was fortunately a backlash of, *gasp* YES HE IS! followed by a reply from several kids of NO HE'S NOT! My blood pressure rose steadily after a few back and forths until I could finally get their attention.

I ended the discussion with the following: "Ahem. For your information, I believe very deeply in Santa Claus, and I hope you all do too. Because you know, you run the risk of no presents if you choose not to believe." That seemed to end the discussion definitively.

Oh! But I forgot! HIGHLIGHT of the discussion. One little boy - who is in fact very into his church, so I know his family is very Christian - said that he did not like Santa Claus. (Side note: WHAT?!?) Another kid replied, "You don't like Santa? So you don't like Christmas? You're Jewish!" And he kept telling the child (who is African-American, in fact) that he was Jewish. Apparently the only part of our "Let's talk about all the December holidays" discussion he remembered was that Jewish people don't celebrate Christmas. To him this translated to all people who don't like Christmas are Jewish. We had an interesting chat in the hallway.

Anyway, the point of my story is this: I went through my teenage period where I was annoyed that I had to pretend to believe in Santa because my baby brother is almost 12 years younger than I am. I rolled my eyes and was all, "ugh. How long am I going to have to put up with this?" I swear, in hindsight I don't know how my mother didn't either slap me or give me coal in my stocking.

Now that I've seen much more clearly how fast these kids are expected to grow up, it's clear to me that kids need Santa.

Oh -- and don't be this teacher.