Today in Art class, we worked on a new page in our art journals called Watercolor Spot and Salt. It's two very simple watercolor techniques that are fun and pretty cool. I was walking around looking and talked and I noticed a kid with a cool spidery feathery type design on his paper and I stopped. "*C that looks so cool. What did you do?" "I blew the paint around on the paper. After I put some salt on it, I had this little puddle so I blew on it and that's what it made." I got so excited I went and got this random box of straws that I inherited in my cupboards and pretty soon had every kid blowing paint around on their paper. *C was so proud of himself. So, this page has been renamed Watercolor Spot, Salt, and Straw. We got all excited about the project and everyone got totally into it. I love when stuff like this happens. I call them happy accidents. A student says, "Miss H, my tape got all wadded up and now there's this weird bubbly ink spot." "Well, look how cool it is though, that's a happy accident." My other catchphrase is, "Think of it as a creative challenge." "Miss H, I can't get this design to look right, will you fix it for me?" "If I fix it, then it's my art and not yours. Think of it as a creative challenge. Find a way to solve it. Like a puzzle." They can finish the sentence for me now. I start with, "Think of it as a..." and they grumble, "...creative challenge, like a puzzle. I know."
I was grumpy teacher in sixth period. I know it's the end of the year and all but they were being so obnoxious and loud during the DOL. I kept having to add silent time to the timer and they still weren't shutting up so finally I said forget it! and made them read the next 5 pages of Farenheit 451 silently and then gave them a surprise quiz afterwards. I had a good 15 minutes of silence and finished writing my emails to parents. It was nice.
I told my seventh period that they were going to read a few pages on their own because, "storytime is nice but you need to read like big kids sometimes too." They laughed. We have a really good time in seventh. It's a good chemistry in there. I try in the other english classes but they just don't have the same mix and they don't laugh at my silliness. Some do but some have the, "you're lame" attitude and won't budge.
I have also decided, well decided a long time ago, but become very convinced that teaching is making me fat. I have gained a pant size, almost two in the past two years of teaching. Because I nibble and snack and eat school lunch pizza and get chocolate from the machine and drink tons of coffee (I have a coffee maker in my room. miss h is synonymous with the smell of coffee) or the PTA caters lunch or brings ice cream. For example, we have one kid whose grandmother works at a bakery and about once a week she brings in a load of day olds. So once a week our lounge is filled with cakes and muffins and breads and treats. Evil! Like today even, I ate this huge slice of lemon cream cake because it just looked so good. And then I wanted something salty so I got some Cheezits. It's a vicious cycle. And I snack when I get bored, like during my prep when I'm planning and answering the emails. I try really hard, I have a fridge filled with fruit and veggies and I have whole wheat crackers and dried fruit and mini bags of popcorn. But do I eat that stuff when I want a snack? Of course I don't. I buy peanut M&Ms.
No comments:
Post a Comment