I spoke too soon....

Today was not good. My first period was so horrible, students talking during their test, cursing, some students wouldn't even take the test, and a parent stopped by to observe because she had been hearing such horrible reports from her son. Great.

My other classes were ok, but not good. Then we (teachers) find out there will be an adjustment to the schedule, but it will only affect the SPARS, that's what I teach! On top of that the 8th and 6th grades are reorganising their students, classes that I have been teaching will be all mixed up, I might have new students, and lose others. BOOOOO!

At least some of my students made fantastic campaign posters,

So Far So Good

Well, I am having a great week! I had my formal observation on Monday, and my AP said she was impressed! No one has ever said that before, usually they say I did great and then tell me all kinds of ways to make it even better. I also feel like I have earned some respect from my students. I have had decent behavior and did not have to call school police at all this week. I made several phone calls I made last week and have seen a huge difference in 3 of my difficult students. Yesterday, out of the blue, a computer repair person appeared in my classroom. The librarian had showed him to my room because he knew I had several iMacs. I never placed a work order, someone else in my building had called him because there are several other iMacs they wanted removed and by accident he was delivered to my classroom. He replaced the hard drives in all of them and re imaged them with new software! I now have 11 working apple computers, that run faster, have office, and can go on the Internet. What can I say, so far, so good. :)

I read a book today, and I loved it!

I was at the book store yesterday because Zeek wanted to read "Ida B...and Her Plans to Maximise Fun and Avoid Disaster, and Possibly Save the World." This is not something Zeek would normally see and want to read but his school is reading it for a book club and he wants to participate. While I was at the book store (which by the way did not have the Ida B book I was looking for and I had to drive to Towson in a rainstorm to get it) I saw The Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne DuPrau! I LOVED The City of Ember, The People of Sparks, and The Prophet of Yonwood. If you haven't read these you need to. I had no idea she was writing a fourth book and was a bit excited.

This is the first page from The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

The Instructions;
When the city of Ember was just built and not yet inhabited, the Chief Builder and the Assistant Builder, both of them weary, sat down to speak of the future.
“They must not leave the city for at least two hundred years,” said the Chief Builder. “Or perhaps two hundred and twenty.”
“Is that long enough?” asked his Assistant.
“It should be. We can’t know for sure.”
“And when the time comes,” said the Assistant, “how will they know what to do?”
“We’ll provide them with instructions, of course,” the Chief Builder replied.
“But who will keep the instructions? Who can we trust to keep them safe and secret all that time?"

I love mysterious beginnings.
The newest Book of Ember, The Diamond of Darkhold is a fantastic end to the series.
If you haven't heard the first Book of Ember is now a movie, so read the book first, books are always better.

I Heart Bmore

I Y Baltimore. For many reasons but today I want to share one, The Book Thing of Baltimore

The Book Thing is a non-profit where anyone can donate books and anyone can take books, for free! You can take as many as you want just sign out when you leave with the number of books you took. I love to go there for National Geographic, maps, and other magazines for my students to tear, cut, and glue into collages. Today I was very excited to find some magazines written in Chinese, these will be great for collage and papier mache'. I signed out that I took 70 books! All free, mostly magazines. If you live in or near Baltimore you should check it out.



This is a picture from the text of one of the Chinese books, can my friends in China read it?

Even if you do not know how to read a language, it is always beautiful to look at.

I Love PD

I really love fine arts professional development. First great thing about PD days, I didn't have to wear professional clothes! I wore my favorite jeans and my Dansko shoes, I love jeans and comfy shoes. When we arrived at City College we signed in and had a continental breakfast. In the morning we discussed management, writing grants, curriculum challenges, and how we should set up criteria for the next city wide art exhibit. After lunch, we chose a workshop that we would like to learn more about. I chose pop art grid drawing. I had a great time. The workshop helped build my confidence in drawing and teaching drawing.
But wait, my day got better.
My art teacher friend and I always carpool to the art PD as we did today. I was inquiring if she had art textbooks I could borrow and she said she has so many I could borrow a whole set and she would still have enough for herself. So after PD we headed to her school, packed up the books, and took them to my school. When we arrived at my classroom, I discovered the kiln and throwing wheel had arrived from the ceramics grant.
That was exciting, but it gets better.
I went upstairs to say hello to any staff that was still around, and found out that the materials from my donorschoose.org grant had arrived! I am very excited to start making tons of sculpture. :)
The only bummer about today is that I had to go to class from 7pm-10pm!
Tomorrow I get to sleep in, because I took tomorrow off to spend with my kids, yeah!

Feels like Friday?

Today is Wednesday, but it feels like Friday. The students in BCPSS have a four day weekend. The staff have two days of professional development and then their weekend. I love Professional development, really love it. When I was working at a miserable school, the art PD was the best 4 days of the year! I always learn something that I can apply to my job immediately. I love to be able to talk with other visual arts teachers and gain new ideas and strategies. Usually if you are an art teacher you are the only art teacher in the school. Other subjects usually have a team, others to bounce ideas off of. So these professional development days are very beneficial for us art teachers.
Since I started positive, now the other side to the long weekend for my students. I have this great student who constantly tries to skip her class to come to art, and I have to tell her she needs to be in her class (which breaks my heart since she actually wants to be there.) She is very helpful to all staff. She will stay after and help the basketball team and today she stayed with me until 6pm helping me grade drills. She told me she didn't want to go home, she didn't like her home. She is basically raising herself, and she is awesome! I was so sad for her and amazed by her at the same time. Later she told me she would come to school tomorrow to help, just to get out of the house. Four days off for students who have crappy homes is a really long time!
I know I will spend all weekend thinking of her, I hope she is ok.

My Brave Husband

I had a much better day than my husband. My husband had been complaining that something in his eye was bothering him. He had flushed it, and it still bothered him. This morning he woke up and his eye was bothering him again, so he decided to go to a doctor. The walk in clinic sent him to an eye doctor. The eye doctor found a glass sliver in his eye! It was very small so the eye doctor numbed the eye and removed the splinter. He was advised to stay home since his work is so dusty. My husband is much braver than I am, I would have freaked out, the doc would have had to put me under to pull a splinter out of my eye.

Sunny Day

Today is beautiful here in Baltimore. Sunny, the leaves are changing, the temperature is perfect around 73 ish. Perfect!
I had a rough week at work, but Friday was OK, even though it was an A day. By no means were my students polite or well behaved, but I did see an improvement from Wednesday. The students that I told would no longer have any art materials and would have to learn art by reading and writing about it really stepped up. Most of the class walked in the classroom ready to learn, quiet and respectful. Only 5 came in with the same foolishness. So I decided the ones that came in ready to learn would paint the lesson they were supposed to paint and the others would do the book work. After much explaining to the 5 that had reading (from an Art textbook) that the reason the rest of the class was painting was because I could tell they came in ready to learn. I further explained, that if they did this assignment without a fuss and came in next time ready to learn they could paint also. A few understood and did the assignment correctly. So that leaves only one 8th grade class that cannot paint.
I look forward to Monday, I feel ready for the challenge.

Thursday

The funniest thing happened to me today. I was in the cafeteria because that is my morning post. All the students had gone upstairs except the hearing impaired class because they were waiting for another bus. One of my ninth grade students came in just as two hearing impaired students were going outside to check on the bus. I said good morning from across the cafeteria to the ninth grader, she ignored me, but the hearing impaired student turned around and waved to me. So the child with the hearing loss could hear me, why not the student without hearing loss?
Today was a great day, I do love B days. My classes are calm, they paint quietly, they clean up quietly and on time because they want to keep painting. Today I had 5 students come to work on their paintings after school, because they wanted to! Things are looking up :)
I realised today that my blog titles are very uncreative, which is very sad for an art teacher. I feel compelled to keep it up for the rest of the week, but I will try and think more creatively over the weekend.

Wednesday

Not a good day. My A days are long and tiring. The bright spot of the day is that the clay arrived today. I can now start my clay lessons and my after school ceramics club. The brightest bright spot was, a student that stayed after. Not because she had detention, not because she had work to make up, but because she wanted to work on her painting. She even called her mom to let her know without me reminding her.

Tuesday

I had a good day! My students were awesome, all painted responsibly and listened to directions.
I had sign language class today. I learned how to sign Egypt since my hearing impaired students are making an Egyptian profile painting. I also learned how to sign zero paper balls, and stop wrestling. I think all of those will come in handy tomorrow.

Monday

I now dread Monday. Most of the other teachers at my school have noticed that Monday's are horrible. The students either have to relearn how to listen or they are so excited to see thier friends that they cannot stop talking. What ever the reason, today was horrible. My students were whinny, rude, and immature. I will never understand why asking a student to do thier work (or I like to say, stay on task), which in my class means draw, is a reason for the student to yell, "LEAVE ME ALONE, WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS TALKING TO ME!" Well gee, maybe its because it is my job to teach you about ART, and you are not doing it!

ok, vent over, I really do feel better :)
So I was checking my favorite blogs and read, http://bmoreteach.blogspot.com/2008/10/youre-horrible-teacher-you-know-that.htmlMore Humbly I Teach

This is a great blog from another Baltimore City Teacher (originally from Michigan), and watching the clip from "Chalk" really made me smile. I love the line, "Where's my chalk? OK, who took my chalk?" I think that pretty much sums up my Monday.

On happier news, I then checked my email. My Donors Choose grant was fully funded today!
A link to see my proposal;
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=211189
I am very excited for my students to make large plaster sculptures. Now I just need to decide which class can handle a messy project.
Well, Tuesday can only get better :)

My Kitchen

I really, really, really dislike my kitchen. When we bought the house, I found the cute 50 year old kitchen cute and retro. I knew it was too small, but it was clean and it would work. Now I strongly dislike my kitchen.

My husband and I have two children, two dogs, a cat, a corn snake, and some fish. Our house is just the right size, about 1,000 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, and a finished basement.

When we were shopping for a house, we looked at many houses in our price range that were dumps. This house came on the market and I knew it was meant to be ours. It was the least expensive and in need of the least work. The previous owners were the original owners and kept their home very clean and well kept. My husband and I instantly loved this house. We discussed before we moved in that we would update the kitchen eventually, but it would work fine for a couple years. The oven is small, I had to buy new cookie sheets that would fit and the door would close. The stove and oven both waste gas, the pilot lights are so enormous that they heat the kitchen and dinning room year round.

It has been 1 1/2 years. I am ready for new cabinets. You should know that my husband is a cabinet maker, furniture designer, woodworker extraordinaire. But like his bosses wife says, "the cobblers wife wears no shoes." The existing cabinets are metal and slide. Which means you can never see whats in your cabinet all at once. You can push the doors to one side and see some of the contents, and then push to the other side to see the other contents. For some unknown reason, this drives me nuts! I want to see the contents all at once.

This is a picture of the kitchen before we moved in;

The only difference now it that the walls are green and the counters have dirty dishes. Did I mention there is no dishwasher?

grades

I have finished my progress reports!
I feel so relieved. Grades have always been difficult for me to keep up with. With 8 different classes and 3 grade levels, the work piles up fast. So, I figured out who is passing and who is failing and turned it in.