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.