waiting for baby and sunflowers

Not my best photos ever....sorry. The colors are much brighter in real life.

Tomorrow is the big day, the due date of my first child. Of course we know babies rarely come on their due date so we are not getting our hopes up. My husband really wants an 11/11 or and 11/12 baby. I don't even know what to think at this point. Especially after my Dr. appt LAST Tuesday when the midwife told me...and I quote..." I will be shocked if you don't have the baby by Monday!". I got so excited and spent all of last week waiting and prepping to leave my classroom. On Sunday night I started to feel really strange and icky...like I was getting a flu or a cold, hadn't I read that feeling like you are getting a cold/flu is a sign you are about to go into labor! I called my maternity sub and asked her to go in for me the next morning and went to bed thinking I would wake up in the night in labor.

Turns out that strange, sick feeling...yah that was me getting sick... not having a baby. Having a nasty cold is never fun, having a cold when 39 weeks and 6 days pregnant is not fun at ALL.
For me the hardest part has been staying home sick. I never stay home from school...I admit I went to teach while I had the swine flu a few years ago. I went to teach the morning I found out my dad had died last year. So far in my pregnancy I had not missed a single day of teaching.
keep reading and you'll get to the lesson...

I'm not a callous, germ spreading, horrible person. I just can't really relax the way most people can. Being occupied is what helps me get through things and what keeps you more occupied than teaching! However, I knew that with my due date this close I had to walk away from my classroom, stay home and get well ASAP. I also was about to snap from the adults at the school asking me if I should be there and if the baby had come yet. Hello, if I am still standing here and my belly still looks like I swallowed a beach ball then NO I have not had the baby!
keep reading...

My poor sub has had to put up with pages and pages of overly detailed and controlling lesson plans and "suggestions". I'm sure she is equally ready for me to have the baby so I don't have hours upon hours of time to be fixated on my classroom.
I'm bummed I won't be able to post all the lessons going on in my room while I'm gone. Maybe I can talk her into taking some photos .
now for the lesson!
I realized I never posted this sunflower lesson that we did in September and is heavily inspired by Gail at That Artist Women and this lesson. We know I hate chalk pastels so I make sure to to at least one chalk pastel lesson per term so I don't create another generation of students that hate them. So we did Gail's glue resist sunflowers and then we zoomed in. I wanted the kids to work on their OBSERVATIONAL drawing skills so we really observed one sunflower petal and then zoomed in one more time to view the veins of a sunflower leaf. We used oil pastel and watercolor for these zoom ins. All three parts were mounted onto a big sheet of construction paper. Man these photos did not turn out well. I promise the looked good in person. The kids really liked taking apart the sunflowers to observe like scientists. I think it would be really cool to do this with a fruit or veggie where you could do some dissecting or flowers like Lilly's or maybe a small household appliance like a clock or toaster. I bet that would really interest some young men (and women) to take apart and draw a broken toaster or game controller.

you know the deal...click to enlarge

Chalk pastel stuffed animals

A while back I asked for tips on using chalk pastel with my students for a drawing project involving stuffed animals and beanie babies. Thanks to your tips this ended up being a really successful project. Using watercolor paper and layers of hairspray helped with the smudging.

The chalk pastel was perfect for making the soft fur of the stuffed animals. The students liked how easy it was to blend and add shadows with the pastels and how quickly they could lay down color. Believe it or not, our less expensive pastels ended up working best for this project.

Some students brought in stuffed animals from home and others used my collection of stuffed animals and beanie babies that were donated by staff members.

As always these represent 6th through 8th grade students that vary from one month of art with me to three years non stop everyday. I like seeing how the kids I have spent a lot of time with the last three years have progressed. I would recommended this project as a high interest project for 5th grade up!

I put these up in the main office and the secretaries say they have been receiving a lot of positive reaction from both student's and parents that come into the office.

I don't think my photos do these project justice!
An 8th grade student I've had a on an off over the last 3 years. I can see that she has learned a lot over the years. She had no art instruction before I received her as a 6th graders but was interested in art and had natural talent. I feel she is using color and value particularly well. I feel very comfortable sending her to high school with her current skill set. I think she will be as prepared as the kids from the higher income schools in our area.


6th grader who is working very hard to develop her skills. You can see she was trying to mimic the work being done by the 8th graders above. She is well on her way. She is obsessed with fantasy artwork (dragons and such) so she pushed herself to work from a realistic still life.
not the most advanced artwork ever but I think the animal is cute and she created a lot of personality with it and the planet in the background.
Very interesting perspective/composition from one of my autistic students.


As an aside at all three schools I have taught at I have noticed my students from Russia and the Ukraine are particularly talented artists. A disproportionate number of them have parents who have art backgrounds. Not only are they hard workers with their art, they seem to have impressive natural talent, especially in drawing. Is this just a coincidence? I don't know much about Russian culture but is art highly valued? My students from Cuba also seem to be particularly talented/interested in art. Has anyone else noticed similar trends in their student populations?