Super Sweet Kinders!

I officially started my subbing to cover for a co-workers maternity leave. Boy are those kinders sweet! It's in the K/1 class and the other part time teacher works in that room, so she has gone full time and I have taken the part time in that room. So I'm now part time 2/3 and part time sub k/1 BOY am I spoiled from only working part time this year! Thursday had me in bed by like 9 o'clock!
Friday I got tons of hugs and one sweet sweet boy held my hand to lead me from one part of the room to the other in the morning. Later on in the day I was reading with the Kinders and he was the last one finishing up before snack, so I asked him to come on over and finish reading the rest with me. Without hesitation he climbed right up in my lap and read with me. Heart melt.
I have gotten a lot of rest this weekend in preparation for next week. I hope it pays off.
As for now, I am FINALLY off to see The AVENGERS! Husband and I have been wanting to go since it opened, something always came up, but not today, we're going!!! eek!

Only 7 more Mondays!

So Spring Break was wonderful and a much needed break, but now we've been back almost a whole week already and I feel like I need another break! HA!

This is one of the places we found on our adventure driving around the Island of Ibiza, we never found the cliffs we were looking for but we did find some pretty magical places on "accident" so I have no complaints on how I spent my break. Just want it back!

8 More weeks of school left, but ONLY 7 more MONDAYS! I hate Mondays, I always have, but I blame working in a district with a 4 day week for the increased hatred. They got me spoiled, a 3 day weekend every weekend. Unless we had an inservice, but those weren't too often and I could wear comfies to those!

So here we are only 7 Mondays left, hard to believe its almost over but also seems like it is time already. 

Art Fun this quarter

As many of you know I teach Art and PE at my small school in addition to my work in the 2nd and 3rd grade class. We switch specials every quarter, so my time with the kiddos is honestly very limited, with art it is extremely challenging to get a project done in a month. However, here are some of the things we have been working on...

In K/1 we talked about Salvador Dali and his bird-legged-elephants we discussed the difference between realistic and imaginary. We then got to work on our own imaginary animals, often combining characteristics of two or more animals into one creature.

We spent a class session drawing our animals on "giant" pieces of paper and were able to discuss scale and composition.

And then we were able to get started with painting our master pieces.

In 2/3 we have a bunch of different projects going. Above, one is working on painting a portrait, similar to Picasso but not too extreme, and another is working on optical illusion coloring. The optical illusions proved to be far more of a challenging project than I had imagined. We only worked with two colors and focused on positive and negative space and shapes, coloring alternate sections, alternate colors. Some are turning out better than others...

Another optical illusion project, and the works of a cursive name monster. With the monsters students had to write their name in cursive and trace around to make it fatter and then cut out and create a monster with their name. For the monsters we talked about colors that compliment one another... some got it.

A wonderful example of the optical illusion piece, a student really taking their time and concentrating. Also a great example of a name monster.

Another portrait painting (we did these without drawing in pencil first and this is making some students very nervous) and another optical illusion.

The 4/5/6 grade class is working on realistic portraits and we've been hard at work on those for some time. Unfortunately, I don't yet have any pictures of their work... Hopefully I'll remember this week. 

I also would like to take some pictures of finished work that I already have on display. 

As a recap: here are my personal favorites from our Henri Matisse inspired works that the whole school did a variation of.

K/1 colored the reverse side of 2 pages of shapes in order to make their families

 2/3 made construction paper collage backgrounds and then painted a single sheet of paper to then cut out shapes to form a picture. They had to make their pictures with just that one sheet of paper. 

4/5/6 had the option to paint the background and then cut out construction paper shapes as below

 or they could do the same technic as we did with 2/3.

Why?

Why is it so hard to keep this thing updated?!
Tons of things happen but I just NEVER post about them... going to make a serious effort starting TODAY!
I am also have hopes to expand a bit more into the personal life and some of our adventures here in the UK.
Stay tuned friends and family... stay tuned.

Hilarious Realization

So last night I was watching Modern Family, and it hit me, and boy did it hit me hard.
There is a student at school, constantly cracking me up, mature for his age, jokester, hilarious mannerisms, etc. and while I was watching the show last night I glanced up from my crochet project and it hit me:
This student is CAM from Modern Family!

So today I couldn't wait to share this with the other teachers, who got just about as good of a chuckle out of it as I did. I've now found my blogging name for this kiddo when he provides me with more blog worthy stories :)

Happy Weekend Friends!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

School is back in session!
While I'm not as excited as that above exclamation mark, I did have the most wonderful winter break.
School got out on 16 December and believe me, it was welcomed. I had the most enjoyable relaxing week. We started it off with Aaron's work Christmas party on the 17th, it was fun, there was a scavenger hunt and I SOMEHOW was nominated as our tables representative, there were 17 tables in all, and I came in 2nd, which to be honest I'm still a bit bitter about, the last item on the hunt was a Blue Tooth Ear Device.... REALLY!?!?! Who has those any more? Especially when all these people work in the techy side of the Air Force. Ohwell.... I can let it go now.
Maybe
Anyways, I cheered up when Not only Santa showed, but Mrs. Claus and an elf came too! It's a yearly competition/fundraiser, people vote by buying tickets and the people with the top 3 votes get to dress up like this trio. Definitely brought good laughs and smiles.

The hubs and I even got cleaned up for the party, but unfortunately there isn't a good picture of both of us, so this one with our friend flexin in the background will have to do. 

Aaron and I couldn't wait for Christmas to come, so we caved and opened early. Like any teacher I was uber excited to get some books, NEW CRICUT Cartridges, and then spoiled with new camera lenses, a camera bag, and a Mac Mini!

YAY Cricut Cartridges (Plus I got the DINO one) I <3 Dinos

Opening Aftermath, plus had to use my new 18mm lens

Someone was exhausted from the festivities

Then I was honored enough to have my dear dear friend Maria join me for a few days before Christmas, followed by a few days after Christmas. She is currently doing an au pair gig in Spain and took a few days off to come visit, it was great to have her here. We enjoyed some time in our PJs,  I took her on her first ever IKEA (aka Heaven) experience, where she somehow didn't buy a single thing, I of course, found a bag full of items I HAD TO HAVE. We went to London, which PS Please go see that city at night, it is even more gorgeous. And hardly any one is out. I still have yet to make it on the London Eye, at this point it's getting to be hilarious that I miss it every time, we either run out of time, or there are a million and 12 people in line and I'm far too impatient to wait that out. 

Maria and I enjoying the rainy/windy evening in London, riding the UnderGround

The London Eye at Night, beautifully lit 

Buckingham Palace, hardly anyone around, unlike the last time Hubs and I went, the Queen was out on holiday, the palace was open for tours, PLUS Kate's dress was on display, we couldn't get anywhere near this place. 

We were invited to a Christmas Eve dinner with all of our friends, had a blast, lots of food, and Kinect Just Dance 3, some major competitions got going there. But here is Baby Claus to bring a smile to your face.

We went to Dublin, Ireland with another couple to bring in the New Year, we had a FANTASTIC time and left with stories we'll never forget, got a good taste of the Irish, dined like Royalty and had a very accommodating, and comfortable hotel. While I took nearly 1000 photos I'll leave you with one of my favorites. 

Oh and it's great to see all those super cute kiddo faces back at school this week, although I could do without the indoor recesses, we've had 2 this week, and personally, that is 2 too many. They are our first of the school year though, which I would say is a good record for Rainy Ol' England!

Hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of 2012!

Last Week's Polar Express

Finally uploading pics! :)
Here are some pics from the Polar Express our amazing PTO set up!

Enjoying hot cocoa and cookies in our PJ's while the Conductor reads to us.

(notice the lights on the train!)

Our PTO knows how to have fun, the snowmen are sliding down the hill!
PLUS who doesn't love going to work in their Pajamas?