Monday, July 28, 2014

2014 - Back to School Week! Fresh Paint

The first year of feeling HAPPY going back to an ART job!!! I still pinch myself that I am surrounded by people who enjoy teaching and preparing for the school year to begin.

If you know me,  I appreciate this job because of almost ALL the others I had to endure. I did just write a paragraph, but deleted it because it's time to look forward.  I have grown as an artist- teacher, develop challenging lessons each year... the only difference is all of my stories are POSITIVE from this past year.  No more...guess what happened to me today...a student broke everyone's pottery in the class...and I have no money to buy more. Or, the chair throwing stories... That's all in the past!

This will be my 5th classroom and it is now time to make it an Artist's Space!  It starts with a fresh coat of paint and clearing the entire room.  I picked a soothing blue-green and borrowed the Librarian's calming light green because it reminded me of a Monet....and it's refreshing!

As a teacher, teaching 650+ a week...spending 80% of my day in this space....you need to ENJOY the space you work in.  I like to be organized...I want the Artists' to know where the materials are. A clean work environment goes a long way... ( I wish I could say that about my beading jewelry hobby right now).  Seriously though, have students be responsible for cleaning up and respecting materials.  I learned this from the first job...Students must EARN the materials...I'll give a warning to the entire class...one miss use, I take away the materials.  It only takes a couple of classes for students to understand how the respect process works. Sorry...soap box moment.   I'll soon post on how I begin the year organized and clutter free space.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

It's nice you were allowed to paint the room whatever colors you wanted! Amazing. And they look great!

Anonymous said...

I like the colours as well. Sometimes I feel unmotivated to paint my classroom. I have two classrooms, in two different schools. I need to find a more positive way to look at it but at the moment, it feels like double the work. Also, 650+ kids in a week!! WOW! Amazing!!