Black Cat

How do you do Halloween projects when your town doesn't let you celebrate Halloween?  Well, you don't - but you can do things that may also be re-purposed to Halloween if the student so desires once they take them home.

This project was based on the book Black Cat by artist Christopher Myers.  The kids loved the illustrations but the story - told in a jazz type scat rhyme- kind of confused them.  The cat is a stray cat who likes being a stray because it means he gets to wander throughout the city.  Some of my kinders couldn't wrap their heads around a stray not wanting a home.

We talked about the texture in the cat's coat before using oil crayons and texture rubbing plates to create our own.  The cat's body was then drawn from simple shapes on the back and cut out.  You should have heard the oohs and aahs when they flipped them over and saw the textures trapped in the shapes of the cat's body.  Scrap papers made the eyes and nose.

On the second day of this project we finished the cat bodies as needed, and then made a background.  We used strips of orange paper to create horizontal and vertical lines (I do not let them get away with calling them straight lines - we use only directional names!) to create a background to emphasize the cat.

This one wound up kitten sized.

I love the eyes pointing in opposite directions.

Overall, not one of my more successful lessons.  I think I'll try it again with an older grade who might enjoy the pictures and story more.  The kinders really struggled with the cutting on this one.  It was a good learning experience for me at least.

Classroom Nightmares

It is bad enough that, despite placing my classroom orders in June during the last week of school, they don't get approved until summer is over and never show up until the middle to end of September.  It is worse when what you have ordered shows up hopelessly damaged. 

Our district uses School Specialty to order through.  I have been ordering from them for over a decade now and have rarely if ever had an issue with them.  The few times something has gone wrong they were very good about getting back to me right away to correct the problem.  That does not seem to be the case now.

This year I had paper arrive opened and torn - not just a few sheets but all the way through the entire pack.  Paint bottles burst, paint gallons were packed on the pallet upside down and then had heavy reams of paper packed on top so that everything was crushed and leaking.  I ordered 25 glue sticks.  24 were packed in their own box.  Number 25 was packed underneath two reams of 500 sheets of paper because - why not?  I wound up with white paint all over myself because there was simply no way to avoid it when unpacking.  Things I thought had dried where still damp under the "skin" of the paint.  The only saving grace was that it was tempera paint and it did wash out.

I was shocked at how much damage there was but even more shocked by the lack of communication with the company.  I have sent in their official "complaint ticket" on the website - which they do not make it easy to get to.  I have sent separate emails and left voice mails to no avail.  I am stuck with the damaged goods. 

Some examples of what showed up:

Of course boxes that were lightly packed came utterly destroyed.

That tear when almost a sixth of the way down the ream.

This tear when straight through ALL the paper.

The middle one was open with a broken cap and exploded all over the other two.

The paint was everywhere - it was like blood in a gory horror movie.

The guilty party.

I guess it felt because the big one leaked it needed to as well?

Am I the only one who had a classroom supply shipping horror this year?  What was the worst supply disaster you ever had arrive in your room?

Busy Summer = Late to Post

Well, I'm a horrible horrible liar. I just did not get to the computer once this summer to update my blog.

  I spent my summer passing Obedience School with Dixie:

She's the star of her class - as long as she doesn't need to recall perfect 100% of the time.

 Working on miscellaneous craft projects and artworks:

Scrapbook paper flower wreath, as of yet unfinished due to a bad case of lazy.

My husband has an awful griffon tattoo that needs re-doing.  I was working on some redesigns for him.  This one is based on a Raven for the front half.

I love owls.  This was a colored pencil draft for a larger painting.

 And making new posters for my new classroom:

I am FINALLY off the cart and back in a room!  WHOOT!

How was your summer and the start of your school year?