During the month of January, we had 15 schools days here in the middle of North Carolina. Between starting on the 6th of January after winter break, Presidents, Civil Rights Leaders, end of semester work days and snow, time on task has been limited. We had an early release day and a couple of 2 hour delays that cut severely into my classroom time. February is not proving to be much better. We are 3 weeks into 2nd semester and I'm sitting here two days before Valentine's Day, on my couch looking at the lovely snow falling from the sky. Yesterday, we left school early having only seen my 8th graders, each class for only 30 minutes.
We've been trying to finish up a project on Surrealism. Surrealism. Yes. This weather is surreal. I'm tired of the project. Sick. Of. It. I'm sure the kids are too. I generally factor in 5-7 days for each one of our projects. The first day I'll do the introduction, generally with a little art history and background. The second day, I'll do some demo and let the kids get at it. I feel like the start of this project was months ago. Part of me just wants to say 'Forget it' but the other part of me just wants them to finish it up so we can move on to something else. By what the weather folks are predicting, I seriously doubt we will have school until next week. That includes Saturday school to make up for the snow day today. I'm a little bit disappointed because I, in a moment of romantical softieness, was going to break out the construction paper (red, pink and purple, mostly), sequins and (God help me) GLITTER to let my young'uns make Valentine's for their sweeties. Sigh.
It's been a winter full of interesting weather. Has anyone else experienced a never ending project because of school closings and weather delays? How do you deal with the frustration of the project that never ends?
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| I should be at school, but I am at home watching the snow fall. |
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| She's gotten a little further in the last few classes. |
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| Zach photobombing Eli. |
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| You can't tell yet, but it's a melted playing card, which I thought was a really neat Dali-esque idea. |
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| Painting and drawing. |
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| They noticed that a lot of surrealist art has eyes in it. Dylan painted a big eye, with lots of little eyes in it. |
If I don't get tired of this thing, I'll do a little gallery crawl video when they FINALLY finish their paintings.
