Wishes, Supplies and Back to School

The month of August is upon us!  A teacher friend of mine posted this meme not too long ago and it is so true! 

It seems that once August 1st. hits the calendar, summer is for all intents and purposes, over, no matter what day you report back to school.  Our 'official' teacher back to school day is August 16th. (students report on August 28th.), but my team has already been at work for a few hours this week creating our class lists for the first semester of the school year.  We are VERY grateful to be able to do this-it benefits all of us to be able to sort our students according to personalities and being that we teach them all, for all 3 years that they are in middle school we become very aware of classroom placement and it's advantages for everyone.

I've been asked to report early to our Central Office on the afternoon of the 15th. to be trained on how to train other teachers on one of the required district training days.  If you are a teacher and you are reading this, I'm sure you are smiling and nodding your head. So that is another day of my summer vacay gone.

Am I ready?  Yes and no.  It's been a good summer.  I pretty much got NOTHING on my list done that I wanted to get done, which is typical for me but I'm okay with that.  I went to the beach with my bestie for a few days which was awesome.  I had lunch with friends that exist only in cyberspace for the rest of the year.  I went to the movies.  I ripped up my carpet (I can't even...) and I have tried to embrace the change that always comes with each new school year.

I've missed my team.  I am so lucky that I work with a bunch of people that I call my friends.  So, I'll be glad to spend my days with them again.  I've missed my kids.  Mostly all of them.  I've missed being creative every. single. day. I've missed being on a schedule.  I've missed wearing pants. Ha ha. No, I haven't.  Really. No, I haven't.  

Every year, I try to avoid WalMart and Target this time of the year because of all the Back To School displays and this year is no different.  I did end up going to Target the other day (where I ran into teammate Nick, PE and Health teacher extraordinaire) looking for pastel crayola markers  which seem to be in short supply this year and I did find a few.  I haven't had to purchase as much stuff this year out of my own $$ because I've either 1. hoarded way too much in past years or 2. been frugal and stingy when passing out supplies over the last couple of years.  That being said, there are ALWAYS a few things that I can use in my art room that are either used up at the speed of light or too expensive for my meager budget.  I've created an AMAZON WISH LIST that you can access here or through the tab at the top of this page.  It will be updated throughout the year, shipped directly to Albemarle Middle School and greatly appreciated if you are so inclined to bless us with your generosity.  Thank you in advance.  

Here's to another great school year!

School Supplies

I went to Hobby Lobby today and it seems that the pumpkins and pilgrims had been out for some time and the little worker elves were busy setting up Christmas decorations.  I suppose then that it is not preemptive of me to go ahead and post my back to school supply list.

You can find all the AMS class supply lists here at Teacher Lists. Just type in our zip code and choose Albemarle Middle School.

But, because I am visual here's what you need as an AMS Bulldog Visual Art Student for the 15-16 school year.

Visual Arts Supply List

1  1-2" 3-ring binder for sketches, notes and brainstorming.  Wait.  What?  Notes? IN ART?  WTH, MizzSmiff?

Colored Pencils.  Optional but STRONGLY encouraged.

Markers.  Also optional, but STRONGLY encouraged.

Sharpies or something similar.

Pencils.  EVERY DAY.  Bring a pencil to my class.  These are my favorite #2 pencils but honestly, please just bring a pencil to my class.  Please.

An eraser.  These erasers are my very favorite and once you use one, it will be your favorite, too.  We all make mistakes.  We all need a do over.  These erasers are the best and I use them all the time.  Yes, I make mistakes.  All. The. Time.

You also might want to get a pencil box or pouch to keep your supplies in. Label everything.  

In the meantime, don't think about school and enjoy your summer.  Go outside and play, even though it is hot out there.  It will be August 25th before we know it. I'll see you then!

I'm a Liar Pants

Confession #1:  I am a big, fat liar pants.
Confession #2: This is the most passive-aggressive blog post ever.

Sigh.  It's so close to Christmas and I know Santa is watching.  I haven't had the most stellar year and I feel the need to come clean.

Why the need for confession?  Well, I lied to a colleague yesterday.  Flat out told a big old fib.  It just rolled off my lips like nobody's business.  Didn't even think twice about it.

In an effort to redeem myself, I feel the need to offer up some excuses background.  I, like so many of my art teacher friends (and regular teacher friends to be sure) spend a ton of my own money for supplies in the beginning of the school year because I get very little money for supplies from my school.  It's just the way things are.  I deal with it and I do it without thinking twice.  Throughout the school year, when I see things that are on sale, or I have a coupon, or they are in the Dollar Spot at Target (can I get an amen! for the the Dollar Spot, my peeps?) I'll pick things up.  Ziploc baggies, little papier mache boxes, do dads, thing-a-majigs, metallic sharpies, ribbon. The list is endless. I like art supplies.  I don't mind sharing stuff with my kids if it means that we can do something cool and exciting and different.

My school purchase order at the end of the year looked like this: 2 reams of heavy drawing paper, tempera paint cakes in 9 different colors and 2 gallons of white glue.  That's it folks.  Supplies for 1 year and 300 + kids.  I also get to order construction paper with 'School Supply money' that I house in my room, and share (gladly) with the rest of the school, because when the other teachers use it, that means they are probably doing some cool projects in their classes.

I got a phone call from a colleague yesterday.  She asked me if I had some glitter and some glue for a project that I am sure that she needed in, oh, I don't know, 10 minutes or so, never mind that I was in the middle of a class of 6th. graders trying to put together star books. 

Instead of saying that I do, as a matter of fact, have glue in my storage closet and I do, indeed, have glitter (TONS of it!) in my desk drawer, I lied and said, "Uh, no.  I don't have any glue or glitter" and I hung up the phone.  But you know what?  I bought that glue with the $150.00 that I have to stretch between my 300+ students that I'll teach this year.  That same $150 dollars that you got at the end of the last school year for your class of 10 kids.  I bought that glitter with my own money because I saw it on sale last year and I had a coupon and I thought, even though I HATE glitter (what art teacher/custodian likes it?) I knew that on occasion I like to let the kids loose and kids FREAKING LOVE GLITTER for crying out loud.

I lied.  I could have given her some glue.  I could have given her some glitter.  But I didn't.  I was mad and selfish.  My pockets are not bottomless.  Plan ahead.  Anticipate needs. Go buy your own glitter.  Pffffft!

So I hope that Santa will forgive me my selfishness.  I could really use some love right about now.  And maybe a couple of gift certificates from Michaels, AC Moore, Hobby Lobby, Dick Blick, Sax, Cheap Joes, Triarco, Pearl, Binders, Jerry's Artarama, Nasco and so on and so on, ad nauseum.

 

Crayons

I teach Middle School and we don't use a lot of crayons, but I have to admit that I LOVE them. Did you know that crayola produces nearly 3 billion crayons a year? That's 12 million a day! There are over 120 colors (not including specialty colors) and blue is the favorite. I love everything about crayons. I love the colors, I love the names and I could get lost in the scent. Everything you want to know about Crayola but aren't afraid to ask. Who thinks this is the best Back-to-School supply, ever?

Today, I might just go get myself a nice box of brand new crayons. And then I will sort them by color in the box. Anyone else ever do that? Okay, just me. Never mind. What is your favorite Back-to-School supply? I'd love to hear from you!

Things That Break My Heart

Last week, I made these Lorax clay pots with my EC self-contained class.

I know that they are not particularly arty but I like to do things with this class that are in the moment.  I try to plan things that go along with what they are doing in their classroom or revolve around holidays and happenings, which I almost never do with my other classes.  Since Earth Day is tomorrow, I thought these would be fun to make. Tomorrow, we will fill them with soil and plant zinnia seeds while we watch The Lorax (the original, animated short one).  They will take them back to their classroom, put them in a sunny window, already prepared by their amazing teacher and hopefully, will have some truffula flowers growing shortly.

Why does this break my heart?  Because in the past week, students from my 'regular' classes have been looking at these little clay pots asking me, 'Are we gonna make these?' to which I have had to say 'No' which always gets met by a 'Why not?' I hate to tell them that I can't afford to buy already made clay pots (or clay to use in my kiln or glaze or so many other things) for my 100+ students that I am teaching this quarter or felt and googly eyeballs and pom poms so that they can make the Lorax pots, but I can afford it for the 12 or so kids in Mrs. P's class.  Sigh.  It makes me feel guilty but most of all it breaks my heart.  To tell them no.  Even though it's not my job to do cutesy stuff with them, it's not in my standards for sure, I know they like to to do craftsy stuff.  They probably don't ever get a chance to do things like this.  Budgets, or the lack thereof really stink.  Art is consumable.  And we consume a lot.  I recycle, I beg borrow and steal.  Well, I don't steal but you know what I mean.  It's rough to be an art teacher with about $1.50 a kid to spend on supplies. 

Which means, I guess, that maybe we will do some origami these next few weeks (only about 4 before we start testing) and that I will be breaking out the solar beads and cotton kitchen string to make solar bead bracelets (always popular) again this year.  And I'll be trying desperately to justify this with the common core, somehow.  Of course, I will just be wishing that I could afford to buy a bunch of para-cord and clippies for those bracelets as well.  Sigh.