school day

I have been feeling a bit restless this week. The kids have been squirmy too... full moon/change in weather...

I once again began to wonder if here in the classroom is where I wanted to be... but then a couple things happened....

I sat by Joey who was upset because his painting of a bunny was not turning out. He needed some tempera paint one-on-one coaching... and while I sat there showing him how you could fix anything with tempera paint, he leaned over and whispered to me, "Did you know I have a beautiful voice?" I told him I did not know this, and he said he made up songs, would I like to hear one. "Yes", I replied... and Joey sang me a little song, then took up the paint brush and said, "you really can fix anything..." and finished his painting.

The first graders were finishing up a crayon resist painting... as they finished I would just take their picture and slide another piece of paper in front of them and they were allowed a "free paint". When it was time for them to go, I had them leave their free painting on the tables to dry. A while later I picked them up and noticed some kids painted a green stripe on the bottom of the paper and a blue one on top, others painted rainbows, a couple boys painted cars, several painted red flowers, and one girl just mixed paints together and told me she had painted a rug.
Interesting.

And all the kindergartners in Mrs. P's class cut out two circles from construction paper today all by themselves... well I did have to help one little girl, but everyone else cut a lumpy, bumpy, curvy object and glued it onto a paper. Finally. I wanted to kiss them all on top the head as they headed out the door.

This may not be the kind of creative theme park studio I dream about, but I really think I can learn a thing or two from these guys.