Penguins!!!

 This is probably one of my favorite projects with the students. Look how cute they turned out! I stole from pintrist. The head and body are from an egg carton. The project was kind of epic, it was a good thing I didn't have too many students that day. They had to paint the body and head first and wait for it to dry. Then all the other little piece most needed assistant with. The cotton balls did not want to glue very well. But worth it for how cute the result is.

Laughing

This weekend I felt like I was able to laugh a lot with people. It felt really good. Laughter to me is a sign that Jesus is bringing me into more of a season of joy. It means that I am able to be myself and enjoy being with others. I am thankful for friends to laugh with and stupid movies to laugh at.

The video is of Connor laughing.

Twirled Art?

 I am not sure exactly what to call this art. I had students coil small strips of paper to make a design. I love watching children create art because they invent things all their own. I try as much as I can not to limit their creative process.

 The one above is not exactly what I wanted them to do, but its their creation and how they interpreted the project, so I love it.

My Students Original Plays

One of my most random characters in the plays

For the past few months I have been working with my students on writing their own original plays. I did this as a group through a process. First we worked on characters, then setting, problem and solution and lastly plot. We did this as a group so that each group created one original short play. I let the oldest group write their own lines and I wrote out the play for the younger groups. I really love how they turned out because you can tell that children came up with this.The characters are really random. They are very short, but I couldn't give them too much to start.

Here is a brief synopsis of each of the plays

K/1st Grade
The play opens with 3 scientist traveling into a volcano to study it. On the way they meet a jaguar who lives there that takes them deep into the lava. In the lava they find 5 princesses who are trapped. They call some power rangers and a nurse to help, but neither can get them out. The princesses use their magical powers to free themselves just as a pack of tigers is coming to attack them. Luckily the Power Rangers are able to save them from the tigers and they manage to escape just before the volcano explodes.

2nd/3rd Grade
The play opens with 3 models having a fashion shoot in NY city. The local superheroes have become jealous of all the media attention celebrities are getting instead of life saving superheroes. They decide to hire a wizard to make the Statue of Liberty come to life to attack the city. They will then save the city from this horrible attack and everyone will recognize them again. Their plan foils when they are unable to stop the Statue of Liberty who is lighting the city on fire. The wizard, for a heavy price, stops the Statue of Liberty before she destroys everything. The conflict between the models and superheroes is resolved in the end.

4th and 5th.
The play opens with a king and queen going on vacation and leaving their precious daughter in the hands of the guards and dragons of the castle. With her parents gone, the princess decides to throw a party against the advice of her pet hamster. However, nearby zombies and vampires see this as an opportunity to capture the princess. They distract the guards and dragons and make their way into the party. The vampire tries to get the princess to marry him, and when she refuses, he sends zombies to capture her. The hamster tries to come to the rescue but is unable to save the princess. Just then, the King and Queen return having forgotten something and find their daughter captured. The queen demands they release her and the king is very upset with the guards for not keeping a closer eye on things. The play ends with everyone being able to enjoy the party.

As we have started to rehearse the play, I have been very excited as I feel like I am a real theatre teacher. Since the beginning of the year I have been working with them on some acting fundamentals. I taught them how to stand on stage, volume, diction, areas of  stage. etc.  Now, when I tell them to stand downstage left, they know where to go. I can uses theatre terms that they recognize. So far they are enjoying the rehearsal process. They look forward to it and ask me if we are rehearsing everyday. It has been a very rewarding experience for me thus far.

Zumba

Now anyone who knows me knows that exercising and me do not go together. I just can't do it. I'm a baby. I can't push through the pain and tiredness. However, if I trick myself into doing something that is not called exercise then I can do a lot more. For instance, hiking, I love it, and can trick my mind into thinking that I am not really exercising. I walked for miles everyday when I was in Europe. However, put my on a treadmill and I will be over it in about 10 minutes.

A friend of mine invited me to come with her to a Zumba class. That sounds like an exercise class, I can't do exercise classes. I have bad memories of almost passing out in my high school aerobics class. She said  "No its like dancing." I decided to give it a try. I didn't know this ahead of time, but I was the only white girl in this class. The Zumba class is just a few blocks from my house and was all Latina women. My awkward whiteness and freakishly tallness stuck out like a sore thumb. Even though i am 1/4 Mexican, boy does that not come out at all in my rhythm. I am all gringo when it comes to Latin dancing. But taking the advise of a friend a while back, I decided I am just going to own it. I am going to own my whiteness and tallness and just do this, and do it badly, but do it. Sometimes I felt very self conscious about my lack of hip action in the dance moves but when I was able to let that go, I had a lot of fun. I hope that having a buddy will help me to keep this being a regular thing. I just have to keep tricking myself that I am not working out, even though I am covered in sweat when I leave.

City scape and Negative Space

Here is some art projects that I did with my students recently.

 The above is a city scape in which they used pastels to make a sunset.

This is a negative space project where I had them tape off a design and then paint over the background. After the paint dried, I ripped off the tape to reveal the design. Hardest part of the project: ripping tape off a roll of masking tape. Even the older ones could not rip it off. Did not think that would be so challenging.

Turtle Shells

I was praying today, asking God to speak to me about how I was feeling. He got me thinking on turtles. Often I get strange images from God. Lat night I got a frog while praying for a friend. Anywho, I was thing about this recent episode of "The Office" that I just watched. In this episode, Kevin runs over a turtle with his car. He feels bad so he tries to glue the pieces of the turtle shell back together. However, he's not very good at puzzles so he takes different things he finds around of office to fill in the missing parts. As he is gluing the pieces on, he steps on the turtle, again breaking the shell more. But he is determined to build it back even stronger than before. Despite his efforts, he realizes that the turtle has died.

Its a pretty funny clip, but as I was praying this morning I realized that I feel like this poor turtle. I have been broken by my sins, by pain, by disappointments. Sometimes I feel like I operate with this broken shell full on pieces in the wrong place and trying to fill in the gaps with things that don't belong. And despite my best efforts, there always seem to be somethings that breaks my shell again and I have to find a way to try to glue the pieces back on. And the shell is getting heavy with these random objects glued on it. Ultimately, if we live like this, it does lead to death. We can not fix ourselves and the more we try the more we will just continue to break it. We can not live with a broken shell forever, it will kill us. In the same way, sin has that hold on us. If we try to fix it ourselves or patch it up with other things it will only lead us to death.

I need a new shell, that I can only get from the Lord. No amount of glue can fix the brokeness in me. As I was praying about this, the Lord gave me this image of the turtle being burdened by this hodgepodge of a broken shell. The turtle curls inside the shell. On the inside is a perfect strong shell, smooth and clean. The Lord was reminding me that this is how he sees me. My sins have been wiped away and he gives me a strong smooth shell that can not be broken. There is no need to glue myself back together or try to fix myself, because he provides a brand new shell. There is still healing to be done but he does not see me as the turtle in the picture above.

Below are some more pictures from the episode.