Happy New Year

I'm alive and well,

and hope to be back on here on a more regular basis.

Yikes it's been a busy school year!

I miss keeping up with my friends in blogland.

Please forgive me!

That's me in my new purchase that my son thinks is absolutely hideous.

Hmmm...I needed something to cover my ears with a whee bit of style, and at $7 the price was right.

Hey, at least he could find me on the sledding hill, right? ;)

I've happily finished nine days of teaching art.

I'm filling in for a long-term paternity leave.

Thank you Deep Space Sparkle for your amazing blog and ideas...

Check out this awesome work by one of my first graders!

I absolutely LOVE what I am doing.

I loved substituting for the reading specialist too.

Reading and Art are my two favorite subjects, so I feel so very lucky.

This job is completely one hundred and eighty degrees different.

I was becoming bogged down with the paperwork and meetings.

Now I'm dreaming in color again.

I love the creativity.

I love getting to know all the kids in the school.

I have six or seven classes a day for forty minutes each.

Each day Sofi & Izzy come to school with me.

I start the day with a prep, then 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, lunch, 1st, prep or Kindergarten, and another class, then a reading intervention for the last 25 minutes of the day.

I see sixteen classes- twice a week.

The classes have 20-27 kids.

A lot of faces and names to learn...I'm getting there.

Many projects are drying each day on the racks!

Our first project was a little game of getting to know each other.

We made a monochromatic self portrait using pastels, markers, and colored pencils.

They shared what they love to do in art.

Isn't it fun?

Each little head is on a 4 x 6 inch card.

Putting it together took a little bit of organization!

My mission this week is to sew up some fun aprons.

I love dressing up, and I return each day a bit of a mess.

Pastels on the face and paint on the sleeves has become my new accessories.

I'm happy to be doing what I love so close to home.

Balancing the laundry, paperwork, meal planning and cleaning is still a little challenging...

but it was even when I wasn't working full time!

Cheers to a New Year!

-Julie