Art Class Signage

I am now teaching 4 Art classes for homeschoolers, and 2 of them are at my house.  I decided this morning that it was high time for some official signage :)

To make this sign I took a trip to my local A.C. Moore and purchased 3 wooden letters (A,R,T) and a wooden palette.  The rest is all acrylic paint and wood glue.  I painted each letter to emulate a famous work of art, glued it all together and added some hand painted lettering.  Tomorrow I will give it a few coats with a clear sealer and affix a wire to the sides so that it can be hung on a hook outside my front door.  I'm really happy with it!  I should have made one of these a long time ago. :)

The Classroom

One of the major reasons we decided upon this house was the excellent back room off of the kitchen.  It was perfect for a classroom!  I can work in the kitchen and see what's going on because of the pass through and I have plenty of room for all of my bookshelves (and I can't seem to stop myself from adding more and more books, thus needing more and more bookshelves.  I mean who can turn down a good book?  Books are awesome... but I digress) and art supplies (something else I have tons and tons of... I am a bit of a hoarder of all things that I think I can make into something later).  I can also gate off the entry and keep the baby contained.  I have yet to work my make-over magic on the walls, but who doesn't love wood paneling?  ok... me, I don't love wood paneling!  For now, my strategy is to plaster the walls with posters, art work, bulletin boards and teaching aids... and also the windows... because there's not enough wall for all of the cool stuff I want to hang up.  Hmmmm.... the ceiling is empty.....

You may recognize the file cabinet in the corner.  It was a fun refinish job and is now full of art supplies.  The white bookshelves were cobbled together from one 10 foot tall unit intended for the garage.  We found someone giving away a garage full of these shelves on craigslist and are using them in several places.  I basically cut the sides of one shelf into 3 pieces and used some small scraps to make braces for the tops.  After attaching them all together the whole thing wanted to fold over and twist apart so I had to add a back to the center section.  I happened to have a scrap of 1/4 inch plywood laying about that did the job.  Actually, there is very little in this picture that was not a hand-me-down, free-find, cheap used treasure, or curbside rescue... Even some of the technology pieces!

How to make a quick hot ham and cheese sandwich: A guide for Moms

How to make a quick hot ham and cheese sandwich: A guide for Moms 
(a post based upon true life events)

1. Get a plate
2. Retrieve the loaf of bread from the pantry. Strike that. Figure out where the kids have put the loaf of bread.
3. Get the baby out of the middle child’s bedroom and shut the door.
4. Undo the twist tie on the bread that the middle child has managed to twist in 3 different directions at once.
5. Go see what that crash was in the living room.
6. Put bread in toaster.
7. Retrieve ham from fridge.
8. Take the schoolbook away from the baby before he rips the pages out.
9. Retrieve 4 slices, no, 2 slices of meat from the package.
10. Go see what that other crash in the living room was.
11. Retrieve 2 more slices of meat from the bag and put it all on a plate.
12. Pick up the bin of books that the baby has just dumped all over the floor and replace with a smaller bin that is harder for him to reach.
13. Put plate in microwave. Hear toast pop up.
14. Get butter.
15. Take whatever that was out of the baby’s mouth… Wonder where in the heck he found a giant bejeweled ring. 
16. Wash hands
17. Butter 1 piece of cold toast and start microwave.
18. Get the baby out of the cupboard.
19. Butter the second piece of cold toast.
20. Get the cheese out of the fridge.
21. It’s quiet…. Too quiet….
22. Get the baby out of the bathroom that you KNOW the door was just shut to a minute ago.
23. Retrieve plate of cold ham from the microwave
24. Put cold ham and cheese on cold buttered toast
25. Go see what that crash was in the hallway.
26. Get the baby off of the overturned hamper, pick up the dirty clothes.
27. Put cold “hot” sandwich in microwave for 20 seconds.
28. Pick up the bowl of holiday candy that the baby has just managed to get off of the edge of a table and spill all over the floor.
29. Retrieve lukewarm sandwich from microwave and place on dining room table.
30. Sit down
31. Get up and get the baby out of the trash
32. Put the baby in his bouncy seat from which he cannot escape.
33. Eat cold sandwich.

Homeschool - the beginning

My first teaching experience was teaching art to a small group of homeschool students.  I loved it so much that I went back to school to be an art teacher.  While in school, I went from having one toddler to having two children who were either beginning school or would be soon.  Even while still earning my degree I decided that I would prefer homeschool for my children, but I wasn't sure how that would work with my chosen profession of art teacher.  After teaching in a public charter school for 3 and a half years and watching my children attend classes there it became even more clear to me that homeschool would be a better option for their learning success.  Though they both had wonderful teachers (who I requested myself), I became convinced that the limitations of a standard classroom setting were holding my kids back from their potential.  Both of them were in the top of their class academically for most subjects and often couldn't move ahead because of a multitude of factors that come with a large class.  Additionally, my extremely smart 4th grade daughter was falling behind in math and I couldn't figure out why.  It seemed to me that somewhere along the line, in an effort to teach to the test, something foundational was rushed through, and without spending a lot of time with her (time I didn't have as a full time art teacher), I couldn't figure out what it was.  My first grade son, on the other hand, is a ball of energy who becomes bored easily.  A bad combo when you are more advanced than most of your class...

I entered my 4th year as an art teacher pregnant with my third child with all of this in mind.  It was our plan for me to finish out the first semester and then take off the second half of the school year to stay home with the baby (who was due just a few days after the first semester ended).  The kids, however, were going to go ahead and finish out the school year at the charter school, and if all went well I would begin homeschooling them after that summer...

Well, as it happened, I finished the semester and cleaned out my classroom before the baby was born, and my husband started his new job about the same time.  yay!  ...and we closed on our first home about 3 days after he was born... yay! but ack!  and moved in the next day.  double ack!  Unfortunately our second car died a few months prior to all of this hullabaloo, and my husband's job, the charter school, and our new home were on 3 opposite points on the edge of town.  A few weeks into the taxi-service with a newborn operation, we realized that this idea wasn't going to work...

....so we decided to begin homeschooling right then... lol, nothing like jumping right in eh?