Little Leprechauns at Play

I'm not at all Irish, but when it comes to school, kids, and fun, it's hard to resist all those bright green shamrocks, colorful rainbows, and smiling little leprechauns dancing around their little pots of gold!

Right now, my first graders are busy painting pictures of the colorful monsters they created on their iPads using the Yay!Monster app, so we're not quite ready to "go green" yet, but I've been scouting Pinterest and a few of my teacher blogs to see what I can find.

One of the cutest, and simplest, ideas came from Blog Me Mom. This creative mom had her kids use heart-shaped cookie cutters dipped in green paint to create the outlines of shamrocks that were then colored in with green paint. It doesn't get much easier than that!

For the complete directions and lots of good pictures to follow, check out this link:
http://www.blogmemom.com/st-patricks-day-activities-shamrock-printing/

While searching for shamrocks and little green elves, I came across some good blogs for parents and grandparents with young children. Check out the links on the side to Brick by Brick (so nice to see a male role model teaching kindergarten kids!), PreK + K Sharing (a collaborative site with lots of good ideas), and Blog Me Mom (source of the shamrock printing idea- this site is full of great projects for young children).

 

Now, if food ideas are more to your liking, check out this great blog with some yummy and colorful ideas for serving healthy lunches and snacks for St. Patrick's Day. This mom blogger serves up plant based meals that would be fun for even the pickiest of preschool eaters.  Actually, I think I wouldn't mind eating these lunches myself!

http://www.bentoriffic.wordpress.com/

Happiness is not a place

"Happiness is not a place. Therefore, you can't get there. You can only decide that you are there."

I read this a week or two ago in a newspaper horoscope column, jotted it down on a notepad, and then forgot about it until yesterday when I was doing some cleaning up on my desk. It got me thinking about my annual February blahs and how hard it is for me to feel upbeat about much of anything this time of year.

So this morning I decided to take stock of the first half of February and see if I could possibly already be in my "happy place". Using the words "happy place" reminded me of my dear friend, Alice, who was the first person I heard use the term. So, Alice, thanks for kick-starting my mid-February happy place list!

 Right now the sun is shining and I'm enjoying a cup of coffee by the window. It's Day 3 of a four day weekend and that is certainly a reason to be happy!

 Yesterday, I spent the morning building some new shelves for my crafting supplies. In the evening, mom and I went to church, then she came over for dinner and the Duke-Maryland game on TV. I'm not a huge fan, but she and my husband had a great time bonding over basketball.


While mom was here, we enjoyed some iPad face time with my two grandsons. Gotta love that!


Friday morning was sunny and slightly above freezing so I took a morning walk, a rare treat for a full-time teacher.

Last Thursday afternoon, my first graders had a Valentine party, so I had the free time to participate in a crafting webinar with Cloth, Paper, Scissors.






Not bad at all! Five happy events over just four days in February...I think just might be in a happy place after all!

Hearts, Flowers, and Valentines...it must be February!

There's simply no way to ignore February 14, is there? Between the television and radio advertisements for greeting cards, flowers, and diamonds, shows like "It's Valentine's Day, Charlie Brown!", and paper hearts in storefronts everywhere, there's simply no way to avoid the day.

One of my classroom samples

In the spirit of the holiday, I like to introduce my second graders to artist Jim Dine and his lovely prints and paintings of hearts. This is an easy project to do at home if you happen to be spending time with the grandchildren, or your own children. All that is needed is some heavy drawing paper, oil pastels or crayons, and watercolor paints.

 

I made heart-shaped patterns in several sizes out of discarded cardboard from cereal boxes. Cookie cutters work great for tracing, too. After tracing, color the hearts with thick layers of oil pastels or crayons, then brush watercolors over the background. We make our classroom projects on 12-inch squares of paper, but the project can also be scaled down in size to make pictures for  homemade Valentine cards.



Student Work

If you're looking for a quick and easy gift idea, the 12-inch square pictures can be placed in frames designed for record album covers.

What parent or grandparent wouldn't enjoy this special Valentine?

                                              



 Happy Valentine's Day to all!

 

 



28 Day Challenge!

Friday was the beginning of the longest short month of the year...February. By now, the anticipation of a white Christmas is long past and our oh, so pleasant two-day January thaw ended very abruptly over the past few days. The first day of spring is still a long way off, especially here in Ohio.

 I love December, with the anticipation of Christmas, and for that month, don't mind the shorter daylight hours because they are warmed by the soft glow of holiday lights and candles. But once we've said "Happy New Year" the bottom just seems to drop out of my life. I can usually make it though January, although with each passing week I find myself spending more time mindlessly surfing the web and watching television, and less time in active pursuits. By the time February rolls around, I'm mired in my own enertia and it takes every ounce of willpower I can summon just to get through some days.

 

So for the 28 days of February, I'm going to try to do one positive, constructive, creative, or uplifting action each day. I know there will be days when it will be more than challenging not to fall into my February slump, days when the gloomy clouds don't part to let the sunshine through, but that's ok. I know that once March arrives, those first early blooms will poke through the soil and spring will be on the way once again!

So far, I've cleaned up my crafting space and storage closet, so hopefully some new art projects will take care of the constructive and creative part of my goal. And while cleaning, I rediscovered "Through Artists' Eyes: An Exploration of Bible-Inspired Art" by Joe Garland, Cindy Garland, and Jim Eichenberger, a three-book series I purchased a few years ago and never quite started. I'm looking forward to working through some of my favorite painters first, starting with my "main man", Vincent VanGogh.

One more "find" during my two-day cleaning frenzy was a set of two cute little cross-stitch pictures made by my daughter when she was little and I was still doing cross-stitch. With just a simple frame, they will be a cute addition to grandson Jackson's bedroom! Hard to believe, but I do think that this year February just might be a very fine month!

What about you? If you're like me, and don't live in a warm and sunny climate, how do you get through the dreary winter months?