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?

Mission accomplished!

With my Janury 12 post, I set a goal to send my grandson, Aiden, a little piece of snail mail every month. Today, I'm proud to say "mission accomplished", at least for the month of January! It actually started with a thorough desk cleaning in my rather messy art classroom at school. I discovered a box of those random, unsolicited "gifts" sent from charitable organizations in the hopes of getting a donation to their cause in return. As luck would have it, I found 12 cards that each had different animals on the front and a blank space inside for a personal message.

I decided to start with the African Elephant. For some reason, Aiden has been fascinated by this animal ever since his first visit to the zoo last April. Lions and owls and dogs are interesting, and he loves checking out all the animals on the 3D Zoo for Toddlers iPad app, but it's those elephants that he goes back to time and again.

Aiden's other fascination is with trains, presently Thomas the Tank Engine and all his little "friends" on Sodor. After my Christmas visit, I had the words to "He's a Really Useful Engine" dancing in my head for several days after my return home, so of course I included a set of stickers that will let Aiden build a little train...hopefully somewhere that mommy says is ok for the home decor!

 

The other day, Tara told me that Aiden loved getting his own mail, so I'm happy to say that it's "mission accomplished", at least for January!

 

That's the way the cookie crumbles...

Did your parents or grandparents ever say that to you when things weren't going quite your way? Mine sure did! I was thinking about that today while sipping herbal tea with mom after Saturday afternoon Mass at St. Leonard's, the church at the retirement community that she now calls home. We were talking about this coming summer and our biennial family reunion, a gathering of siblings, our children, and now our grandchildren. The conversation included her wondering how many of us would be able to make it to the Tennessee lake this year, something that has become much more challenging as our family has grown and our children have grown up to have children of their own.

 

Edgar Evins State Park at Center Hill Lake, TN



I must say that I am one of the fortunate ones, at least as far as summer planning goes. Most of my career has been spent at the local Catholic school, first as a fifth grade classroom teacher, then an assistant principal, and now as an art teacher. I won't have any trouble setting aside a week in July to spend with my extended family, unlike my daughter and son-in-law and some of my siblings and their families who work at year-round jobs.

And yet, I still find myself longing for more time...time to cook a meal for my husband...and actually savor eating it...time to spend with my two grandsons...time to travel with friends who are now retired...time to finish all the unfinished artwork in my cluttered spare bedroom...time to read all the books on my "must read" list...time to just "be", sitting on my back deck in summer or taking a walk in the park on a sunny late morning in October.





I know that I am not alone with my feeling that time is all too quickly passing me by. After all, I'm a member of the Baby Boomer generation and there are quite a few of my fellow Boomers who are just like me. We've raised our children and now have grandchildren. We're closing in on retirement age, but aren't there yet. We aren't always so sure that we'll be able to afford retirement even when we do reach that magic number. And so we wait...for leisurely meals...precious grandchildren...distant places...creative endeavors...opened pages...sunshine...and time.

And that, dear reader, is how the cookie crumbles.

What about faith?

About a week ago, I responded to a Facebook post by Mitt Romney to join in a Day to Pray on Sunday, January 20. I said I would do that, along with thousands of others who responded similarly. Yesterday, before Mass began, I found myself thinking about all the reasons we come together in community to worship and pray. As a lector that day, I led the Prayer of the Faithful, reading the community prayer requests for our church, state, and national leaders, for those in need emotionally, spiritually, and physically, and for families, especially parents. These prayers always conclude with a prayer for those who have gone on from this life and the loved ones who have been left here in this life.

Lots to think about on a January day...less than two weeks from the day three years ago when I said good-bye to my beloved father...on a national Day to Pray...the day before the inauguration of the President of the United States...the week that holds the 40th anniversary of the passing of the controversial Roe vs Wade...lots to think about...









The three words I have always associated with my Dad are Faith, Family, and Friends. My siblings and I used those words in his eulogy because they summed up everything that our father held dear in his own life. His faith in the Lord gave him the strength and wisdom to be the leader of our rambunctious family of eight children, a leader in his career and church life, and a friend to everyone he ever met. He prayed and read scripture every day, even on vacation. We'll never know exactly what or whom he prayed for, but I am certain it was not only for all those he loved so deeply, but also that more people would come to know and follow the Lord as he did. That, to me, is the definition of faith.

As grandparents, we cannot always be there for our children as they raise their children. We may live too far away to offer to babysit so mom and dad can have a date night or just go to the grocery without taking the little ones. We may not be able to offer financial assistance when money is tight because it is tight for us as well. What we can do is pray and offer words of encouragement, support, and advice. So today, take a few minutes to pray for your own children and grandchildren, then pray for the children and grandchildren who have no one to pray for them, because you are truly blessed.