Things That We Missed #2

AUTUMN HAPPENED

Highlights from this autumn include:

Visiting the American Visionary Art Museum, found convienently across the park – the home of these amazing pencil lead sculptures.

Things That We Missed #1

PACKING AND UNPACKING HAPPENED (aka, we moved)

Thats right, we are now the proud renters of a beautiful little 2 bedroom townhouse in beautiful federal hill, Baltimore.

Arisen From the Dead…

It has come to my attention that I have disappeared.  But I am back!  And not a second too soon, as there is much to catch up on…

long overdue post – back to teaching

Today was the first day back at school.. wooo… hoo?  I teach at an extremely inner city, low-income, elementary school in Baltimore, MD.  This will be my 2nd year.  While part of me is burnt out already, the other part is excited about getting a second try at something that beat me the first go around.  I plan to do a lot of things differently and figured it would make a lot of sense to document it, that way maybe I can help some other teacher to be a little more sane.  Here goes!

Issue 1:  SUPPLIES.  Last year, with no real concrete boundaries, my room and supplies were torn up from the floor(n) up.  Around Christmas time I changed things up and had all my supplies in specific containers and emphasized over and over how many they should have (i.e.. EIGHT CRAYONS!).  Definitely better, MUCH better, but this year I am going to try to change my atmosphere a bit also.  Rather than have supplies in plain dirty containers, I am going to glam them up a bit and color coordinate them to each table (red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple – yes they have assigned seats).  Pictures to be posted later.  My hypothesis is that feeling like my room is more home-like and worth a bit more, they will feel more of an ownership and maybe take care of it.

Issues 2: BEHAVIOR.  Last year I did my management with individual rewards and small group rewards, but not at the same time.  This year I am going to do an entire class reward system, earning points for each step of the period that is done well (walking in, sitting down, etc) as well as an individual rewards system where each student earns tickets that can win him/her a prize in a drawing.  While I have done this in the past, I am going to glam it up also, investing in a “treasure chest” for prizes.  I know this is a little thing, but sometimes the little things make a big difference (cliche!).

Issue 3: TEACHER SANITY.  This one is simple, I am going to stop getting mad.  I am going to laugh.  We’ll see how sane I am in a few weeks.

More to be posted as the school year kicks off, still (thank god) 2 weeks before kids.

sprouting oxgyen is officially open for business!

The reason for my long absence (and greatly overdue updating) were that there were so many plans brewing.  I have been churning out books, and as of today they are officially availible for sale.

STORE!!!

Also, stay tuned for an upcoming website as well.  And news of a community art project.  Oh, the prospects!

Bookmaking!

As I’m sure it is evident, I have a very short attention span for making things. I have actually finished probably a quarter (at most) of everything I start. I jump from project to project like I change clothes, so the fact that I’ve been into bookmaking for a few weeks is really saying something. Here are the three that I’ve done so far:

Few of my favorite things

I’ve been out of commission for the last few weeks due to a impacted wisdom teeth removal that is still taking its sweet time to heal, so I’ve got some posting to catch up on. First up, a combination of sweet finds, both handmade and machine made, that deserve some credit. Including my swanky new rims!

Kinetic Sculpture Race

How could I have missed this event last year??? Just imagine.. people are given the task to create a large scale sculpture (usually of something wacky..) that not only has to look awesome, but has to be able to race on land AND in water. My sides hurt from laughing so hard.

1st, 1st Thursday in the Park

Thursday, May 1st, marked the first first thursday in Mt. Vernon, and it couldn’t have been more awesome. My favorite radio station (WTMD 89.7) and a pretty swanky brewery (Brewer’s Art) put on free concerts in the Mt. Vernon park that happen once a month, on the 1st thursday, from May to October. After having the whole winter to pine over warm sunsets, flowers, and picnics (not to mention good music), it was a much welcomed evening.

craft rewind: bathroom fun

Our bathroom is small, it is boring, it has approximately 1 foot of shelves (in the mirror, no less) for storage. We had no desire to try and paint it (because of the re-painting when we move), and I was dead tired of trying to keep all my hair products/makeup/electric toothbrushes/blowdryer on the back of the toilet (srsly), so something had to be done.

Enter.. the new and slightly improved (but still tiny)… bathroom…