Look at me! Two days in a row of bloggering! 

 So last night was interesting.  We had a storm roll through, which was minor, but gave us some much needed rain!  We love thunderstorms at our abode, and we welcome a nice electrical show.  However....our dog, Tucker, does not care so much for the loud claps of thunder, which typically follow that beautiful display of lightning.  Mox, our other dog, doesn't seem to be bothered by the thunder, which is great, because she is scared of most everything else.  Her fear often results in a bit of uncontrollable pee; on the floor, in the bed, on your face, wherever she happens to be located at that time.  Tucker is not a scared pee queen, but rather a sad, mopey, cuddly bear when fear encroaches on her territory.  She will follow you around and look up at you, or sit on your feet when you're washing the dishes.  It is incredibly sad, but also so cute!  

...Until it is 2:30 a.m. and she is on your head curled up in a ball shaking.  Poor bear was terrified from 2:30-4:30 and chose to share a pillow with me until the thunder ceased.  I felt so bad, so I stayed up (sort of, if thats what you call that mindless, brain dead, 3 a.m. feeling) and pet on her and cuddled her when she started to wimper and shake.  

As a result, I slept in today, and I am a-okay with that! I will be up at 6 a.m. soon enough!  Only downfall of waking up late is that when I went to my computer, I found the internet down.  I troubleshooted my way through all the usual areas of malfunction after a power outage, but to no avail.  Time warner cable is not the best at customer service, so we will see if it's back up when I return this evening.  If not, I will have to deal with it bright and early tomorrow morning.  (yep, back to that 6 am schedule, all for the sake of the internet!)

Anyhow, since I got nothing done this morning of great value, I will post a few images of the stuff I HAVE been working on for my classroom this year.    

Just a heads up: Our school's "theme" this year is outer space.  Last May we had a man come and show the kids his solar telescope, and they could look at the flames swirling off the sun...well at least until it got cloudy.  Then they didn't really understand why he was there and were very bored.  

When a student is "caught being good" or "caught being helpful, doing something right, etc" he/she puts his/her name in the fishbowl. (this was from our underwater themed year, but has just stuck!) SO I made mine into an astronaut helmet for this year!

This little guy is the dead marker monster.  He eats the dead markers found in our art room.  This way, I can easily remove the lids to save for another project and wont have 19870345804 kids coming to me with markers all class.  I found a similar  post on pinterest that is really cute.

Your basic station sign.  This will go above my "done early" bookshelf of supplies.  The kids have the above to work on, but can also do play doh and legos if I have specified that it is okay.  It depends on what the rest of the class is doing, whether or not it will be too messy or they will be in the way of other students.

Some of the adorable projects that 2nd grade completed in May.
 We knew the theme ahead of time, so I had a few grades do space projects as their final work for the school year.  These turned out fantastic
and they did a great job of overlapping!

These are a couple friends joining in the art room this year.  
An amazing owl that my mom made! Tobias, the clay monster 
(Buy one of his friends here!) and of course...
Big Tex, icon of the state fair of TX.

What's a summer break?

In May, when the weather begins to get scorching hot (at least here in texas), teachers across the metroplex are filled with joy for the summer break!  Many (or at least I hope many) absolutely love their jobs, but are certainly ready for a little vacation from the classrooms of stir crazy munchkins, especially those 6th grade ones....

Change is good and necessary for sanity, in my opinion.  TOO much routine can begin to drive a person batty.  Such is this final stage of my summer break. I am ready for October, where I can get into a new, but familiar routine. Although, a break is not exactly how I would describe my summer.  I have a summer job, where I run a personal business that I own. Many teachers have second jobs or little startup businesses, but I'm banking on the idea that they don't spend 8-9 hours of their day working at these jobs 6 days of the week, all summer long.  Most at least.  

I own a snow cone stand, which is open from May 1st through September 30th.  Yep. You read it right....May and September are both months which overlap with my teaching schedule, meaning that I am a maniac those months.  Mostly in May, when the art show is usually held or coming down, amongst the chaos of general end of the school year madness.  I am sort of a grouch during this season of life.  My poor husband. :-P  

The past month, I have been diligent about getting my lesson plans ready for the first 9 weeks back to school, so I will actually have an hour or two with my husband, in the evenings.  Waking up and busting my booty on classroom organization and sample art projects, then sitting at the snow cone stand from 12-8 and then driving my 30 minute commute home.  It is a strange schedule, where I eat late, go to bed late and get up (decently) early....not great for the metabolism or my sleeping patterns!  

This week is my final week of "summer break" before returning for a week of staff development and art room preparation.  I am excited for the change of routine and I am excited for a new year to begin.  This will be my 3rd year at the school, and I guess technically my 4th year teaching (I did long term art subbing for a year prior to landing a full time position).  We have a whole slew of changes at our school this upcoming year, including a new principal, counselor, nurse, receptionist, and 15 other new staff members!  We are a pretty small school and so that is about half the staff changing.  I love it though.  I like meeting and working with new people, and I'm glad that these people have an opportunity to work at the best school on earth! (or at least in my district :))

I will post soon some of the funny little art room organization things I've been working on this summer.  While sitting at the snow cone stand, I have had loads of time to surf pinterest....and it is so much easier than the old google search method.  

Fare the well!