you're hulk, and i'm spider girl

"dear clay, please play with me on thursday and friday. you're hulk and i'm spidergirl."

he went on to write back, "i will think about it." hahaha.

oh, the days of innocence.

so long, farewell...

So over the last two weeks, due to my 8 day rotation between four elementary schools, i have had to spend my days saying goodbye. it is really hard to do for 8 days in a row. i am really going to miss all of my art babies. my only hope it to get a job teaching. HIRE ME.

with over 1000 kids, i have been getting quite a few thank you notes, and goodbye cards. they all make me smile. 

"have fun as an adult"

a drawing of me, miss m. complete with t-rex arms and weird boobs.

"good luck with life"

i have to say, the last card is my all time favorite. i got it today, and had to do everything i could to hold in laughter, but was also so excited. check out that detailed skeleton for a 9 year old! he made sure to tell me that the green was slime. i love that he stated he was sorry the chainsaw was blank. he ran out of time during class :o) he gave this to me because i like skeletons. i don't ever remember telling him that, but i do remember wearing a flogging molly tee shirt at the grocery store when i ran into him. isn't it crazy what kids pick up on? 

what a bad ass skeleton card. my art kids are the greatest. can't wait to post more cards. have to say goodbye three more times this week :o(

Yes Day!

i have been working with my second graders on an illustration assignment. i read them a book called, "yes day." the book is about a boy who has an entire day where all his requests are answered with "yes". i asked my students to illustrate a page to the book and think about one thing they would ask for. the results have been great.

they range from cute, to strange, to downright hilarious. i love when kids are just given the chance to draw.

can i have a side of chocolate mousse for breakfast? notice he spelled mousse like the animal. :o) i love that he also drew a moose!

 can i destroy the house?

can i have chicken wing? yes! 200 of them, please. :o)

 i would buy a piranha. he went on to explain to me that this piranha was a teenage piranha, because an adult piranha would not be able to fit in his pool.

 i want a puppy for me! cut pet dogs. hahaha

 i would buy an iphone. everyday at the end of class, i do "art show" and show off each kids drawing. i accidentally said, "i would buy a phone" and not iphone . this made her freak out. who knew apple products were so important to an 8 year old.

 can i crash a plane? yes. yikes.

 i would dance all day. me too!




i'll post more hilarious results from my four schools later. i will leave you with my favorite drawing a student made. SKULLET. she forgot to draw the hair on top if the head. unless that is supposed to be gallagher. woof.

kids say the darnedest things, part II

had this lovely conversation with a fifth grader in front of a whole class today.

"today was an awkward and nasty day, miss m."
-"why is that?"
"we learned about puberty and watched a sex film. i saw sperm come out of a boy's private parts! it was nasty. have you ever seen sperm come out of a boy's private parts, miss m?"

um. nooo. NEVER. only in the same puberty film in fifth grade. hahaha. ooooooh geez.

untz! untz! untz!

sorry, teachers. i realize its super distracting for your students to see me dance down a hallway, but i can't help it when the third grader in front of me is saying, "untz! untz! untz!" all the way down to the lunch room.

i feel like i have pretty good rhythm but i'm guessing by all the giggles, i probably looked like this:

untz! untz! untz! happy hump day y'all.

if i had a million dollars

if i had a million dollars, i would...

right on, kid. i'd like to share this giant pizza with you. 

kids say the darnedest things

how was your day, miss m?

well i had a 5th grader announce to the entire class that he is making a comic book about "cleveland steamers".

you're making a comic about, whaaaaaa? i didn't quite know how to respond to this except shout, "inappropriate!"

my cooperating teacher was in the room and she had a very puzzled look on her face, which meant that she had no idea what that was, or why it was inappropriate. which also meant that i was going to have to tell her why. oy.

for those of you who have no idea what i am talking about, you can visit urban dictionary.

how would you have responded? do i tell him why its inappropriate? what if he innocently had no idea what a cleveland steamer was? i didn't want to risk being the one who tells him this. this is the kind of information you google on your own, or have your friends explain it to you in the lunchroom.

to add to today's inappropriate responses, one of my students chose to use the word, "queef" as his onomatopoeia word design. 4th grade has started a lesson where we look at design and think about an onomatopoeia we would like to design. we look at comic books, and other word designs and have a fun discussion about how a sound or emotion can affect the type of lines and colors we use. i got the normal, "crash," "bang," and "booms," but "queef" certainly stood out to me. again, i was left with the dilemma of telling this kid why something was inappropriate.  he did draw a nice fart cloud around the word design, so something tells me he knew exactly what that word meant.

recently i had a discussion with a friend about what age do you start to lose all innocence and just slowly start turning into a creep? ha. seems like it's happening sooner than i remember.

just another day as an elementary art teacher...

Creepy Martin

i have been hanging a lot of artwork around the schools lately. i recently put up some work for a multicultural ice cream social night. it's basically a town full of whitey mcwhitersons that feel the need to celebrate diversity whenever it can.

not that it's a bad thing. as a minority, i truly believe we should educate each other about our cultural backgrounds to better understand each other as human beings. i just don't agree with my boards being decorated with this multicultural people border:

i feel like it gives our children the unrealistic expectations that if they meet a german, he'll be wearing lederhosen, and then they will really be bummed when they find out that germans wear jeans like the rest of us 'Mericans. It also gives them the unrealistic expectations that i should be wearing a kimono and walking around with a bad haircut. no stereotyping here, kids!

anyways moving on to the topic of my post: creepy martin.

my favorite project to display lately has been my second graders self portraits. mostly because they have completely unrealistic ideas of what they look like.

for instance- i have a student named albert, who is black, but he likes to make himself look like a white person in every picture he draws. albert is on the right. he did a great job with his stick straight hair tho. spot on.

Creepy Martin is my student who really is sort of a creep. he likes to walk up right next to me in my classroom and fart. then start at me. i suspect he is the kid who pooped in my room a few weeks back. i have nicknamed him turd ferguson, that was until i came across his self portrait last friday.

so pale. so weird. and why is he wearing a neck tie? haha.

ahhh, second grade. you continue to brighten my days.
.

blitzkrieg hallway!

one thing i am constantly doing is singing ridiculous things to my students and co-workers. as an art teacher, i like to take appreciation for all of the arts, including music. i suppose what makes me enjoy elementary students is that i am just as silly as them. probably makes me look like a crazy person, but we get along super well. one of my favorite things to sing is the hallway song i made up to release the students into the hall from one of my art rooms (i'm in a room at 2 schools, and on a cart at 2 schools). it works super well, and the kids love it. it goes to the tune of the ramone's blitzkreig bop:

all i have to do is shout, "hey ho, let's go!" and they all start lining up singing,

im forming in a straight line!
my hands are down by my side!
the kids are nice and quiet!
blitzkrieg hallway!

it pretty much gets all their energy out before their hall- or totally hypes them up, and make them utter monsters for their classroom teachers. either way they seem pretty happy. kids LOVE to sing.

on the topic of singing, i have decided to upload the video of my first graders from one of my elementary schools. i am not sure what it is that makes my heart melt when 7 year olds take the stage to sing, but even lenin (who is the bane of my existence) looks like the most adorable kid.

seriously cute. hard to see (but that's ok, it protects the identity of my students)

i have a student who likes to dress like a pirate everyday. he is iranian, and tonite i learned he has killa dance moves. i cant wait to attend all the school's spring sings in the next few weeks. it's great to see my students perform, i also love having a hundred kids shout, "MISS M!!!!" out of pure excitement that i came to see them sing, and give me a bunch of hugs. 

membrum virile

i've been encouraged by fellow art education teachers to keep a blog of my student teaching experience with elementary students. we will start off with one of my favorite subjects of all time: wieners

(i feel like it should be known that i googled penis synonyms. my favorite being: meat popsicle and beef bayonet.)

i am curious to know from my male friends as to what age you all were when you started drawing weens all over the place? today i found a third grade student drawing  one on the back of an art placemat.

"Excuse me, but what are you drawing?"
-"Um it's a gun."
"Oh yeah? then where's the trigger?"

his face preceded to get beet red, and he let out a stream of high pitched giggles. now i'm not sure that i should be more upset that an 8 year old is drawing dicks on my placemats for other students to find, or impressed that his rendering of the sex organ is pretty good for an 8 year old.

to continue on with today's theme, my students in second grade are working on their collages. we have been talking about figures and how to create form. we started off with stick figures and have been adding appendages and thickening up the sticks to make figures. some of my students are adding more appendages than just legs and arms...

pile drivin'? (that's for you randy, and jay.)

i have to say i have already enjoyed my last 3 weeks with the kids, and have quite a bit of source material for the blog. i'm sure i will enjoy the next 5 weeks, and the following 2 weeks i devote to elementary aged campers for a local theater camp.

until next time,
miss m