I’ve always loved vibrant colours and when I see them on my walks I eagerly pull out my little camera and shoot away. I was delighted when I found out that Sue’s word of the week is ‘vibrant’.
To check out more vibrant photography go to http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/a-word-a-week-challenge-vibrant/
…. even if they are self generated
Discovered a great site today where you can create your own newspaper story. Thanks to Kate’s Creative Space for introducing this fun site. This could be an interesting activity to do with the kids at school.
My story headline is: ‘Teacher Blogs her Way into Retirement’.
To write your own story check out this link.
…. where does the time go?
It just seemed like yesterday when I started my classes almost 10 weeks ago. Tonight was our second last class and all my pieces have been fired. One piece needs to be glazed and I started a new piece which should also be ready to glaze on Thursday.
I was really excited to see the glazed pieces tonight. My first piece was a bit disappointing. It was much darker than I anticipated and it had a very flat finish. I’m going to paint another colour over it on Thursday to lighten it up. 
The plate and the bowl that I made I glazed with an apple green and than added a sapphire blue on top. I really liked how these two pieces turned out.
The last glazed pieces are my berry bowl and under plate. They were both made from a white clay and I applied a clear glaze to both pieces. This way the fruit that I add to the bowl will contrast nicely with the white.
My teacher, D, suggested that we make a new piece tonight and save our glazing for our last class on Thursday. I really wanted to try a new technique that involved rolling a ball of clay into a slab and then pressing a design into it. After that you cut out a base shape and build your walls with shapes that you cut in any pattern that you want. I cut out a bean shaped base and then started to layer my sides around the base. It was a lot of fun and allowed me to be a bit creative.
I hope it survives the firing. Now I need to figure out what colour to glaze it.
…..could this sign posted at the dock have had anything to do with it?
I’ve been going to my cottage for almost 30 years and we’ve never seen a bear, never mind two bears. One of the reasons is because the cottage is on an island and it takes 20 minutes by ferry boat to get from the mainland over to the island.
You can get a pretty good idea how far away the island is from this photo. The bear must have swum over in the fall. I can’t imagine her doing it in the spring with a young cub in tow. There was some speculation that she might have walked over on the ice but I always thought that bears hibernated in the winter.
Anyway, it was a beautiful day and even though it’s still early in the season there were very few people on our beach. I did hear that some of the cottagers with dogs purposely stayed away until the bear problem is resolved. I feel, however, that unless they become a nuisance, nothing will be done about their presence. It certainly made me think twice about going for a walk in the woods this weekend.
The view looking east and west down the beach, yesterday.
…..until our guest speaker didn’t show up
Today was the day I was most stressed about. Since January I’ve been running a school wide book club, featuring children’s books written by Canadian authors. The club was open to all students in grades three to five. Initially over 80 students joined the club.
The program is called the Forest of Reading and there are books for all age groups from Kindergarten to high school and beyond. Each age category is named after a tree commonly found in Canada. The primary books are classified as Blue Spruce books, grade 3 to 6 are Silver Birch and the French books are named Tamarack and Poplar.
Every year new authors and books are featured and at the end of April students from all over Ontario vote for their favourite book in one category. There’s a big culminating event in Toronto that students are encouraged to attend to meet the authors and find out who the winners are. It’s like the Oscars of children’s books. A couple of years ago the entire school went downtown to attend this event. It was outside and it was a very cool day and because it took place right next to the lake it was even colder. There were thousands of children there and there were line-ups for everything.
Last year we decided as a staff to host our own special event with the students at our school. It was such a successful day that we wanted to do it again. Unfortunately with the political climate in all our schools this year it almost didn’t happen at all. Earlier in the school year the parents purchased the books for us and I really wanted to proceed with the program. Luckily enough teachers were willing to help out and be expert readers so the program started in earnest in January.
In order to participate in the year end celebration for the Forest of Reading the students had to read enough books to reach a goal of 10 credits. I’m happy to say that 34 boys and girls reached and surpassed the goal. One of my students read 38 books.
Today the successful participants were pulled from class and enjoyed two specially designed workshops. In one session the children worked with a professional actor and did drama activities around one of the books that was featured this year. In the second workshop they learned how to make an accordion book which they could personalize and take away with them. For lunch, we treated them to pizza, juice and popsicles.
After lunch I had arranged for one of the Forest of Reading authors to come to the school and speak to the boys and girls. We were all very excited about this special visit. Unfortunately this was the one feature of the day that did not take place. Our guest of honour had mixed up his dates and thought he was coming to the school tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m not at school so we arranged to do the presentation on Monday morning, so not all was lost.
At the end of the day my colleague and pottery teacher was excited to show me how her Father’s Day gift activity turned out. These wonderful clay trophies mounted on bits of scrap marble were created by D’s grade 1/2 class. I think they’re amazing. What Dad wouldn’t love these works of art?
….the end of the school year is fast approaching
Soccer games finished – check
Girls on the Run finished – check
Report Cards printed – check
Invitations for Forest of Reading Celebration made – check
Author and actor invited for the big day – check
T-shirts bought for the concert – check
Track and field finished for this year – check
Timetables organized – check
Money collected and counted for Jump Rope for Heart – check
Things Yet to Do in the Next Two Weeks:
Phone Heart and Stroke to pick up the money collected for Jump Rope for Heart
Proofread report cards
Finish cutting papers for the bookmaking activity
Order pizza for students’ special lunch
Hand out invitations to the students and teachers
Print final copies of the report cards
Plan lessons for the next two weeks
Clear off book shelves in the library for the renovation over the summer
Hand out prizes for Jump Rope for Heart when they arrive
Volunteer Tea
Spring concert
Activity ‘Fun Day’
“Phew, I can do this!!!”
Cheers!
….my Fantasy Art and You
I can’t believe that I actually got this done on time. I’m not sure if I’ve hit the mark or am completely off. I’ll find out in the next couple of days when I get my mark back.
Close-ups:
My artist statement:
Artist Statement
by
Carol Cormier
Assignment: Fantasy and You
Title: My Life
My art work consists of acrylic paint, India black ink and collage done on hot press watercolour paper, 140 in weight.
In this piece I am trying to create a series of images that convey the path my life has taken. The left side of the paper is backed in lighter colours of yellow and green, representing the the happier periods in my life while on the right side the mood is definitely more somber. The top half represents the first 20 years of my adult life and the bottom half is a portrayal of the last twenty years and the years yet to come.
I’ve always felt that throughout my life someone has been watching out for me, either physically or spiritually. My early life was filled with children and pets as I did a balancing act between work and home and trying to keep everyone else happy.
At forty I experienced a very dark period in my life when death took my mother from us at the age of 61. For the next five years the ‘tentacles’ of death continued to take away very close friends and family members.
The bottom right hand corner represents the cancer that my husband has been fighting with for the last 3 years. The arrows represent the chemo trying to fight off the bad cells and the tiger jumping through the TV represents my husband’s remission.
I used to look for quick fixes for my weight problem for most of my life, hence the pill bottle. It’s only been in the last year that I’ve discovered that a healthy me involves healthy eating and exercise and a healthy mind is nourished with books and on-line courses. I’ve never been happier or healthier and I look forward to exploring the world, now and in the future.
Your input is always appreciated.
Cheers!
….today was the day
I woke up early, 6:07 to be exact. I put on my running clothes and made my way downstairs to make coffee. I checked my emails as I enjoyed my Crema and protein bar. It was lovely and quiet in the house, just what I needed before heading out to meet my fellow coaches, L and C.
We had decided ahead of time to meet at L’s house and go together in one car. There was very little traffic at 7:30 on a Sunday morning so we made good time getting to the race venue. The race this year was being held at the Vaughn Mills mall. When we got there, there was already a sea of pink t-shirts.
Our school was assigned a flag where our girls had to meet us. We handed out their numbers and safety pins and the moms and dads pitched in pinning the numbers to the fronts of their shirts.
It was great seeing so many parents get involved, not just by being there but also registering for the run so that they could run with their daughters.
There weren’t as many pre-race activities as last year but some of the moms had brought along coloured hair spray so that the girls could have racing stripes put into their hair. Even some of their teachers got into the spirit.
I’m not sure how many times I’m going to have to wash my hair to remove the pink dye. One mom, who’s a hairdresser, said that it might take three or more washes. Hmmmm!!!!!
Two hours after arriving at the mall, the race finally started and about 1000 little girls and their coaches and parents started on the 5k run.
I had set a goal for myself to run the 5k without stopping and try to do it in 45 minutes or less. Last year I think it took me about 55 minutes and I walked at least half of it. It was very warm and humid today. Before I left my husband asked me not to overdo it and to be careful not to get caught up in the excitement of the race. I know that the recent heart attack of a very close friend who lives out west was leaving him feeling a little apprehensive about me running today. I have to admit that the our friend’s heart attack was also in the back of my mind. The attack was a mild one and she’s doing much better but she’s the last person we would ever have suspected of having a heart condition.
I set a very reasonable pace for myself and was able to run the first half without stopping to walk. When I did stop it was at the water station but I started to run again almost immediately. The heat did bother me and I walked a couple more times but never for more than a minute. In the end I finished in a time of 47:27, 2 1/2 minutes slower than I hoped for but this year I felt so much better than I did last year. I didn’t experience those moments of dread like I did last year and I wasn’t as emotional….no tears.
Now that I have an official time I can work on getting that number down. I should plan to do another 5k sometime this summer. It’s good to have a goal.
Time to work on my art piece.
Cheers!
….. just signed up for a 7 week course in art
Like I’m not busy enough as it is, I signed up for an intense course yesterday that involves reading, taking quizzes and painting. I’ve already done all the reading for last week and taken the quiz but I haven’t started the painting. It’s due tomorrow night. I still have to run a 5k tomorrow morning and I have to finish my report cards.
One of the problems is that the course started last week so I’m already a week behind. When I get this first painting assignment done I’ll be caught up. I’m actually very excited about doing this. The program is called Coursera and it offers hundreds of free courses that are taught by certified professors from dozens of universities, worldwide. Check out the courses here.
What did I learn this week? Well the program is designed for beginning artists so the basics taught this last week were a good refresher lesson for me. This week the focus is on Fantasy art and I learned a lot about Independent Fantasists, such as Rousseau and Chagall, Dadaism, Automatism and Abstract Expressionism. I was also introduced to some Fantasists that I was not familiar with, such as Giorgio de Chirico, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray.
Marcel Duchamp http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Marcel_Duchamp_01.jpg/128px-Marcel_Duchamp_01.jpg
Giorgio de Chirico http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Giorgio_de_Chirico_%28portrait%29.jpg
My assignment this week is to come up with my own Fantasy painting using any medium and technique I’m comfortable with. I also have to create an artist statement. Wish me luck. Well I’d better get to those report cards. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow.
Cheers!
….heartbreaking
I knew the minute I saw the other team that this was going to be a close competition.
A few days ago I told you about my trials and tribulations when I took my girls’ soccer team to the West Conference finals. The team easily won their first game and then we had to wait an hour between games before we could play our final game. Little did we know at the time that the other team wasn’t going to show up because they had gone to the wrong location.
After waiting in the hot sun for an hour and a half I had to make a decision. Do we win by default or do we allow the missing team to make up the game in the next two days at our school? After speaking with the team we reluctantly decided to play later in the week.
Finding a time that would work for both teams proved to be difficult. I had the upper hand and basically gave them a time that worked for us. I knew that they must have been under a lot of pressure from their community because the time I gave them originally didn’t work for them and when I told them that we had run out of options (which we had) they found a solution to arrive at that time.
All of this happened late Wednesday afternoon and I then had to run around the school to inform the girls that we were playing at 9:00 in the morning the next day. Unfortunately one of our players couldn’t make it because of an appointment that couldn’t be changed on such short notice.
On the day, we had to scramble to find pinnies that were all the same colour because the boys took the jerseys to play in their West Conference game. They won, by the way, and are moving on to the City Finals. To make a long story short, we started out by scoring the first 2 goals and then they tied it up. We then scored 2 more goals and in the last minute of the game the other team tied it up again.
We had to go into overtime, two 5 minute halves and the first team to score would win the game. It was stressful and in the second half the other team put the ball into our net.
When we congratulated the other team I quietly said to the coach from the opposing team that in the future she should be careful not to miss a game again because I’m not so sure that I or any other team would be so generous, again and agree to play at a later date. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that but she became quite indignant and said that if the tables had been turned she would have definitely ‘invited’ the team to her school so that the girls could play. This is all fine and well to say when you’ve just won your game but she didn’t have to wait for an hour and a half on a shadeless field with 16 girls and a dozen parents who had made the long trip to watch their girls play and then have to inform everyone that we weren’t playing because the coach of the other team hadn’t read her emails. We had been informed about the change in venue a week before the game and there were several emails in between that went out informing all of us about the times and field locations.
In the end I explained to her how the girls had helped me make the decision to host another game so that her players had an opportunity to play. I graciously offered to make the presentation of the banner to her team because the convenors for the tournament couldn’t come to the school on such short notice. In turn she praised my girls for a game well played and thanked them for making the decision to give her team another opportunity to play.
Should I have kept my mouth closed and not said anything to this coach? I’m afraid I’m very much like my father and sometimes blurt out things before thinking it through. The only difference is that I know how to take back or apologize for my words where my father rarely does because he believes that you should be allowed to say what you want and not worry how it affects someone else. As he gets older it seems to get worse, as if age is an excuse for insensitivity.
I would welcome your thoughts on this predicament. Have you ever been put on the spot where you had to make a decision that was literally a game changer? I only wish that there was something in the regulations that deals with situations like this. We have rules for everything else, maybe we need a rule for no shows.
Mama Cormier 
