Out of the Mouths of Babes

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Mama Cormier

…..my love of art oozes from my pores

I guess my love of art and colour is as obvious as the nose on my face. Not only do I teach art, I also talk about it, a lot, in library classes. Today I read a wonderful new picture book by Ashley Spires called The Most Magnificent Thing.

Image courtesy of: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Am9jGlb1L._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

As with most good stories, this one had a moral or lesson attached. The children picked up on it pretty quickly. They came up with: …..never give up, take your time, don’t get angry, walk away and come back to it later, etc..

I talked to them about some of my art that I wasn’t happy with and how ‘walking away from it and revisiting it later’ and looking at it with new eyes really helped me come up with a new painting that I really liked.

At the end of the class one of my grade 4 students who rarely speaks to me walked over to me and very proudly stated that ‘the Earth without art would be Eh!’ He told me that he just made that up. Clever! I see a t-shirt in his future. Don’t you?

100 Day Museum

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Mama Cormier

…..today we celebrate the 100th day of school

Every year the grade 1s make projects that contain 100 objects to celebrate the 100th day of school. Today they hosted the 100 Day Museum and invited their parents and all the students in the school to come and enjoy their projects. Here are a few of the highlights.

Grade Threes Have Fun With Colour and Line

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Mama Cormier

…..in this lesson I introduced a variety of lines and the difference between warm and cool colours

To start the lesson the students were instructed to draw a straight line, a thin line, a thick line, a zigzag line, a broken line and a loopy line. They were encouraged to draw the lines in different directions (horizontal, vertical and diagonal) and to extend the lines from one side of the paper to the other.

Then they had to choose two warm colours and one cool colour or two cool colours and one warm colour. Before they started to colour I suggested that they add more lines inside some of the shapes that they had created so that they had smaller blocks of any one colour and they could add some additional marks for added visual texture and variety.

This is a great lesson to leave with a supply teacher.

Small Stones – January 5, 2015

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Mama Cormier

….the first day back to work

A New Year

The car instinctively knew where to park

Making its way into a spot that really wasn’t a spot

But the lot had become too small for our growing staff

And no one car pools.

The cold Arctic air bit my face as I gingerly placed

My feet on the icy surface

Hoping that my boots wouldn’t let me down, literally.

The cold easily penetrated my thin inadequate gloves

But I knew that the walk to the door would take less than a minute

Sweet Miss M greeted me, as she does every morning

Opening the door to a warm and welcoming place

This gesture was even more appreciated today

As I had forgotten my swipe key

Had I really been away for two weeks?

The morning was already busy with excitement

Children eager to share their stories and

Teachers busy, preparing for their day

The New Year begins, a new day, just like any other

But with renewed hope and promise of good things to come.

© rgb for “On Dragonfly Wings with Buttercup Tea”, 2011 – 2015

What are small stones?

A small stone is a short piece of writing (any style) that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment for you. The process of discovering small stones is as significant as the finished creation. Searching for small stones encourages you to keep your senses on the “alive and alert” status. Involve yourself with a new set of eyes, ears, nose, mouth, fingers, feelings and mind. In short … OPEN, OPEN, OPEN!

Our Monster Gallery

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..the grade 2/3 class finally got to make their ‘monsters’

I introduced this lesson before Hallowe’en but we hadn’t finished a couple of other projects and the Remembrance Day assembly was coming up and we needed to make our poppies so our ‘monsters’ were put on hold.

Our inspiration came from Mies van Hout’s book Friends. She’s a wonderful artist from the Netherlands who likes to use oil pastels on black paper. Before we started I demonstrated how to draw a random shape and from that come up with a monster. I explained to the class that if they have a monster in mind they are more likely to experience disappointment if it doesn’t turn out the way they envisioned it. Most of the class trusted my instructions and created very interesting and ‘fun’ monsters.

Happy Hallowe’en

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….a fun day at school but not so nice this evening for the trick or treaters

Day 5 of my Book Fair had to end on Hallowe’en. Getting dressed up, lots of candy, sick children and very excited children and last minute purchases made for a very exhausting day. Pretty much every child dresses up for Hallowe’en and so do most of the staff at our school. At the end of the day we have our parade where the entire student body walks through the school and then outside around the the property. Unfortunately it rained all day so we had indoor recesses and we tried to keep the children calm with a movie during lunch. The rain had let up a little bit towards the end of the day so we decided to brave it and take the parade outside.

My friend L and I led the school throughout the halls and then around the school. Every year we try to come up with new costumes and when I saw this idea on Pinterest I knew that it was the costume for us. It was also extremely easy to put together and we had fun making the kids and parents try to figure out what we were. We dressed up as the Black Eyed Peas.

Here are a some pictures that I can share with you. The parents do an amazing job decorating the school and many classes took the time to decorate pumpkins.

It’s almost 8:00 and I’ve only had one knock on the door. Even my husband’s fabulous pumpkin isn’t attracting children to come up our walkway. Too much rain. I guess I’ll be taking a lot of candy back to school.

Creating New Colours and Turning Them Into Bugs

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..after learning about primary colours the kindergarten class mixed two primary colours together and voila! …… instant bugs

Of course it was more than that. When two primary colours (red, blue, yellow) are mixed together you get secondary colours (purple, green, orange). The object of the lesson was to see which two colours made each secondary colour.

Each student was given three small squares of watercolour paper and the three primary colours in watercolour. They were instructed to put two different colours on each half of their paper and while it was still wet, fold the paper in half and press hard. When they opened the paper they discovered that they had made a new colour.

This part of the lesson took an entire period so we put the squares aside to dry and in the next class we looked at the shape on the square of paper and cut it out and glued it onto a piece of construction paper. I had no idea how difficult this step would be for so many of the students. They had no idea how to hold a pair of scissors, never mind cut with them. After some trial and error, everyone managed to cut out at least two bugs.

Once they were glued down, the students were given markers and were encouraged to add details to their bugs, things like eyes, legs, wings, antennae, etc.. Here are a few of the finished papers. Enjoy!

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Kindergarten Art – A Joy to Teach

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….so far the biggest surprise at school has been how much I enjoy teaching the little ones art

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about teaching art to Kindergarten children but it has been very rewarding and so far it’s gone pretty smoothly. It really helps having the ECE teacher with me. There are 29 JK and SK students in that class and without her help I think it would be next to impossible to run the class without chaos.

Our first class involved making ‘dots’ or circles for International Dot Day and we learned a little bit about Wassily Kandinsky and how to use watercolours and oil pastels. In our second class we discussed the different types of lines that artists can use and I introduced Primary Colours. On a large piece of paper the children drew 4 or 5 different lines with black pastels and then using only primary colours painted in the spaces created by the lines.

Their teachers and I think they did a fantastic job. I’m also grateful that the two kindergarten teachers have hung the work for all to enjoy.

School’s Out but I’m Back Next Week

Posted on June 28, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..just couldn’t finish in the library

Normally the children are finished with school one day before the teachers but this year everyone had to stay in school right up to Friday. The last day for teachers is usually a clean-up day where teachers put away as much as possible so that the care taking staff can do a thorough cleaning in the summer.

Many of us found it very difficult to get our rooms to that point and despite staying for a couple of hours after the children had left some of us need to come back next week to continue with the purging and tidying. In the library I had one extra job that needed doing this year. I’m having new carpet tiles put down and in order for the workers to move the free standing shelves and the book carousels I had to empty them all and box the books again (same job as last year). I had children in all day who tried to help me with this task and we still didn’t finish.

As I wrote earlier the last two weeks of school have been very busy and stressful. I’ve mentioned before that stress and weight gain go hand in hand for me. Not only that but all week children and parents have been bringing in chocolates, cupcakes and cookies. We had a pizza lunch with the book club, a BBQ with the grade 5s, our staff party and our principal treated us to breakfast (muffins, Danishes, bagels, croissants) all in the same week.

This morning I put myself on the scale thinking that I had gained back all the weight I had lost recently plus more. I did gain four of the five pounds that I had lost but I was relieved that it wasn’t more. Now that most of my stress has been lifted for the summer I’m hoping to get back on track and drop all the weight that I’ve gained this winter.

I started the morning with a healthy breakfast and then went for an eight kilometre bike ride. For the rest of the day I’m going do some gardening, get out for a walk and drink lots of water. I’m also hoping to get up to the cottage this weekend to open the place up and then I’ll come back to finish up in the library. With any luck I should be able to get the job done in one day.

Rosestock or Rosethorn in the Rain

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….aka Rosethorn in the Park

Almost every year since I started working at my school we’ve put on some kind of year-end show. For most of the 15 years that I’ve been at Rosethorn we’ve rented a portable stage and parked it outside on the school grounds by the hill. For a few years we booked the local high school auditorium when the cost of the stage became too prohibitive.

There was always something very special about putting on the show outside on a warm summer evening. In all the years that we performed outside it never once rained during the show. Well the year we decided to bring back the show mobile we had rain. We were very optimistic and decided to go ahead with the show despite the forecast of potential showers. The sky was overcast for most of the day but the rain held off.

When we started the show there was no rain but after four classes had performed the rain began. When it looked like it wasn’t going to let up our principal gave the audience some options. Well actually she didn’t get past the first one which was to continue with the show. Everyone wanted to stay. The umbrellas came out and the children were pretty much dry under the roof of the stage anyway. Luckily the sound equipment and the operator were protected by a tent but our conductor/music teacher and the staff working with the children were exposed to the elements.

It rained for about an hour and stopped for the last few acts. Despite the soggy conditions the show was a hit and no one complained about getting wet. The teachers were glad that we didn’t have to come back the next night to continue the show and I think a lot of the families were glad as well.