Friday, September 26, 2008

Sitting and Snipping



I was glad to sit down and just snip last night. After a week of lots of little stresses, snipping was the most relaxing thing I could think of. Snipping fairies and nature is the most pleasurable/relaxing subject for me.

The reason that I attached this snip on this page, is because it is solid print. There are no section breaks in the middle. But I like the heading on the page. "The Rationale of Irrationality." Reminds me of "`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves."

Fall break begins shortly, and other than cycling my arse off, I just want to snip and read during those two weeks.

Art Club at school begins after Fall Break. There are always so many kids who want to join, I have one group of kids in the fall and one in the spring. This year is no different. The clubs filled up almost immediately.

For the first time ever, I had almost as many boys want to join as girls. There's a part of me that wishes I could have one club for boys and one for girls. There are several lessons that I would like to teach that I'm just not convinced the boys would go for. On the other hand, how sexist of me. I can adapt lots of lessons....and if I can't figure out how to do it, the kids usually can.

I never had art in elementary school, so the crafts we did in Girl Scouts and Vacation Bible School were precious to me. In VBS though, I distinctly remember feeling jealous during craft time. At the end of the week, the girls had spray painted, macaroni covered cigar boxes, generously called "jewelry boxes." The boys always had some wooden toy or tie rack that actually looked nice; something you could keep forever. We didn't even get to do the spray painting on our tacky jewelry boxes. I always felt as though the boys got to make something valuable, and the girls made, well, crap.

So, separating the groups by sex is not a good idea. What would make one kid, girl or boy, happy, would make another one unhappy. In other words, one person's macaroni jewelry box, is another person's wooden tie rack.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Another wonderful piece of artwork. Oh and I feel your work pain, I am running our book fair next week with no help! And I just spent 3 days unpacking and trying to do my job!

daysease said...

My boys would love ANY craft opportunity given to them... :-) potholders, necklaces, anything... they love that they can do it themselves, you know... and then, choose if they want to keep it or give it away. what fun!! and, i think this snip is sweet. report cards- already!!!??? wow!!! Hang in there! :-)

Decor To Adore said...

They don't have art at my son's school either. They do have an "art masterpiece" program that parents can volunteer to give art lessons to their childs class. It is always great fun to be with the kids. The challenge is to come up with a lesson on an artist and a project that goes along with said artist that is age appropriate. This year is 1st grade~woo hoo!

Anonymous said...

Okay, I just spent precious time on the snowflake thing - it is kind of addicting. That snip - FAVORITE! I always love your perspective and the macaroni jewelry boxes vs. the tie rack shows some real insight. And probably explains why you make such a darn good teacher!