Dear diary,
Today buzzed right by without any time to stop and reflect. In fact, when I returned home for the evening, the same was true, and exhaustion set in all too quickly. I hate these days when I feel rushed, have no time to think, and then in my weariness, become on edge and snappy to my loved ones at home. This was my day today.
My morning was mostly smooth, and so was my cart ride. Earlier this week, I about dumped everything that was on the bottom shelf of my cart when I arrived to a classroom, and my gracious colleague helped me pick up the mess. I cannot say that there weren’t other little bits that acted as roadblocks, in a figurative way.
I called the first grade teacher by the other first grade teacher’s name.
I arrived late to the 2nd grade classroom, but then offered to stay late to make up the time for her, which she accepted.
I thought that I had 5 more minutes of class time in 1st grade before moving onto kindergarten. What a surprise to me when the teacher came back to class early, but she wasn’t early at all. My mind had my end time wrong, despite having done this same schedule for 5 weeks now. All I can say is, thankfully, it wasn’t a painting or clay lesson that I had to scramble to wrap up. Minutes are precious in a teacher’s lesson.
There were an equal number of joyful moments.
My 4th grade artists lamented how they wish we had more time of art, and began rattling off times like an hour, all morning, then went all out and wished for a day-long art class. Oh, we can dream, can’t we?
My 3rd grade artists were exploding with ideas, and when they were given the opportunity to choose their own ideas for the drawing portion of our project over my suggested themes, most of them accepted that autonomy and created meaningful artwork.
My 2nd grade artists repeated our Artist Mantra over and over and over again, correcting each other if mistakes popped up, and retrying if necessary. I did not have to initiate the mantra as I always do at the beginning of our studio time to transition our focus on artmaking because they were on it.
Kindergarten and 1st grade usually is a mixed bag of extending patience, calm, and understanding, to reminders of proper use of tools, keeping our masks on over our noses and mouths, how to be good audience members when another artist is speaking, and the list can continue.
Recess duties were sunny, cool, and beautiful, and filled with the same constant reminders to remain in the children’s class zone, keep a safe distance from friends, no touching each other, and to wear their masks properly.
My kindergarten son has chosen a wild outfit for school tomorrow. He is proud that he selected it, and truly believes that it matches. Let me describe it to you: a colorful, plaid button-up short sleeve shirt, cotton, camouflage comfortable pants, and fire engine red socks. He picked out his worn out play sneaker because he has P.E. on Friday. At this moment in time, I don’t even care.
My reflection time has come to an end, my mind is spent. Chat with you again soon. TGIF tomorrow.