Today's Art Room Report...a Day in the Life of an Elementary School Art Teacher!

Day 1...

And so it begins....again!

Okay where to start? Today was my flex day, or part of it, or really only 2 hours of it. I have to work my way back in slowly right, I mean I have spent the last 8 weeks taking naps every 3 hours!

Walked into my wonderful art room assuming little elves had polished off all the setting-up over the summer...that did not happen.  In my district, which is Prince William County Schools, Virginia we have 2 flex days we must complete during the school year. So what better way to use them than to set up my room. God knows next week will be filled with endless data driven meetings that have nothing to do with being an elementary art teacher. Especially one who believes in "art for art sake".  I mean I could much better use my time arranging my Pinterest board than sitting in on the Reading Assessment Meeting, in my mind anyway.

So day 1...My goal this year is to have everything completed before I actually need it and not be up till 1 a.m. the night before finishing off the last details of whatever is due the next day. Or doing the actual art lesson with the kids first on a wind-and-a-prayer (not that I ever do that Administration people if you are reading this blog) and then writing the actual lesson plan later. However I am fairly sure that will continue to happen- I mean you have to see if the project will work before you waste time writing it all out, right?

I really want to feel like I am on top of things this year and have great lessons to teach and share with my fellow teachers and blog followers. I want to do some great art myself and just really enjoy my job and my life.  So I watched The Secret and that movie tells us to put out into the Universe what we want and not what we don't want....so I will be on top of things this year and I will be happy! I will get back to you if that really works.

My art room...The floors are so shiny you could skate on them and wow...the tables will never be that clean again-until next summer! Thank you Gloria and Mr. Le~you are the best janitorial crew ever!!

The art journal and library area.

My desk. Nothing is hooked up....Scared! I left everything connected because I have no idea how to reconnect it and then the district people came in over the summer and disconnected it all. It looks like spaghetti back there! The IT person said "did'ent you get the email about the computers" and I wanted to say how can I get an email about the disconnected computers if the computers are disconnected? But I have a feeling she would tell me some logical answer that I could never comprehend because it was in compute language so I decided to just smile at her like an idiot!

My kiln room....or summer storage room.  We got our walls repainted over the summer and I had to pull everything down and hide it. I asked our principal if I could pick the new color, he said NO. I asked him if I could paint one wall myself, he said NO. So now I have art room walls freshly painted the exact same color they were last year, which is--- "Mental Institution Faded Baby Sea Foam Green"! YEAH...so cheerful!

So to brighten up the place I am adding these awesome summer beach travel, dust collector finds. The little shark car was a gift from my good friend Shannon who is also an art teacher. But she is way back in Texas. I miss Texas but Virginia is starting to get into my heart! Of course that just means we will have to move again!

Every June on the last day of school I say I am going to neatly arrange my stuff while carefully placing it into the cabinets. Then every year on the day after the last day or school I just start shoving stuff into the cabinets because I would rather go to the beach. Then I can't seem to  figure out why I can't  find anything on my first day back? I am always sure someone stole whatever it is that I was looking for, then I feel like a bad person for thinking that when I actually unbury the lost item.

This really has nothing to do with my art room but it has always amazed me that teachers all drive SUVs and they are usually silver! That is my awesome little KIA SUV on the left with all the art stickers on the back of course!

I thought it might be a fluke but there are more SUVs on the other side as well!