Saturday Stuff

My daughter is home from college this weekend, and we're celebrating my hub-bub's birthday today. It's a good day! And I've gotten his "cake" - he wanted no-bake cookies - done, and every last present wrapped and the house straightened up. It's a great day! 

So a little school stuff before the rest of the house wakes up. {Even the dog has gone back to sleep!}

In my last post, I talked about these leaf pictures we are making in my class. {I have to admit, as I posted that, I thought - this has no curriculum basis; I hope nobody gets all excited about that.} I guess I could have them write about our leaf art process - but frankly, our curriculum is so structured....

Anyway, my thought was we would finish those up on Friday. Think again. Remember I told you about my slow processors? Well, as I was looking at the clock, and my three little sweeties still working away, I realized the painting part wasn't going to happen on Friday. Really, I'm a little proud of myself, because I tend to charge on with something like this to meet my self-imposed deadline, and then I just end up getting frustrated because we aren't done and there's the go-home bell. 

So Friday we spent getting everybody done with their drawing part and Monday we'll paint the wash over it. Here's where we were at before we worked on them Friday:

 

I know the colors are a little, well, not exactly nature colors. But I don't know, maybe that's what 2nd graders see.  

I'm also showing a pic of the construction paper shelf deal my friend gave me. She actually gave me the plywood shelf and those metal clip deals to hold up the shelf. I really like that all my construction paper is sorted out - AND laying flat so it doesn't get all these weird bendy shapes in it. {This probably isn't a big deal to anyone but me - but hey, I'm a simple girl!}

And finally, a teacher at my school leads a 4-H group and for a money maker, they picked a ton of pumpkins and brought them to the school. We could pick them up for a dollar! Wowsa! So of course, my school kiddos each got one. And then I picked up 1 for each of my family members; and then one more; ah, heck, I picked up another one. And then I saw a cute little bitty guy - just had to have him. I think we have plenty! {Two are still at school for those of you that can count :)}

 

Have a nice fall weekend - I plan to!

 

Leaf Project

It is a very windy day here in my part of the world - and it's that nasty wind, lots of gusts which brings lots of dust blowing. And to top it off, I had recess duty. So that's a big yuck!

Plus, my friend gave me these cool shelf deals to put construction paper in - for my closet. And they had just been laying in my closet, not put together, and I decided to take care of that today. But of course, nothing goes as planned, so I was just shoving everything back in the closet when the kids came in from lunch recess. So I stayed late to finish that up. 

And was happily driving home, when I realized and remembered that the last gift that Hub-Bub wanted for his birthday {Saturday} was NOT at Target like I'd hoped when I went there last night, which forced me to head out to Wal-Mart. Which really wasn't that bad - but just the thought of it - shudder.

Of course, no pictures of this cool shelf deal, because why would I think of pictures in the heat of the moment. 

BUT - Parent Teacher conferences are coming up, and my walls are looking either bare or still have first of the year stuff up. So I saw this neat idea - HERE - 

This image is from her website - so I'll try to take pics tomorrow so you can see ours. I didn't have oil pastels, so we used crayons. I'm crossing my fingers they will work. 

This was so funny {to me}. The website gal says if she lived in the Midwest, she'd use real leaves, but she doesn't, so she made templates for the kids. So first - this morning, I'm frantically running around my yard looking for sorta big leaves, while trying desperately hard not to get sprayed by the automatic sprinkler. But 2nd, when I had a spare moment today, I was frantically trying to cut out leaf templates for the kids to use. What did they use? The real leaves. 

Today we did the drawing and coloring of the leaves. They looked pretty good, I thought. {Big aside, does anybody else have some, well, I politely call them slow processors? I mean, it takes about 3 of my kids ForEver to get stuff done. Which of course means they Did Not get their leaves all drawn and colored today, like I was hoping everybody would get to. But such is a teacher's life.} {Oh, wait, little aside here - so I explain, you've got to use crayon on this or it won't show up when you paint it. Can we use colored pencil? Can we use markers? Can we use a regular pencil? Sometimes I just want to say, Fine Children, do whatever you want. It will be like a great big experiment!}

OK, this is one tired teacher lady. I have recently become hooked on Ugly Betty on Netflix. I Like It! 

So I'm heading upstairs to watch an episode and eat a snack that I just really don't need. Then maybe I'll do some arm exercises - lol!