Monday

Happy Birthday, Betty!

____________________________________________________

Click on image for a larger view

A friend sent me this Calvin cartoon, and I thought I would share it. I am a real Calvin fan.

I am still fussing with the two pastel portraits, and I think I have figured out what my problem is. I don't know what I am doing!!

The new Unison pastels are much softer than my old Rembrandts, and I'm having a hard time with that. Also, I am trying one painting on yellow velour paper, and the other on blue pastel paper. Neither surface is doing it for me.

Instead of trying to come up with a finished painting, I need to grab a big piece of white paper and just "play" with the pastels. See the colors, see how they layer, and blend, etc. I can't believe I forgot that important step in learning. I certainly knew that when I was teaching.

When I taught kindergarten, we had so many "collections" of neat things, like a big box of buttons for example. I knew better than to expect the kids to do anything "constructive" with them when they were first put out. Geez, I can still remember what it is like to sit on the floor and play with a big pile of buttons, let them run through your fingers, etc.

One small group of kids were really enjoying the buttons, some just looked at them and handled them, and some had started little collections of buttons that were alike. I thought they were doing great - no one was throwing them in their friend's hair or swallowing them or putting them in their pockets or anything. Then a mother arrived early to pick up her kid, and watched the kids with the buttons. She went over and took all their buttons and put them back in the pile in the middle and made them start counting them.

I made a copy of the page from the math program manual that explained how you had to let small children "explore" on their own before giving them directives, highlighted the paragraph and handed it to her the next day. She never said a word, but she did quit coming into the room and trying to take charge of activities. She also moved before the year was over!

*******************************

It's a beautiful sunny day, and almost above freezing. I think it's 31 degrees right now.

I've got a load of stuff for the Recycling Center - milk cartons, magazines, egg cartons, and plastic bags, so better get those taken. If there aren't many cars at Ridley's, I might stop and get some bananas for Kasey. We are also out of potatoes. On the other hand, Specialty Meats has those items, so I might just go there.