My Amazing Artistes, and Snow...?

   This class is full of amazing artists. These are their completed Georgia O'Keefe-inspired paintings. We read about her, viewed her paintings and discussed her.

On Friday, we looked at a sunflower close-up, using the Elmo, to assist us in viewing flowers the way Georgia did...

   Then the children sketched the flower (this is a kindergartner's drawing!).

   On Monday, they painted. Wow!! I am just so impressed with these talented students...

   Today, we had our first fire in the fireplace, and it snowed! I had to take the pumpkins on the front steps inside. What an interesting week...

Farm Fresh Tonight!

  I was wondering what in the world the monkey and I were going to have for a veggie tonight, when I checked our corn patch. Hello, lovely ears of corn! It was quite delicious, and we ate it all up (sorry, daddy-man!).

Decadent Chocolate Bundt Cake & Fab Art!

   This photo does NOT do this cake justice! In real life, it is much darker, without the red cast. In the spring, I resurrected my mother's 'Harvey Wallbanger' cake recipe (no idea who gave it to her), which is quite tasty. So, I used it to inspire this chocolate cake, which has a nutella glaze. I'm thinking of entering it in the Albertson's cake mix tricks contest in the Kern County Fair. Since this is made with a box cake mix, that you add other ingredients to, it is perfect for the contest.

   Speaking of taking someone else's idea & running with it, look at the fantastic art projects my kinders and 1st graders created yesterday. They followed the simple steps of an art lesson I purchased on Teachers Pay Teachers, and voila!! They learned about Paul Cezanne, viewed some of his still lifes, then made their own apple still lifes (sans the ever-present wine bottle in Cezanne paintings). I am amazed!!

Kandinsky Circles & Other Updates

   I'm not quite ready to post the 'after' photos of my class, but it is definitely looking much better than my last post, so look out for new photos to come! On Friday, my class learned about Wassily Kandinsky (abstract art pioneer), then made their own 'concentric circle' works of art, while listening to great music (Seu Jorge from the 'Steve Zissou' soundtrack). They need to finish on Monday, but I was so impressed with what they produced! Note the desks on the right: they were so ugly with permanent stains, we covered them with contact paper...pretty nice fix, eh?
 

   My chickens love their new birdhouse feeder. I love it, because they haven't figured out how to knock it down, yet, plus it's so cute! We found it at the Fall Festival, in PMC.

   Speaking of the Festival, my two guys helped Lola 4 Pets win the Best Animal category in the parade! Handsome Henry did such a great job, too! I helped paint faces in the Peak to Peak booth...

Big Changes!

    Well, it is official: I am teaching K/1 at Gorman! This huge pile on (& under) the tables all fit in the Esca-glade (phew!). This is my new classroom...

Enjoy these 'before' photos...the room should look A LOT better in my next post...

Our First Wienie Roast!

    We had SO much fun roasting hot dogs & hot links for dinner last night! What a relaxing way to spend a Friday night. The only difficult part was convincing the dogs that it was not for them. Notice all the canine photo bombs...

 It was a particularly beautiful sunset last night...

Summer Farming Fun

   The girls are enjoying their new home, and continue to give us 2-3 eggs a day, despite three that are in various stages of molting. They are really cute, and fun to feed. They are beginning to relax more, but clearly have not been handled. I am trying to get to the point where I can pet them, but that is going to be a long way off.

   I enjoy giving them special treats, like the monkey's leftover oatmeal in a watermelon rind. The girls love oatmeal, watermelon, romaine and bananas.

   Speaking of farming, today was day one of the Teachers' Ag Seminar. Wow! What a great experience. They provided a wealth of agriculture info and contacts, plus a ton of nice giveaways. We visited Frito Lay (& got to taste fresh, warm fritos, potato chips, Santita chips and nacho cheese doritos), where we saw the production and packaging.

We also visited the Famosa stock market, and viewed some cattle auctions. The cattlemen's association even gave us a nice lunch. It felt nice being treated like a professional, and was very educational. We learned about farm rotation, pest control advisors, and how farms are dealing with the colony collapse problem with honeybees. One of the farmers brought in some whole black eyed pea bushes and almond branches. I'm looking forward to then next two days! I would highly recommend this to my teacher friends, especially those who teach in the city.

  Last week was Art Camp 7, and the monkey had a blast! Two of his favorite activities were cookie decorating and the beautiful rain stick he made out of a yucca stalk. He is completing NASA camp this week, and he's looking forward to making s'mores on the last day with a solar oven. My wonderful friend, Barb is taking him to camp for me so I can attend my ag seminar.