A weekend for the girls...plus 40th BP#5

Ok, this is a belated post...

really, when will someone invent an extra day in the weekend already?

 

The last weekend in January saw me head off to Abu Dhabi for my Gaelic Football tournament...it was the kids the weekend before and hubby's next weekend...I flew up and was like a little girl, so excited at travelling on my own, not having to fret or worry about keeping my own children in check.

 

By the end of the weekend I had left my hat in the airport. Before I had even left Muscat. And left my lovely lime green Haivianas at the stadium. I am truly incapable of looking after myself! 

MISSING IN ACTION: not exactly high end style but certainly

the hippy comfort I know and love :-(

Long story short, fabulous and feisty weekend. I think I found my place in this game but more importantly a role as a team member. And obviously super celebrations carried onto in the early hours at the hotel. I am starting to get to know some of the girls from other teams around the region and I caught up with my girl Fiona from the

Sharjah Wanderers.

 

Bear went on an outward bound course in the mountains. She's a proper little Bear Grylls. She loved setting up camp with four sticks and a sheeting. Not everyone did apparently! Next one booked in May!

 

 

Birthday Project Update #5

 

I gave the taxi driver to my hotel a hefty tip. He was new. Hadn't been in the country 5 days. He seemed to be struggling how to use the GPS so I offered but he politely said he was ok and knew where he was going. I doubted a little if I'm honest.

I arrived no problem.

He deserved the tip and my gratefulness and wishes of safe driving. I hope he is doing well. I hope HE gets the tip.

To the Parents

I had a revelation last week. It might not seem a great one to many but personally it has added to my development as a teacher, my awareness of the child's learning as a whole and not just in the class...the Whole Child - what I was fundamentally interested in back in my PGCE days. 

It has occurred to me that that these inspired, imaginative, wonderfully wacky, mostly so un-selfconscious little artists that are in my classroom might not feel so inspired and imaginative and wacky and un-selfconscious when they leave the 'art room'. I have just assumed they carry this with them to the home and if the inspiration grabs them, they'll get their crayons and paints and glue and deal with what's in their mind. 

However.

We attempted to make papier mâché bowls last week in year 4. It worked last year, somehow we all struggled a bit this year. Not a problem. We made it an evaluation lesson. This was invaluable actually and I'm glad it happened. Especially for our little perfectionists (including yours truly).

 

I did make (a mistake in hindsight I wonder) the decision to let the kids take their newspaper bowl home and try and do something with it, resurrect it, build on it, start again....basically see this through. The parents' reactions didn't even occur to me. Until one texted me a photo of the thin newspaper rough bowl-shape his daughter had made, 'jokingly' saying that the new art room [with the new school build] couldn't come soon enough.

And that's when it hit me. Any inspiration or motivation for some children stops at the school gates when the parents ask what on earth is that and the child's self-consciousness flames up and they are unable to express what they want to do with their art, their creation. In class most of them were excited about doing something with it at home and I bet none of them have. I'd sent most of these kids home with some scrappy papier mâché with the incentive that they could fix it and be inspired to do something. I forgot someone could be in the car or at the door going wtf is THAT? And this poor child trying to explain. She's just going to put it in the bin. Which child is strong enough to tell them to keep hold of it, they have plans for it.  Maybe one, possible two in that class. And so begins the downward spiral of forever squished creativity and unconsidered self esteem levels.

No wonder adults don't get out their crayons anymore. I have actually seen it in process now. And once it leaves my art room, what can I do? I have no other help to continually boost these kids' creativity and imaginative processes once they put down my paintbrushes. Maybe the grown-ups have little confidence. As Picasso said:

Please, parents, art is just as important to your child's development, not only academic but spiritual and creatively. She may not need it in the career you're seeing her in but she will need mental release and self expression and the space and confidence in which to do this. So what if she brings home a crunchy indescript piece of paper, to you that's what it is. To her she sees colours and shapes and connections, it's art, ideas and thoughts...it's HERS. Bite your tongue. Watch her do something with it, watch her plan, watch her work, watch her think, inspire her yourself if she's stuck, let her reach an outcome of her own, take a photograph before and of the finished article and then you can be done with it, content in the knowledge you have let your child see a plan through to the end. The journey is just as important as the destination. Give them the time and space and above all belief and encouragement to show you what their vision is. Maybe this is all you need to get your crayons back out after all this time...

Pablo and Paloma Picasso: Why not get arty WITH your child?

It's not what they've brought home, that is the final product. Art should never end in my class, let them continue it in their home space. Let them get messy. Let them invent and create. These are the industrial designers, inventors and thinkers of our future society, remember...they need their brains expanded!

I know he's not an artist. Or in primary school. But as a parent I always try and think like Michio Kaku's Mum:

And now for something completely different...

It shouldn't be really. I have written in my strapline at the top of the blog that this is about family and expat life as well as art and friendship. As I've said before, my blog is the epitome of being on a determined and focused pathway, with an awesome to-do list and then....
ooooh, shiiiiiiiiny.......

 

I rest my case.

 

So I thought I'd take this last weekend as a starter and get the ball rolling and blurb about family and expat life. Not controversially. Or politically. I ain't planning to be on any deportation plane outa here, thanks. Just events from the sunny side of life with a few hugs and giggles thrown in, I hope.

 

This weekend, we were in Dubai for the Kids' rugby festival. Another exciting event, such great community and encouraging spirit

(for the most part at least....jeeez, some parents....).

 

Child Number 2 was scheduled to kick off at 1400 on Friday and was likely to play the next day. Wonderful, a leisurely morning.

 

However. Child Number 1 kicked off at 1000 and Coach wanted us to be there at 0800. Agh. Hey ho. It is what it is and that's why we're there. We saw some other games of rugby and caught up with the other parents, kicked back ('scuse the pun) and generally enjoyed the cool winter sunshine.

 

What. A. Day.

 

At last, Bear's team finally win their division! Something finally well and truly clicked in the team and some fabulous rugby could be watched with those youngsters. My babe was scrum half :-) and one of the other coaches of the others team joked about who he'd like on his team for the next match, and she was one of the two he mentioned. She's found her niche and she had a super day. She kept saying how happy she was!

 

Pops' team were kicked out on points difference...he was so frustrated as were they all I think. Like MCFL, they played their socks off. But it was soon forgotten and they realised they had a fun day all in all. Especially when they realised the allocated food vouchers covered gobstopper lollipops....

 

It was a wonderful day all round for the Muscat Pirates and many of the teams got through to finals, or semis at least.

 

And I met Lewis Moody and Rory Lawson. Rory lives in Dubai now so we're practically neighbours! I spoke with him for about 5-10 minutes so we are pretty much BFFs.

 

Oh, more importantly these international stars presented the winning Under 10s' development team their trophy.

 

 

 

I often say to friends there is almost too much to do here generating a sense of exhaustion in many parents. But in actual fact I don't think that's the case; it's that the weather allows such events like this to happen with ease and continuity. Everything is therefore accessible. So we feel obliged to do everything and make the most of what we have on offer here. I know we are truly lucky to have tournaments such as this open to us and that our children can experience things like this on a regular basis. I know they can in the UK but it will turn out to be completely different rugby training really...colder climates, frozen fields etc. will lead to a different playing mentality if that child player continues to play rugby at an adult level I wonder.

 

Anyhoo, it's tournament central in the P&P household. I'm off to Abu Dhabi this weekend with my Gaelic Football team. Then it's Hubby's turn for the rugby! And Bear insisted I blinged up my football boots.

I expect the tashes should be lower but I'm kicking a lot and I don't want to spoil the glitter.
Don't you tell me I'm a dull Mum or I'll set my nerf gun on you.

A look at other Art Bloggers

I've just taken a look through my blogs in my reading list...I usually head straight to Cassie Stephens...she makes me giggle...and she has this awesome guitar apron that I WANT!! However, today Olive at Olive ART caught my eye again as she hit on a subject that's at the back of my mind for the year coming up.

I think I focus on it already but I really want the children to start to automatically offer an opinion on a piece of famous art or even an artist's style. I know I encourage discussion and opinion in a structured format that leads into the lesson but would like to find another way that tells them it's OK to ask a question or offer a thought at any time. So I liked this idea from Olive and also this one too that makes up more of a lesson.

Olive ART! Do You???: Looking at Art: She has a bulldog clip with her chosen painting and her bubble whiteboard next to it with some magnetic words. And this allows the children to choose their word that they associate with the picture, whether it is something they see or something that they feel or even the mood of the painting. Whichever it may be, as she says, it encourages the children to learn to 'see' more in art.

Her other recent development I like would to see how she gets on with, has the pupil discussing the quote and the piece of art, do they like or connect with the painting, do they agree or disagree with the artist's quote, and the children concluding from this what it is to make art...it's not just about paint and pencils and making marks. I'd like to do this with my year 6s.

I would have activities like this in an area every week and for every year in which they could discuss, describe, think about a piece of art, a type of art movement or an artist. I used to do things like this with Maths or Literacy and especially Science, around the classroom, for early finishers, say.

(Having said that, I am a peripatetic...well, between the classrooms, not schools...art teacher...I have yet to have my own art room. We are having a new school built and plans were for it to be completed for the school year 2014/15 with me having a room. However...seeing as we're in the Middle East, it ain't working like that. And I will continue to lug that huge not-quite kid-proof Ace Hardware toolbox around, with it's handle and clips held on with bits of string. I'm going to see how much longer it'll last!)

Thanks Olive, you've inspired me to start collecting and creating activities like this for my fantasy classroom! In the meantime, for a plenary at least.

A day off, expat wife style.

I always get two days off in the week at the moment. These tend to be filled with planning, cleaning, and mundane stuff really (although I always make time for my weekly Yoga with Randi). But I always have things to do. I can't remember the last time that I actually had nothing to do.

   So yesterday was Pops' sports day. I did the morning school run for the neighbours and had 20 minutes to spare in the car (Pinterest check? Don't mind if I do). So then an hour watching the cutest kids with the huge egg and spoons, the water relay, sack and running races and general 'I love being a mother' moments.

Long story short, I got talking to a couple of Mums, one I had met once before and the other it turns out lives opposite me and has not long moved in. Anyway, children as a common factor always makes meeting new friends easier and the conversation just flowed.

And it continued to flow over a coffee! I can't remember the last time I had a spontaneous coffee date! We talked about everything I used to talk about with the new friends in our first year or so here and it was brought back some very fond memories of carefree mornings with the Domestic Goddess and The Other Mrs. Mitchell.

I even had time to go window shopping! I had some things in mind but as is always the way, I can never see what I'd like. But it was very nice nonetheless...and has actually resulted in a bit of artistic modification to get what I wanted! (details in another post maybe).

I wasn't on the afternoon pick-up duty either and so I was at home looking ahead to the next few weeks art plans, blogging and personal admin.  And tonight, as hubby's away I can go to my Gaelic Football training session!

But ultimately what I realised more today is how calm and uplifted I was with my own children when they came home. Bear told me she thinks I'm too busy and am always rushing around. If I'm not having time for them then some things just aren't worth it. Chores can wait!

So, to new friends and old here in Oman, thank you for crossing my path and making days like these so enjoyable.

Not all work!

This is turning in to a teaching blog...not quite what I had wanted but as I have said before it is a big part of my life just now so once that settles down and I really find my feet then that's how it will be.

BUT I'm still a mama and wife (joint) number one.

I found this article recently, from the Huffington Post. Very few things like this hit home with me but this one did.

Here it is in full but here's the link if you want to.

The Mom Stays in the Picture

 

Last weekend, my family traveled to attend my oldest niece's Sweet Sixteen party. My brother and sister-in-law planned this party for many months and intended it to be a big surprise, and it included a photo booth for the guests. I showed up to the party a bit late and, as usual, slightly askew from trying to dress myself and all my little people for such a special night out. I'm still carrying a fair amount of baby weight and wearing a nursing bra, and I don't fit into my cute clothes. I felt awkward and tired and rumpled.

I was leaning my aching back against the bar, my now 5-month-old baby sleeping in a carrier on my chest (despite the pounding bass and dulcet tones of LMFAO blasting through the room) when my 5-year-old son ran up to me.

 

"Come take pictures with me, Mommy," he yelled over the music, "in the photo booth!"

 

I hesitated. I avoid photographic evidence of my existence these days. To be honest, I avoid even mirrors. When I see myself in pictures, it makes me wince. I know I am far from alone; I know that many of my friends also avoid the camera. It seems logical. We're sporting mama bodies and we're not as young as we used to be. We don't always have time to blow dry our hair, apply make-up, perhaps even bathe (ducking). The kids are so much cuter than we are; better to just take their pictures, we think.

 

But we really need to make an effort to get in the picture. Our sons need to see how young and beautiful and human their mamas were. Our daughters need to see us vulnerable and open and just being ourselves -- women, mamas, people living lives.

 

Avoiding the camera because we don't like to see our own pictures? How can that be okay? Too much of a mama's life goes undocumented and unseen. People, including my children, don't see the way I make sure my kids' favorite stuffed animals are on their beds at night. They don't know how I walk the grocery store aisles looking for treats that will thrill them for a special day. They don't know that I saved their side-snap, paper-thin baby shirts from the hospital where they were born or their little hospital bracelets in keepsake boxes high on the top shelves of their closets. They don't see me tossing and turning in bed wondering if I am doing an okay job as a mother, if they are okay in their schools, where we should take them for a vacation, what we should do for their birthdays. I'm up long past the news on Christmas Eve wrapping presents and eating cookies and milk, and I spend hours hunting the Internet and the local Targets for specially-requested Halloween costumes and birthday presents. They don't see any of that.

 

Someday, I want them to see me, documented, sitting right there beside them: me, the woman who gave birth to them, whom they can thank for their ample thighs and their pretty hair; me, the woman who nursed them all for the first years of their lives, enduring porn star-sized boobs and leaking through her shirts for months on end; me, who ran around gathering snacks to be the week's parent reader or planning the class Valentine's Day party; me, who cried when I dropped them off at preschool, breathed in the smell of their post-bath hair when I read them bedtime stories, and defied speeding laws when I had to rush them to the pediatric ER in the middle of the night for fill-in-the-blank (ear infections, croup, rotavirus).

 

I'm everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won't be here -- and I don't know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now -- but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother.

 

When I look at pictures of my own mother, I don't look at cellulite or hair debacles. I just see her -- her kind eyes, her open-mouthed, joyful smile, her familiar clothes. That's the mother I remember. My mother's body is the vessel that carries all the memories of my childhood. I always loved that her stomach was soft, her skin freckled, her fingers long. I didn't care that she didn't look like a model. She was my mama.

 

So when all is said and done, if I can't do it for myself, I want to do it for my kids. I want to be in the picture, to give them that visual memory of me. I want them to see how much I am here, how my body looks wrapped around them in a hug, how loved they are.

I will save the little printed page with four squares of pictures on it and the words "Morgan's Sweet Sixteen" scrawled across the top with the date. There I am, hair not quite coiffed, make-up minimal, face fuller than I would like -- one hand holding a sleeping baby's head, and the other wrapped around my sweet littlest guy, who could not care less what I look like.

 

 

Thank you Allison Tate, for making me rethink my own vanity and self-concern!

I hate having my picture taken, I really do. I've got worse as I've got older. I don't think I'm photogenic...there's an element of vanity in that statement but really, why bother having a photo of myself that I'm only going to grimace at and go all girly.

So I will take heed of this article and try to remember over the coming years...

I haven't posted in a month!

I haven't even been surfing Pinterest! (well...a bit...)

I spend all my spare time planning and checking I'm ready for the next lesson. It's becoming a little more than a part-time job now so I need to rein that in a little. I do however, have so much more time for my own children, I see them every day around school and it's a lovely feeling being able to have a little Mummy minute, spying on them in the playground a little.

I'm really taking the time with the lessons as I want to make sure they complete most things so they see projects through. Lessons that are scheduled for one session have led in to two and I'm beginning to deal with that fact - it's ok, I'd rather do that than be stressed trying to rally them to speed up and complete. That's not the point. Enjoyment and a sense of completion are as important in art as is the learning. However, it's put me a bit behind so I still have a sense of worry. But I AM the Art department so as long as I'm not out of control!

That'll be the two weeks before Christmas.

So my new Maori art plans are going very well. It's been great fun! And I swear by playing relevant music in the classroom to try and encompass the whole experience. I will write with the Maori plans eventually.

I have discovered a new art teacher and website - www.paulcarneyarts.com. I found him when trying to find an interesting and different charcoal lesson for Year 6. What's appealing to me just now is his section on Assessment and levelling. Will offer comment on that in another post.

Year 4’s Monet Introduction

This was one of the lessons that I was quite nervous about...it's all well and good getting the children to practise and produce various art techniques, fun activities and creative sessions but teaching them about the great masters just squeezed a little more pressure on my newbie shoulders. 

How-EVER! This was the lesson that gave me the realisation that teaching Art is just so rewarding and as fulfilling as being a regular class teacher. I proved to myself that I do have the interest and certainly the passion for this subject and especially teaching it. I've got to know Monet through the planning of the lesson and I realised I was reading about him in the end for my own pleasure! I just hope the kids take some of my interest with them! So today was the start of their recreation of 'Poppies near Argenteuil'. 



When I built up to the announcement that they would be creating their own, they reacted how I expected. And how I wanted them to, actually! It was a unanimous "nooooooo/whaaaaaaat???/Ican'tdothat/tooooohaaaaard" etc. What I wanted to start achieving was a turn-around of their initial negative attitude. And we started to by the end of the session!

All today was was an introduction to Monet and Impressionism, how Monet and his contemporaries painted...they ended up being able to tell me how to recognise a impressionist piece, well, certainly what they'd look for. We also started our paintings with our background wash. We experimented with building up the colour, and effects 
using the sponges and the paintbrushes.

    

I've had to take pictures of the kids to make a contact sheet so I can learn their names. I do well in the lesson and then forget a few of them the following week! At least 120 names...could be worse I suppose! And it's only week 2! ************************************************************************************************************** So, week 2 and we’re working on the foreground. I really focussed on them developing and using their observation skills…how far do the field of poppies stretch? do they have stalks? can you see the lady smiling at you? where is she looking? why can you not see her legs or feet? is she really a stick figure? (seriously...) how many people can you see? etc… This was a very interesting exercise…maybe 4 or 5 children thought about the detail from the outset and this was evident in their work.

We laid the finished pieces out and pretended we were walking around a gallery. We talked about each other’s work , encouraging positive words and thoughts. This was a good exercise, I’ll do this again.

They all enjoyed it and were interested to learn more about Monet. When they learned of his eye operation and the fact that he painted with poor vision for a while, two of the girls took their glasses off (much to my panic!) to see how it would go. One girl loved it! She is probably the artist of the class so I think she enjoyed painting like one of the Masters!


   

A weekend of being Super Mum…

Well, actually that's not entirely true. I could revel in the fact that Bear had a lovely sleepover here with her two besties thanks to my planning and creativity. 

Plan = Painting their own pillowcases, swapping friendship bracelets, decorating her room with streamers and balloons, using window crayons to decorate...well, her window and make their own pizzas. 

Reality = I go to Yoga all day (more on that later), they arrive when I'm still out, they play Barbies, Dad takes them to the pool, they make their own pizzas (one off the list at least!), I explode a huge party popper in her room (glad I'm not OCD), they watch DVDs all evening, more DVDs this morning, then I make them sit down and paint. (I didn't really, honestly, I just wanted to see these fabric paints I bought!). 

    


Now I'm making flapjacks for Bear to take into school tomorrow for her actual Birthday! A great recipe from BBC Good Food...the lemon zest is a great addition.

I think I'll know all about being Super Mum when football season kicks off. I've completed Pops' application to joining MCFL so that'll be every Thursday morning and one evening in the week where I'm taxi driver. (It's not guaranteed he'll be in but watch this space). Both kids have also started at Muscat Pirates, the children's rugby club. No after school clubs for these two!

Beautiful Oops!

(Apologies for the dubious editing in this post...it wasn't playing ball tonight. Not operator error. Honest.)

 

Such a great lesson! Such a good idea! I came across this book by accident, just surfing the Pinterest treasure chest for art inspiration.
 

It's by Barney Salzberg...he's also written other young children's books, 'Animal Kisses' and 'I Love Dogs' .

Already I've had some of the children come to me wanting to start again as they "have made a mistake/done it wrong/don't like it". Unless the project is completely unworkable or right off topic I will always tell them to give it a chance.

I've used the examples of those children to start this lesson with Year 3. I'm doing this with Year 3 as it's their first year in Key Stage 2 and they now have Art with me rather than with their class teacher. They told me they feel nervous as well as excited and that they are worried about making mistakes. PERfect introduction to this book and this session. 

Here's a video of the book. Enjoy!
 


It helps young children to have fun with their mistakes. I gave them a few ripped bits of paper, heaps of scraps and some pens and glue. They set themselves challenges, they even set their classmates challenges. Not one child told me they had no ideas or felt uninspired. Such fresh, unfettered, unrestricted, unassuming minds. I hope that I help them stay so, and as a result I make them feel secure in their art lesson, no fear of making mistakes.

From a scrap of red cellophane

A red squiggly line 

    

A hole ripped in the paper became the mouth