A Week Dedicated to my "Real Job"

So, as many of you know, I am an elementary art teacher. This week is the second most stressful week of my year (the first being the week of my school art show). Saturday is our county-wide art show and I have to haul about 75 student projects to display at a local high school on Friday night. On Saturday, I will camp out at my display from 10 am-5pm and then pack it all up. There is a large amount of preparation that goes into this 7 hour show.

In honor of this stressful week, I will be posting a series of projects that show why I get out of bed each morning to do what I do. Several posts ago, I briefly mentioned some animal sculptures that my 5th grade art club students were making. We started with water bottles for their bodies, then sculpted aluminum foil for their heads/arms/legs etc. Once they were built, we covered them with plaster craft. The picture below is a few of these sculptures at that stage in the process. Starting tomorrow, you will begin to see some finished products- they are amazing. The students did a fantastic job of making their pieces unique, each with its own personality. Right now they are writing stories to go along with their animals- many of them bringing their sketchbooks to lunch so that they can work on it. I love their enthusiasm and imagination - it is what keeps me going (even during stressful weeks like this).