M

So today was the beginning of "M" week at school. We are learning about Monet and doing art projects along with M&M graphing. I just hope that when it is time to clean up the art projects at the end of the week my aides will still like me. I think it may take some convincing in the form of Starbucks sometime this week.

Let me tell you why...

Today we mixed powdered paint with shaving cream in Ziploc baggies to see what colors we could make. Yellow + Blue, Red + Blue and Red+Yellow. Luckily no one busted their baggie...today...I do not have the same faith in this class and I am totally expecting somebody to explode powdered paint and shaving cream over all the students and my entire room.


Remember, I get to do everything twice because I have 2 classes. M,W,F and T,Th.

So...tomorrow we read about Silly Sam the disobedient monkey and mixing his paint colors. Again.

Tomorrow I am bringing a little stuffed monkey (thank you, Benjamin, for letting me borrow your monkey) and I think I might be naughty and mix my paint colors like Silly Sam for the kids to see. I think some of them were still lost as to the monkey, powdered paint, shaving cream connection.

We sent home a note today letting parents know that we will spend some time on Friday (T, Th class will get messy on Th) getting really art messy. We will have stations with easels, stamps, rollers, finger paints, and painting with paintbrushes.* The other B&B teacher and I will combine our classes, and have a giant paint fest in my room. Surprise! (That is for my aides because they didn't know that we were having 36 kids painting in our classroom on Friday) This means crazy, messy, noisy, impulsive 4 year olds painting in blissful organized chaos. What can be better, right?

Maybe happy teacher's aides.

Hence, the coffee.

*There is still paint splattered on the ceiling from 4 years ago when Sarah went there. It wasn't her; she had some energetic and curious boys in her class that year. Frankly, I'm surprised her teacher liked kids after that year.


Speaking of making connections, I had a rough time connecting Elijah, Elisha and the chariot of fire to the kids. I can usually find a way of tying our daily devotional back to them so they can relate. I had no clue where to go with the whole burning horses thing (which kind of freaked some of the kids out). Luckily, I get to teach it again. I asked the other Buds and Blossoms teacher where she went with that connection. She said that she tied it back in with how Elisha wanted to be like Elijah and we should try to be like Jesus.

In some ways I dread having to do things twice. Like all the tedious little projects, and the messy, "fun" things we do (See my project references). But in other ways I get to redeem myself. Like tomorrow my Silly Sam story is going to be more interesting and involved. And I know that Elisha looked to Elijah in the way we should look to Jesus as an example of how to lead our lives. Wouldn't it be nice to go back and get to "redeem" myself in life like I get "do-overs" at school?

As I think about it; we are Redeemed. By Jesus. It was a messy situation though. A lot messier that some painting stations during "M" week. There are no "do-overs" in real life. We can only look to Jesus as our example and do our best to follow Him. When we mess up we can also take comfort in the fact that we are Redeemed through Him. I guess we don't need that "do-over" after all.