yellow snow=no. colorful snow=yes!
We are from an area of the U.S. that gets snow, some years a good amount. I need snow, I look forward to it, and being a teacher I really need it as built in personal health day. Here in Richmond, I think it may never snow this year. At first the warm weather was nice, I heard of friends who even had to have the a/c on over Christmas break. But now really, enough is enough. January is quickly escaping us and we have had no ice, no snow, no nothing! Every year I create tie-dye snowflakes with my class. Everyone seems to get into it, who doesn't like to tie-dye, right? This year I even added a writing assignment to go with it. The fifth graders wrote how-to essays about the process. Well here you go, it may not be as detailed as some of my ten year olds, but a quick how to anyway!
Here are two finished projects that I did at school with my class awhile back, I attached both the flake and their how-to paper to a piece of black paper that I sprayed with snow in a can.
Maybe if we all made some beautiful tie-dye snowflakes we could convince some icy, snowy precipitation to head our way a bit! If we finally do get a snow day, what better way to spend the day than filling your house with tie-dye snowflakes! Enjoy!
-melissa
I felt guilty until...
I'll get to the guilty part in a minute... First off, we are putting our house on the real estate market here soon....yes again. Some of you are cheering (ohio) and some of you are jeering (virginia). We're gonna give it one last shot, so we'll see what happens.
So what does that have to do with this blog post, well I'm glad you asked. We're getting the house in order and that means that we've got a short list of things to accomplish around the house to get it ready for showings. One of the items on our list is to clean out closets and dormer spaces throughout the house. Everyone worth their weight in HGTV/TLC salt knows that clean/empty closets are always a positive when showing a house and being that this is the third time now that we've put the house on the market, we've done this a few times now. We always joke that our house kind of takes a breath of fresh air in relief when we put the house on the market because we purge pounds and pounds of weight from it's structure each time.
The first closet we tackled this morning was a shared closet in the office/sewing room. Both Melissa and I work out of this space so the closet is shared space as well, so we both had items to de-clutter and dispose of. We took care of that task in about 30 minutes and I decided to move to my closet next. I sorted and sifted and ended up with two piles. Pile one, a bunch of shirts that now fit after losing some weight since Christmas...woohoo, and pile two, stuff that is going to Goodwill. After finishing my closet I told Melissa that I kind of felt guilty about how many articles of clothing I had. It is an area of weakness for me, so while it felt good to give a lot away, I also felt guilty for just having way to much in this area.
Then Melissa decides we should do her closet next, but the difference is that Melissa keeps a lot of her clothes in boxes upstairs in closets and dormers, so we made our way upstairs and this is what we came downstairs with to sort through...
I count about 11 boxes/bins total. I never knew she had this cache of fashion tucked away. I was proud of her though. Just like me, she was able to reclaim some clothes that now fit due to slimming down and made a great pile to donate...
All together we filled up 3 contractor sized plastic bags and will take them to our local Goodwill. There's some good stuff in there too! Here is what Melissa widdled the 11 bins down to...
So after all of this I feel blessed that we have extra clothes and extra food in the pantry and extra money and extra I could go on and on forever. But I don't feel guilty anymore because Melissa had way more clothes than me just laying around :)
-jay
rough circles quilt along part 2
You have done all the hard work, picked out some great fat quarters, pressed all your fabrics and the most daunting task...you have cut out all those squares and circles. You have completed part 1, now you are ready for part 2!
After all of that cutting, everything hereafter will seem to go very quickly! Before you begin matching your squares to your circles you need to find the center of both shapes. Iron all of squares in half and then in half again. Do the same with the circles. By doing this you will find the perfect center of each.
Next, match all the circles to the squares, lining up the centers of both pieces. Once this is done you can begin sewing all of your circles down. This may seem intimidating to sew 160 circles, but it is so very simple. I found it best to use a walking foot (this is the standard foot on your machine). Using a 1/4 inch seem allowance, place the sewing foot up against the side of the circle. Slowy start sewing, placing you hands as shown below, pressing down with your left hand causing the circle to "pivot" (anyone seen that Friends episode?).
Before you know it you will have all of the circles sewn. You will be amazed at how quickly this will go. Things that I am sure you are not amazed with:
1. my black nails
2. my machine being held together with painters tape
No one ever said this quilt along was going to be pretty! Good luck and get sewing! After this week you are almost to the halfway point!
See you next Saturday morning for part 3.
-melissa
mlk writing project
This MLK day I really wanted to get the kids thinking. I did not want to do a classic lesson about the great person that he was, I did not want to give them another history lesson on the civil rights movement. I teach ten year olds, they are actually well versed in this time in history thanks to past social studies classes that they have received. This year I did something a little different...
About a week ago I gave them the assignment to interview someone that they truly respect and admire. I wanted them to choose someone that had a story to tell, someone that had wisdom and some years under their belt. I wanted to cause a purposeful conversation. In the interview they needed to discover a little information about this person's past. I wanted them to see how someone else's life could be much different than their own. I also wanted them to talk about what dreams the person had when they were younger and what their dreams were like now. Lastly, I wanted them to know what dreams this person had for my students. Today they presented what they discovered.
I had a great time seeing them speak easily in front of their peers, sharing all of the fun and odd things that was learned about those that they respected most in life. Even the students that do not speak easily in public seemed to be at ease talking about someone that is special to them.
If you are interested in this project here is the assignment sheet with rubric that I gave my students. The students seemed to really enjoy it and it was nice to get them writing about something that they care about. The plus side is that all of the materials and supplies for the project are free! This assignment is designed to be a paper bag project. All portions of the interview are attached to a brown paper grocery bag. The handles of the bag make it easy for students to hold their project while presenting it to the class.
I really think at the end of the day my students had a different respect of their elders and it maybe even started some family conversation at a dinner table or two.
"The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind." Martin Luther King Jr.
-melissa