The Process of Exquisite Change

Regretfully, it has been many moons since my last posting on here. Life has been busy and hectic, and I just haven't made myself make the time to keep up with my blog. Hopefully, that is all about to change.

This summer, I have been working in Nashville at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts as a teaching assistant for their summer camp. While doing so, I have also been job hunting and trying to find a place to move. All of these things have so far been successfully accomplished! I have a fabulous elementary art position, and I have moved out of my house and into an apartment! It has been crazy trying to work, go to inservices, organize my classroom, move out of my house, and move in to a new place all at the same time!  But I have gotten through it (mostly due to a great deal of prayer!)

Here are a few images of what's been going on the past few weeks:

A clay mask I created and painting while working at the Frist. The students learned about African masks and had to create their own. Mine is inspired by Where the Wild Things Are. :)

A few images of my new classroom! I've been working slowly but surely to try to get things in order. It's a lot harder than it looks to come in on your day off and work allll day long on giant bulletin boards...but it's also fun! When I get everything fully completed, I'll post some more images.

My living room in my new apartment! It turned out having a sort of modern/artsy theme. I got the fabulous couch and rug from Craigslist...what a find!

I've also been busy repainting a bookcase and chest of drawers to match my new decor! They are still in the works, but boy did I get my feet dirty!!! hahaha...gross! Don't worry, though...it all washed off!

So it's been a roller coaster of a summer, but my hard efforts have truly paid off....I have landed in a fabulous school! Everyone here is so friendly and welcoming! My school district only has 6 schools, so everyone is very close and there is a strong sense of family and community, not only within the school, but also within the entire district.....which is something I was definitely hoping to find when I was filling out my applications. Also, my school has a school-wide positive behavior discipline plan. This is awesome! It means that my school is focused on correcting poor behavior before it even happens. This makes the learning environment into a positive one, instead of focusing only on negative behavior and punishment.

Thursday and Friday of last week, I had two required inservice days where we mostly talked about school standards and how to take them apart and teach them to students in a way that relates to their personal lives.

This whole week is also full of staff development days and inservices. Yesterday was registration. Everyone was given their own job to do. I was stationed in the gym with four other teachers to help tear apart registration packets and put them in designated stacks. Not too hard...it went by pretty quickly. Today is an inservice day where we have been going over teacher expectations, procedures, etc. I actually really enjoy it...it's nice to begin to get to know the faculty I will be working with this year.

I can tell this is going to be a great place and that I am going to want to stay here for a long time....I think it's the perfect fit for me, and I know that God has really blessed my life! I will try to update my blog as often as possible and highlight all the fun projects and activities that I do in my class or that go on at my school....so look forward to it!