Mekong Lights

One of my favorite celebrations in Laos is the night before the Boat Racing Festival. While the main downtown streets are insane with thousands of people and super loud music, the banks of the Mekong are a bit more peaceful. People light lanterns to send to the sky and candles on banana-leaf boats that they send down the river. It's such a beautiful time!

Adjectives + Artsy Fifth Graders Week 7

Teaching adjectives is one of my favorites. Every year I have my students complete a worksheet called "Kiki's Kitty" in which they have to come up with an adjective fore every letter of the alphabet.

I allow them to use their dictionaries if they are unable to think of an adjective. The results are pretty hilarious.

After they completed this worksheet, I had them make acrostics with their names. They had to think of an adjective for every letter in their name. Again, I let them use their dictionaries if they couldn't think of one.

Again, excellent results.

        Nice                                       Artistic                                 Jealous
        Overseas                                Adverbial                             Alight
        Irate                                       Nice                                    Multilateral
                                                     Unhappy                              Multiple
                                                     'Nother                                Yellowish

       Jobless                                High-so                                 Kafkaesque
       Ornamental                          Angry                                   Innocent
       Eligible                                Naughty                                Thinker
      Yellow                                  Nice                                      Asian Lover Songs
                                                 Artistic
                                                 Hungry

Artsy Fifth Graders Week 6

This week we learned about Polish paper cutouts called Leluja. They usually include a simplified tree form in the center with birds or other animals around and inside of it. The paper is folded lengthwise and cut so the pictures are symmetrical.

I love how each one of them is so different!

Happy Teacher's Day!

I would like to raise a happy mug of Hill's Bros White Chocolate Caramel Cappuccino (thanks, dad and mom) and wish all of my teacher friends a Happy Teacher's Day!

Artsy Fifth Graders Week 5

This week's art project was similar to the one we did last week. They really seemed to get the hang of it quickly this time. We concentrated on how to get the 3-D 'blobs' to twist around each other to make a more interesting final product.

Again, it took them a lot of patience, but the results are really fun!