Robot Name Tags

It's that time of year again and my wife is setting up her 5th grade classroom.  My contribution every year is the student name tags on the outside of the door.  This year's theme: robots.

They make pretty good coloring pages and they're all yours folks if you want 'em.  Enjoy.

Picture Book Marathon 2011 - Day 13

Have you been to an elementary school Valentine's Day party in recent history?  It's pretty much like this.

I meant to post this yesterday, but ya know...things.  They happen.

I'm in the Local Paper

I was hanging out in my wife's class on Friday when a reporter showed up.  I had no idea what was going on but he just started taking pictures while I was playing "The Monster Game" with some of the kids.  I found out later that the reporter was doing a story on what kids do during recess on really smoggy days (it was really smoggy on Friday.)  

Somebody told the reporter "That guy in there is a local author/illustrator."  That's when the guy came in snapping a bunch of photos.

I think the whole thing is pretty funny.

Magic Toaster Response

Tiff just had her class write responses to the Magic Toaster creative writing prompt.  Pretty much all of the stories were fantastic but there were a few stand out illustrations that I wanted to share with you.

Sock Monkey Toaster is totally rocking.

This is an amazingly well put together (and legible) comic for a 5th grader.  Betrayal!

And this Rainbow Toaster makes me laugh.  Probably because I hear a slide whistle sound effect in my mind when I look at the second panel.

Tiff's class is getting really good at this.  They've had a lot of practice.

Holiday Coloring Pages

Tiff asked me to make some holiday/seasonal coloring pages for her class.  So I whipped up these:

While Tiff was making copies before school this morning another teacher asked her if she could use the coloring pages in her class too.  Then another teacher saw them.  I think at least 5 teachers are using these same coloring pages in their classrooms this week.  Fantastic.  The more the merrier.

I'll put these up on the C.K.C. website as soon as I can find a better way to browse them on the site.  For now you can just drag and drop from here on my blog.  Enjoy.

Mix It Up Day

Tiff asked me to make a sign for her classroom.  The theme was "Mix It Up Day" and it will be posted outside her door to let the kids know that they will be rotating classrooms for part of the day.  None of the kids really want to do this so the sign needs to be fun and colorful. 

No problem.  I like to have fun and to make fun.  And how can I resist a great theme like "Mix It Up?"  So I drew these guys:

Is it a chig?  Or a picken?

Then I drew some letters and printed it out.  I've had a hankering to use good ol' Crayola crayons on a drawing for a while now.  So I colored the sign with crayons and glued it to a piece of board.  Tah dah:

Actually, I made three of them.  The other rooms need signs too.

TIff's Classroom

This is how the outside of the classroom turned out.

Yeah, that's a lot of kids for one classroom.  34 kids in fact.  Ridiculous.  And that's not even the most crowded class in the building.  Nice job on Education this year Utah.

Monster Name Tags

Occasionally I get to help out in my wife's 5th-Grade class (she recently moved from 6th) with some kind of cool project.  Each year I get to help decorate my wife's class list that goes up outside the classroom door.  Last year I did monkeys.  This year it's all monsters (because that's kind of my thing recently.)  You might recognize some of these guys.

Bonus:  these can double as coloring pages.  Just print them, cut them out, write in your name and color away.  More coming soon.

A Special Card From Some Special Friends

I visited my wife's classroom yesterday to help out a bit and teach an art lesson. (I do that a lot; it's muy mucho fun.)

Before the art lesson started and suffering from severe sleepy-ness (due to a late night's work) I curled up on the floor underneath a table in the back of the classroom and took a short power nap. 20 minutes tops.

The 6th-graders thought this was pretty amusing and they made me a special little card to let me know. When I woke up I found this.

And on the inside.

I especially like the bit reminding me to not wet the bed.

I've got to be more careful about where I take a nap. Next time I might wake up with a mustache drawn on my face.

6th Grade Vocabulary Comics

Last week I visited my wife's 6th grade class to teach them about how comics work.  We talked about juxtaposition and the power of closure and audience participation.  They understood it all pretty well.  Then each kid made their own short comic using their vocabulary words.  (You might notice a lot of repeating words like chameleon and dehydrated.)

I think they did a pretty good job.