Art with B's Class

I spent most of the morning in B's 4th Grade classroom doing an Art lesson. We talked about Artists who paint dream-like/fantasy pictures. Our portfolio was missing 3 of the pictures! That's pretty bad considering that our school shelled out A LOT of money to buy a complete set for the entire school!!! That really cut into my lesson. Anyway, it was fun to discuss different interpretations of the artists' paintings. Then, for our class project, we had to make our own "dreamlike" animal by combining at least 3 different body parts. For example, B drew a giraffe head, human torso (wearing a suit!), chicken feet, and a zebra tail. They sketched it first, used sharpies to outline, then filled it all in with oil pastels. The 2 biggest challenges of Art Docent usually are, for me, getting the kids to draw BIG, and to get them to finish. Quite often, they draw their "animal" and it's barely 1 inch big. I had to have 2 or 3 kids start over. Amazingly, all of the kids finished the project today ... barely. I didn't have a chance to get my camera out. I was busy the entire time. Like usual, I sneaked B a few starbursts. I noticed that he still didn't look like he felt 100%, so I asked him if we wanted to come home. He wasn't sure, but he knew that he DID want to finish up art. I admire him for wanting to stay and keep up with his school work. The other day, I had a very bad headache, so I had to lie down for a little while .. about the time he got home from school. When I got up, he was sitting on the floor, using the piano bench as a table and doing his homework. Later than night, he volunteered to set the table when I mentioned that I needed help and that it was technically T's turn to do it. Then, last night, J received a birthday invitation in the mail, and B said "Congratulations", instead of getting upset about not going to a party himself. I'm very proud of him. He's a sweet boy, full of laughs, and a great help. I love how he's not embarrassed to give me hugs when I come into his classroom. I really appreciate that! Thanks, B!