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| It's always a little like Christmas morning when supplies come in! |
Earlier last week a year's worth of art supplies (for both the other art teacher and me) arrived on palette after palette on a huge truck. Most of our ordering is done from Dick Blick as it has been done for years now so it's to the point where the truck delivery company knows us very well.
Normally we receive our shipments during times when students are on campus at least but it just so happened that they weren't at the time when the boxes arrived. Oh well. Some of our colleagues pitched in with us and we muscled our way through unloading all of the boxes off of the palettes and then muscling in flat cart after flat cart every last one of the boxes into the art classroom. Some of the boxes contained 25 lbs of clay (for my 3D classes) and REAMS of paper so it was kind of funny hearing some of our helpers fuss about the heaviness that they had to deal with. It was also kind of refreshing for our colleagues to see just how much we (in the art room) have to deal with that has nothing to do with the literal making of artwork! Ordering and receiving supplies and then inventorying and organizing is easily a couple day's worth of work for us and nobody believe HOW much work it is unless they see us in action.
When we finally got to work unpacking and checking in everything it was like it always is: a rhythm that is kept going with some good "tunes" to keep us good and motivated! There was the usual of jug upon jug of paint as well as some old favorites that we didn't have last year but will be using again this year like the mask - sadly, I realized I should have ordered them from Nasco because I like their version better. (Oh well. I guess I could send them back to Blick but I just don't feel like it with everything else I have to get done.)
Because, technically, the school year hasn't kicked off yet, most of the area schools are not in session so I had to stop in the middle of my unpacking to pick up my daughter from her half-day of pre-K. I tried to keep her occupied with doing arts and crafts from the random odds and ends I have collected for the art club to use but she wasn't having it. Before I knew it she jumped right into the mix and started opening off the boxes and trying to unload them too!! She is so headstrong and such a little "self-starter" that I actually just let her go with it and she actually ended up being quite a bit of help for me. I feel like even now at barely four years old she is already thinking that she might want to be an art teacher. *so proud!!*I spent the most of last week unpacking, sorting, purging some of the cabinets and storage, and reorganizing everything and though the art classroom sort of looked like this at the end of last week...
I actually did make reasonable enough progress to not feel like I am totally behind on being ready to start classes next Wednesday on my first day of school.
Tomorrow I hope to show you some of what I unpacked and also a new angle I am taking with organizing some of my daily/weekly supplies!
Wow! That's a lot of supplies! I remember a few years back(a couple of governors ago) when we actually had some money for supplies. I was able to get some really cool stuff for my students to use. Now I can just barely buy markers,pencils,white drawing paper. It's a good thing we are creative folks! Enjoy your goodies! It does look like Christmas!
ReplyDeleteSeriously. A ton of supplies. I agree...it is like Christmas morning opening everything up. ;)
ReplyDeleteShameful how quickly I forget what it is like to be in a place teaching art education other than where I am. Our visual art courses each require a sizable supplies fee and that's where most all of the funding comes from that enables me to have the "Christmas morning" experience that you see. For the record: the amount of boxes of supplies that you see is for a whole entire year of multiple sections of seven different studio art courses ranging from foundational to intermediate and honors/advanced independent studies. In other words I am not quite as spoiled as I have depicted myself. (Though I admit I am quite taken care of) The way we do things, since the classroom is shared, all of the cabinets are filled to the brim at the beginning of the year and by the end of the year they are pretty much bare. This means that it is a little like buffet rules - take only what you will consume!
ReplyDeleteSorry, didn't mean to make you feel like you had to explain all you goodies! :( I was just remembering when... everyone has their own situation and there are others who are far worse off than me budget wise and I'm grateful for what I do get! Two years ago when our new governor came into office for the first time in 23 years we were all faced with the reality of no money for supplies for the next year! The state slashed education so bad it was like being punched in the stomach. It made me much more frugal and I found a lot of ways to do great art with what we had. In some ways it has made me a better teacher I think., I'm lucky to have supportive principals and parents and in the end, together as a community, we were able to get through the year. It was a good lesson for the kids too. They learned not to be wasteful and to take care of the supplies we had. I hope you have a great school year! :)
DeleteMrs. C - Don't even worry about that! I absolutely didn't take any kind of offense to defend my position the way I did. I actually am glad I was able to have the opportunity to reply to your experiences because I feel like there are so many ways that supply management and ordering can be done and us sharing them all together helps our virtual colleagues see how many possibilities there are! :)
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