I meant to take a picture but I forgot.

We have an artist at our school this week. Actually he came on Friday and the kids made paper, from paper. I know it sounds kind of interesting but we are into three R's at the moment. Can you name them?

Did you guess them?

Reduce
Reuse
Recycle!

So the artist, his name is Mr. Tom, blended up some paper (added some water) and made pulp. We have also been working on writing How-to paragraphs so we learned "how-to" make paper!

1. Stir up the vat. (use your hand don't forget to roll up your sleeves)
2. Make sure the screen is facing up and the deckle is on top (yes deckle is the name of it! we learned a new word too, don't worry)
3. Then hold it like your driving (thumbs on either side in the middle)
4. scoop up the fish paper (pulp)
4. Do the vatman shake (I know, it sounds like the Batman shake, I wanted to call it that!)
5. Partner takes off the deckle.
6. Flip it over onto felt like a book.
7. Press out the water with a sponge.
8. Pull off the screen.
9. Cover with felt......

Then the assistant and I press them onto the window to dry. I'm pretty sure we put up over 100 sheets of paper. Today we actually made seed paper and I liked these better. The colors were more vibrant and the paper a bit thicker. Apparently you scrape off the paper when its dry with the help of a credit card (like scraping off ice, minus the cold). I meant to take a pic of all the paper drying but by the time the day was over I had forgotten. I'm sorry! Friday we are supposed to make books that will be displayed in an art museum around town?? Something like that, we'll see how it goes! Maybe I can find a picture somewhere in this whole process!

In other news, I rocked one of my first graders' world today by drinking soup out of a can. It was one of those microwaveable Campbelle's cans. He kept asking questions about it, like why did you shake it up when you were drinking it. Then they were interested in sodium because they read that mine had "25% less sodium".

Also, kids know when you are sick. I'm pretty sure five of my kids noticed my voice was a bit off today....
Ms. Schreck, your voice isn't right. It's not yours. Your voice sounds sick.
I learned my lesson. Give me some Vitamin C please!

-Life as an El Ed Major....who's almost done!