I painted a mural

Today, Sunday July 31st, was the first day I've been able to spend in my classroom preparing for next year.  Since this is my first year of teaching, feelings of fear and panic swell and recede daily.  I'm only just realizing that I took on an overly ambitious summer before my first year of teaching.  Each weekend from June 10th-July 29th was booked with planning and prepping for teaching at the MU Craft Studio and course work for the Curriculum and Masters Portfolio classes I took at Columbia College.  To be honest, however, I didn't finish my Masters Portfolio and I'll still be working on it as I begin the school year (swell of panic).

Therefore, the fact that I was able to be in my classroom from 11:30-5:30 today was a great relief to me.  What did I do with all of this time given the enumerable organizational tasks that lie ahead you ask?  I painted a mural.  The reason that I painted a mural before finishing my lesson plans, organizing supplies, setting up the room and creating labels and signs is that it is very important to me that I have an emotional connection with my room.  In fact, the first time I ever got into my room on my own earlier in the summer when I was dropping off a list of Art supplies to my Principal, all I did was stare out the window for 20 minutes looking at the farmland in the distance.  Maybe I am sounding like a hippie or super New Age or something, but these are the kinds of things I need to do in order to feel calm when I walk in the door to a sometimes very hectic job.  Once I feel good in my room, I have limitless energy for mundane and repetitive tasks.  I also believe that I can't help the children feel good in my room until I do.

The mural I painted is a tree of life.  I don't have an explanation of why I decided to paint this image other than I just pictured it when I imagined what I wanted to see in my classroom every day.  I painted each leaf a different color and I painted the trunk growing up the center (a reference to the tree my dad planted in his garden for my 4 year old niece).  I am hoping that as the year goes along I can have the children make animals and birds that I can hang up in the tree until by the end of the year, it's full of life.