Summer Inspiration

I love summertime as does every other 10-month educator on the planet!  It gives me a chance to relax, recharge, and reflect about many things, including my job.  I will admit that this summer has been a bit of a whirlwind with lots of traveling, and most significantly, moving to a new town, house, and school.  There has definitely been a lot of action. Now, however, summer is winding down so instead of being depressed, I want to do TWO THINGS. First, I want to share about one of my favorite places I traveled to this summer,  Denver, Colorado, where I found lots of inspiring ideas to bring back to school. Second, I want to help anybody who is starting to feel the end of summer blues cheer up with a TPT sale.  The entire TPT site will be having an "end of summer" sale August 3rd and August 4th, and I am adding an additional 10% off of EVERYTHING in the Life on the Fly Store to help you get inspired for this coming year!  Think about Intro lessons, organizational items, or FUN lesson plans that would help you enjoy this year even more!!!

Moving on to Denver...my trip was part of a birthday celebration, and I particularly enjoyed the Denver Art Museum.  Kuddos to this great institution for giving free admission to kids EVERY DAY, as well as adults the first Saturday of the month. There was a lot of great art to view as well as interactive "creation stations" in every corner of the museum.  Here's a peek at some of the school inspiration I found there:

Hands Wall: I loved this huge hand mural found in the lobby area of the art museum. Their hands represented different donors, but it immediately made me think of a schoolwide project that could be done with the help of the art teacher or media specialist.  Think of a "Together We Can" or "Kindness Across our School" theme. What a great statement that would make at the entrance of your school!

Word Mobiles: This word art from Rupprecht Matthies' exhibit got me thinking as soon as I saw the plexiglass word PERSEVERANCE (top left of the photo to the right) hanging in a mobile from the ceiling. Then I saw the word RESILIENT made out of fabric (below). How cool would it be to use your Silhouette machine to cut out different character trait or resiliency words to add colorful flair around your office area? Scissors could definitely work, too, if you are ultra talented.

Buddha Board/Art Items: I'm a big fan of art and science museum gift shops for creative and interesting items you wouldn't normally see in other stores.  This Buddha Board immediately caught my attention for using with students in individual or group counseling.  It is available in two sizes, but I bought the mini one since it was less expensive and I was spending my own personal cash. You basically use a paintbrush and water to create designs, write words, etc, that will then disappear after a few minutes.  I am anticipating using this in several way; initial thoughts are to use it as an art activity for kids when we are establishing rapport, as a place to write down "trashy" thoughts that need to be replaced with recycled thoughts, and as a worry wall for thoughts that kids want to release.  I'm sure other ideas will come up, too! It's such a cool item!

I am committed to using art more in my school counseling program after that motivating session at the ASCA conference (remember?!) so I also loved these finger tip paintbrushes. How easy to store and cute to use! They come in several sizes to fit different sized fingers. I actually bought these two for my kids but may "borrow" them for school at times. Read more about them here.

I hope the start to the school year finds you refreshed and inspired!

Enjoy the TPT sale and Happy Counseling!
                                         ~  Angela