Today I had the 6th and last art vistas lesson for the year at Logan’s class.  This lesson involved a difficult subject, and I spent the weekend thinking how I should convey the material to the kids.  Stuart had given me some good suggestion, and I came up with another idea this morning while shopping Costco, so I finally felt more ready right before the lesson.

    The class had a substitute teacher today, and I chatted with her briefly while the kids were still out at their lunch break.  Slowly the kids returned and Logan came over to give me a hug.  Then the lesson began.  I talked to them about Vincent Van Gogh, and we used a few of his famous paintings to discuss the elements of art we have learned throughout the year.  Many of the kids were so excited to share that they recognized those paintings.  We then moved on to the new subject, "perspective", and learned some new vocabulary, "foreground", "middleground" and "background".  We also touched base on "emphasis" and "contrast".  I used a couple of visual aids for the perspective discussion, and the kids seemed to have the concept down.  Afterward, I brought out a shoebox and had the children practiced drawing the box to solidify the idea before we moved on to the project for the day.  The kids made a drawing of their bedrooms or their "dream" bedrooms. This lesson was considered one of the most difficult topics for the year, but to my surprise, some of the children were able to quickly draw perspectives following my demonstration.  Some kids needed some help to get started and Logan got frustrated.  He was not happy with the bed he drew, and since then, he just did not really try hard.  I stopped by him as often as I could and encouraged him to draw different things in his bedroom, but he was a bit grumpy.  He eventually had a few pieces down, but he kept telling me that he did not like his drawing.  This lesson took longer than usual, but at the end, the children made some colorful and creative bedrooms.  One little girl finished her project, drew some flowers and gave it to me which was cute.  This was a challenging topic and I was a bit nervous about how it would go, so I was quite relieved that it went well and that it was over.  I also felt somewhat at ease knowing I finished all the lessons for the year. 

      We gathered at the Kaos for a great dinner tonight.  Ted made a yummy turkey, the Tsaos made a salad, and we brought a chocolate pecan pie with ice cream.  At the beginning, before Brandon and Peyton arrived, Logan and Connor joined Marcus in his room to play, and Mckayla was excluded.  I offered to braid her hair to keep her with us and I was pleasantly surprised by her agreement.  I had fun doing hair as always.  Once the Tsaos arrived, all the kids were out in the yard, and played on their own for a long time.  Part of the time, they were back to their secret hideout in the yard just like the last outing.  The adults hung out and talked while Ted and Dave got the dinner set up, after which we enjoyed the dinner at the porch.  The kids were excited at their little table and giggled about silly words.  There were lots of laughter and some tattle telling too.  After they ate, they were out in the yard for awhile again until it was movie time, Big Hero 6.  Most of them snuggled together under the blanket, and Connor wanted to sit next to the girls, Peyton and Mckayla.  Later they were excited to take a break for dessert, but quickly they hurried back to the movie.  We allowed them to finish the show before wrapping up to head home for the night.  It was always a fun gathering at the Kaos.  On the drive home, Logan was exhausted while Connor could not stop telling us about Big Hero 6.

    We played tennis this morning.  Logan had some great hustling and was making good contact.  His swings in my opinion were less productive today, not over the shoulder, but overall he is doing great.

    Connor was happy to play with us on the court.  As usual he tried to swing at the ball whenever the opportunity arrived.  Toward the end of our playtime, Connor decided to practice hitting off at the corner.  He was energized and had a blast hitting off at least 50 balls.

     I joined a friend along with her friend for a glass fusion workshop on Saturday night.  After having dinner at home with the boys, I drove to and arrived at the studio.  There were lots of people still lingering after a birthday party, and so the workshop was slightly delayed to start.  But it turned out that we were the only three in that workshop, so it was quite laidback.  The owner was new to glass fusion herself, and thus she was not totally informative.  However she was nice and let us do some pieces to practice before our main piece.  The three of us had brought a bottle of wine, some cheese/crackers, and some sweets which made the arts and crafts even more fun.  After the practice, my friends started on their plate decorations while I worked on four coasters.  I ended up decorating them with our initials; I imagined the boys would like this little surprise.  Before 9pm, the owner proposed that we could stay longer and just lock up for her when we were done.  We ended up just taking the time on our work, chat while listen to music.  After we finished up, we even just sat down, snacked and chatted some more before we headed home, and it was past 11pm.  I can’t wait to see the final product in a week after they have finished baking them.

     Logan’s school had the Spring Celebration with annual Walkathon today.  The school kids started their lap walking for an hour during the day, and Logan walked 16 laps at that time.  I left work early, picked up Connor, and met up at home with Stuart and Logan.  Then we were on foot back to school to continue on the celebration at 5pm.  Logan was hoping to find a pizza truck, but there was only a Fish Taco truck.  Since it was too early for dinner, we tried to encourage Logan to return to the Walkathon.  He really did not want to walk anymore, but he finally agreed to try for four more laps to make to another small prize and with me walking with him.  Logan walked slowly but we made the four laps.  Afterward, we made to the prize booth, and Logan was happy to pick out a superhero charm.  As we walked away from the booth, Logan saw his classmate Jaime and showed him the charm.  Then we were going to walk away from the lap area until Jaime asked Logan where he was going.  I suggested that Logan could continue to walk with him if he liked, and Logan did not hesitate and they were off.  I met up with Stuart and Connor who had been cheering for our walk, and I took Connor to wait in line to buy food.  After a long while when the food were almost ready, Stuart and Logan joined us.  Logan was up to 25 laps then.  We took a dinner break while listening to the live band.  Logan ate quickly and wanted to return to walk.  Later we went over to watch him, and he was actually running through the laps.  Connor was sitting down with me to watch the live band until he saw his classmates.  They went off to play with my watch.  Finally Connor said bye to his friends, and Logan was finished too.  He wanted to get to the next prize, but by the time he made 33 laps, he said his legs were too sore.  He walked 6.6 miles over the entire day!! and he was very happy with the three Superhero charms bracelet he made for himself.  We then let the boys decided which drawing prizes they wanted to put our raffle tickets in, and we then walked home.

    During our walk, Connor was sad that he did not get to walk the laps and could not earn a pizza party.  So I suggested that he could walk laps in the house to earn a pizza night ourselves.  He was so excited and could not wait to do that.  I drew him a card, and he could get a mark from me after each lap.  He got Logan interested to do that too.  Connor ended up walking 50 laps twice, and Logan walked one 50 lap circuit.  We will be having a pizza night, tacos night and a hotdog this week.

     Since the Marvel show, Connor wanted to wear the Batman costume every free moment he has.  He wore it on Sunday afternoon, and yesterday and today after school.  He loves doing his Kung Fu moves and happy to pose for my camera.  He even enjoys practicing piano as Batman.  Batman was out in the yard often, and he was happy to show off his costume to our neighbors too.