Day 4 - Joy

It's Day 4 of the December School Day Photo Challenge!

Day 4 - Joy

Today's post will be short and sweet as I had evening conference tonight and am soooo tired!

Joy.  What has brought me some joy recently is completing a Pandora's Box project with two of my classes.  We've been studying Greek myths.  Having read about Pandora's box, my friends created their own version, a box that would release only good things into our world.  They created a Power Point presentation in which they had to justify their choices and explain how they would benefit the world.  We finished this particular project by painting their own actual boxes.

The joy comes in the art project.  I find that we are so common core driven there is little time allowed for craft projects anymore, particularly in upper elementary.  I see a lot of teacher blogs where awesome class projects are happening.  I even look back at my own blog and see some great projects I've done in the past that I would love to do again.  Unfortunately, is often becomes all about data and standards making it difficult to fit in projects that don't explicitly fit those parameters.

This Pandora's box project was a joy for my students.  They were so excited to get to the project and kept asking when we could start.  It was a joy to watch them complete the project.  I watched them work cooperatively, offer suggestions and tips to each other, praise and encourage a classmate who thought her project wasn't any good, share materials, and {GASP} have fun! 

Joy was had by all!

By the way, if you are wondering about the boxes, I used papier-mache boxes from Oriental Trading Company. They have a more expensive wooden box available, but I found the papier-mache boxes held up just fine under acrylic paint and Mod Podge.