What Does an Art Teacher do on summer break?

As some of you know, this is my first true summer break since graduating from college in 2005.  I have spent my past summers either stuck behind a desk in cubicle-ville or in a nap room at a preschool.

So as you can imagine I have approached this summer with much excitement and a little trepidation.  "What will we do all day?"  "How long will I be home with my children before they drive me crazy...?"  Those sort of questions have been going through my head as the school year came to a close- silly as they may seem.

We are only a few days into summer break, but I can tell you what an Art Teacher does on break.... She has a blast!!  I have tuckered myself and my twin 4 year olds out everyday so far.  We walk everywhere- even the pool which is 11 blocks from our house.  We spend our days between the library, the pool, the park and home.  It has been fantastic.

Yesterday my daughter Amelia and I made a discovery.  We opened box of sidewalk chalk that had the lid closed and had been sitting in a wet planter box.  We noticed that the box had a hole in the bottom and water had gotten in making the chalk all wet.  I love wet chalk- but this chalk had been wet for so long and unable to dry out (due to the lid) that the chalk was almost like butter.  It was amazing!  We spent a good part of the afternoon and evening making paintings with this fabulous chalk.

Hopscotch (of course)

Decorating our entry way

Decorating our plant stand 

This is the side of our steps- great place for painting because it takes a really long time to wash off!

Rapuzel (and my tan feet!)

Rapuzel detail 

(the chalk just melted as I used it- it was so great for blending!)

Amelia's feet smeared with blue chalk

I'm looking forward to many other artistic discoveries that we will make together this summer.  And I'm hoping to make my daughter Melanie more comfortable with getting a little messy... she really loves to stay clean.

I'm thankful my husband is so wonderful- not too many husbands would like to come home to a super colorful sidewalk and house.  Mine was just happy that we didn't decorate his work boots!  :)