This Is Only Funny If You Are NOT An Art Teacher!

I occasionally tell my friends at work I am off to play with paint when I leave them to go off to do some less exciting job like lesson planning or paperwork. Of course I have to be careful when I say this because someone who has never taught art before might think all I really do all day is play with paint. (Like the substitute teacher yesterday who asked why special area teachers got a prep. He then added, "I understand why a classroom teacher needs a prep but why an art teacher?" I politely informed him that art faeries do not come to cut paper for projects nor do they keep grades for my 650+ kids that I see each week. Eyes rolling here.)

Anyway, after yesterday it will be a long time before I mention using paint at school. Here goes the biggest paint disaster in my teaching career to date.

So my Kindergartners have been making spiders out of paper mache. Imagine this a ball of newspaper covered in paper mache that has been painted black with four pipe cleaners sticking out on both sides for legs. Toting said spiders around by the legs is like the best thing ever. Even when I warn they may break, they love the legs. (That is a cute part) Yesterday one of my classes needed to add eyes to their spiders. I demonstrated how to use the end of the paint brush as a tool to make dots, which of course was an amazing technique to a 5 year old.

Everything was great until two boys decided to pour the white paint from the medicine cup they were using as a paint container all over their spider. Still I did not judge, they are in charge of their own artwork and I reminded they they got a score for neatness. As we were putting the spiders back in the window to dry one of the paint pourers, I don't know which one, apparently was caring his spider by the legs and approached my from behind (Which for the record is a no-no on paint days. Yes, their really is a rule not to be behind me on paint days.:) and bumped his paint covered spider against my leg.

Now, I don't feel the bump and he doesn't tell me. Suddenly I am like why do my pants feel wet? I look down and their is white paint all over my inner thigh in a band as wide as my hand and down the backs of both legs of my black pants. I immediately grab a wash cloth and start wasting off any paint I can reach sure I have got to get it out immediately or it will be a permanent feature. I call Ayesha to come help save me by washing off the parts I can't reach. Luckily we got the majority of the paint out, I was only wearing wet pants for about 45 minutes, and at lunch nobody was able to tell that only a few short hours before I was walking paint girl. All's well that ends well right? I'm telling you I've never been happier that Kindergarten is only scheduled to be using dry media until Christmas! At least it was good for a blog post. :)