Lucky The Lion.

These are my second graders. Well some of them at least. I teach 144 of them . . . You might remember seeing them last November when I spotlighted their Learner Profile Crown project. The very crowns they are wearing in the picture above.

My second graders were asked to paint a lion in early December. The superintendent of our school granted them this fabulous opportunity, delivering 3 large fiberglass lions to my room. One for each of the three grade levels that I teach. 

The second graders named their lion Lucky because he is the first of the 3 lions to be painted. He's super lightweight. So I can lift him onto tables and drag him around the room, which is awesome when 24 kidlets are meandering about. 

When Lucky came to us, he was really dirty. I don't know where he came from or what he had been doing, but you can see from the picture above that he was filthy. So before we could even think about painting him, we had to clean him off. Oddly enough, the kids had a blast doing this (see below). They scrubbed him and scrubbed him until he was bright white again . . . 

When they started the cleaning process, I also gave them the task of drawing preliminary designs so that they would know what to paint when we started adding color to him. I showed them a slideshow of various animal sculptures that had been painted around the world: elephants, pigs, cows, and catfish. Each drawing was roughly 18 x 24 inches. They made their drawings so colorful and without me even having to mention color to them. The drawing below is one of my favorites (although there are many). His expression is absolutely priceless. I can't figure out if he's surprised or guilty . . . Actually this guy kind of looks like my dog Charlotte. Look to the right a bit on this page: what do you think? #catsmeow

As the students continued to work on their preliminary drawings, I moved the lion to the center of the room. I had the students work in groups of 6 to paint 2 coats of primer on him. (I love that they wear my old t-shirts as painting shirts.) 

When the students started adding color to Lucky, I scaled them down to working in groupings of 3. I talked to them about the similarities that I saw in all of their drawings and we started with those things: like stripes and stars. The students loved painting stripes on his front legs. I kept saying that he looked like he was wearing leg warmers. I remember posting this image on Facebook and it got a lot of hits. Everyone thought he looked so playful and fun. Doesn't he? (If it were up to me, all animals would run around in striped leg warmers.) #stripedlegwarmers

My 3rd second grade class of the week started painting on his back. You can see where I dotted the colors that we chose for the design onto the lion before the students went up to paint him. It was easier for them to remember what we had decided on in our design process. 

Oh my goodness, this was taking place the week before we got out for Christmas break!! And it was as chaotic as it quite possibly looks in the above image. For the students who had finished their lion drawings, I had them making snowflakes. There was paper everywhere. (Now I can clearly see why I ran out of paper before mid-January.) #choas

My last class of the week had the delightful task of painting a quasi-harlequin pattern on Lucky's back legs. That was the hardest pattern for them (and me) to figure out. I tried to dot the colors as correctly as possible, but at the end of the day we were just painting any spot that was open. 

Then came the head, the following week. The first class of the week--Ms. Stirling's class--got to paint the head pink. And boy was it controversial. I have never heard such a mixture of whining and cheering ever in my life! But if you go through all of their drawings and look at their lion heads, the majority of them are pink or red. Something in the pinkish family. And the animal sculpture from the slideshow that I showed them--the one they liked the best--was an elephant with a pink head. #pink

I ended up trying to argue the point that Kanye West and T.I. wear pink and they're huge celebrities. These are the kinds of arguments you stoop to when masses of 3 foot humans are coming at you from all sides. Never mind that none of them knew who I was talking about . . .  

I had two classes begin working on the base, but it was too textured and wavy for them to enjoy. So--as much as I wanted each class to work on a different section of the lion--I had to switch them to working on the back legs. Which meant I came up to school on a Sunday to finish up the base. You can see my Mentos in the image on the right, above. I like to think they were the inspiration for the summery-citrusy base colors.

I also had a hand in painting the stomach a nice mint color. I think the flags hanging above my head had something to do with that color choice. Now the lion fits right in with my classroom. This also led me to believe that when he finds his new home in the library, we will hang flags all around him. He will be a prideful lion. He is also having a crown made for him, a cardboard crown just like the students made. He'll be beautiful!

Some weekend soon I am going to have a picture taken of me on his back. I can't do it when school is open because if the kids ever caught me, I would be in big trouble. (Primarily because I tell them to stop climbing on him: all. the. time.) But somebody has to get their picture taken on him . . . Come on! It might as well be me. Am I right, or am I right?

My other classes have been begging and pleading to paint a lion with their grade levels. And I keep telling them they are up next (which they are) . . . But last week I let a couple of my 4th graders help me with painting the gold outlines around everything. Tommy and Lucy are two of my best students. 

Tommy is half of a duo of students who change popular song lyrics to include my name and things about me in them. He's the one who coined the song Moods Like Bailey, which I explain more here. He also made up a version of Gangnam Style that had me blushing in front of his class, while all of the other kids were giggling nonstop. We'll talk more about that a little later. (It was hi-larious.) 

Lucy is from Great Britain and always wants me to speak to her in a British accent so that she can criticize and laugh at my inability to do a British accent. I do it perfectly, but she claims that I sound nothing like a British person. We'll see about that . . . 

They were an enormous help in adding the finishing touches to Lucky. I am so appreciative of their easy-going manners, and their willingness to pitch in and help out!

Here are some of the second grade lions hanging in the library. I have them in two places in the library, and all along the corridor leading to the library. We will be moving Lucky into the library in the next couple of weeks. The kids are going to go crazy when they see him! Only 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders have seen him so far. So it'll be fun to hear what the rest of the students think!

I will miss Lucky being in my room. The kids treat him as if he were a real pet. Whenever they walk past him, they pet his face or hug him around the neck. All of my kids, regardless of grade. 

I caught this second grader lounging on his back, taking a break for a minute. She looked so peaceful resting on him. I hope that he is treated with love when he is in the library . . . I'll keep you posted!