February 28, 2015

In the Art Room...#6-I set off the fire alarm...

Now that I have your attention let me tell you about what happened in the art room this week. Most importantly how I set the fire alarm off in my building and it wasn't my first time...
We spent the week getting back in the swing of things. We haven't had a full week of school since December and this week was no exception. We had a two hour delay on Tuesday due to the bitter cold weather that won't leave us alone. I am very ready for spring. And by spring I mean 35 degrees. It will feel like spring. 
We had a snow day on the Friday before vacation. I was going to "water"our clay projects and cross my fingers and hope they stayed wet over the week. I am pleased to announce that even though I didn't water our projects, 98.2% survived! The only ones that dried out were the students who I haven't seen all month due to absences. 
Here is what got done this week:
Pre-K started these adorable hats. We need to add the hat strap and buckle still. 
Once you get over the cuteness, head over here to get the step by step directions to make your own.

3rd graders are progressing on their clay looms. 
They are really speedy with the project this year! 
We work on my rainbow mats so they don't break the loom. 
See the loom progression here and here 
I put a few of my art room groupies to work on reclaiming clay on Friday. 
6th grader began researching and sketching their Greek Pots. I uploaded the entire unit-handout, Greek Pottery reference sheet and SmartNotebook to TeachersPayTeachers this week. 
2nd graders finished their slab boxes. Some of these are lids.
NOTE: Don't let lids dry on top of boxes. They get forever stuck. 
One group of 5th graders are glazing their ocarinas! 
Another group is impatiently waiting for theirs to dry...
See all this clay...it needs to go into my kiln. 
Which is what I was doing Friday morning at 9:05 when this went off.

I seriously thought it was a coincidence. I grabbed my walkie-talkie and jacket and began to exit the building with 400 students into the freezing cold. It was about 3 degrees out. I gave my jacket to a student in short sleeves because students are supposed to exit the building as fast as possible.
We trek over to the neighboring high school auditorium and sit and wait. Fortunately the concert band was practicing and kept all of us entertained. 
We returned to our school and I saw the custodian.
Me (being cocky because my kiln hasn't been on this week) "What set that off?"
 Custodian: "You!". 
Me: "You are kidding right?" 
Custodian: "Nope the heat sensor went off."
Me (defeated/embarrassed/sad face): "Huh? It wasn't on!"
Custodian: "We think the heat sensor is faulty and you can't run your kiln until it is fixed. Oh, and this is the fire inspector, he has a few things to say to you." 
Me (looking for quickest escape route because art teachers are not fans of fire inspectors): "Uhhhhh."

Yeah. So that happened. 
My theory is that my art room is a warm 72 degrees and that the heat from my room entered to cold, unheated space of my kiln room (remember it was below zero that night) and that the sudden change in temperature caused the heat sensor to go off. 

That's my story and I am sticking to it. 

2 comments:

  1. I've set mine off too... but my kiln was on and propped open (I had newspaper in some froggy mouths so they wouldn't collapse while drying). I had planned to close the kiln after the 2 hour "drying cycle" but forgot. It was mucho embarrassing! For the record, I HATE fire inspectors. They have it out for Art rooms and art teachers. I had a lamp confiscated and a lecture about my storage closet. Too bad both with go back to the way they were after he is gone!

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    1. If it wasn't so cold it wouldn't have been a big deal, at least we can do one less in the spring now! Yes, fire inspectors scare the bejeezus out of me.I don't hang stuff from the ceiling and am fairly organized. I have 4 fire exits in my room and one was covered with paper and the other had a chair in front of it. Whew.

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