day fourteen.

I’m often asked if I have a “tip jar” for the comic where readers might be able to contribute something to the strip. I don’t really have anything like that set up; I’ve passed my hat around a few times over the years but for the most part it makes me uncomfortable. I’m not a professional and I don’t expect people to think of me as such.

That being said, a unique opportunity has arisen for my classroom and, in the spirit of this undertaking, it feels right to put it out there.

DonorsChoose is a website that distributes money and resources to underfunded public schools via donations from everyday folks. The organization is currently running a campaign wherein they will release $100,000 dollars in donor money if they can get 5000 people to donate to individual teacher proposals. I currently have several projects waiting hopefully to be funded on the website including this one. Take a look if you have a moment:

High Interest Books for Low Level Readers

So here’s what I’m asking: If you’ve at all enjoyed the comic over the years and it’s within your means, please make a small donation. The contest specifies 5000 donations… but that number is in no way attached to the size of your donation. If a bunch of my readers donate a dollar or two, that will help take a huge step toward freeing up that $100,000 dollars. That money’s not going to the comic or to me, it’s going to kids who live in a really poor urban area of southern Ohio who need gateway books to capture their interest in reading.

Thanks in advance to anyone who thinks about making a donation. I think you can see that there are a lot of fun books on there that might be the first step in capturing a reluctant reader’s attention… comics galore!

day thirteen.

I mainly did this strip as a “think” piece. I was trying to decide whether or not I could do this strip without directly referencing the existence of other teacher, and ultimately I decided that would be impossible and completely dishonest. I very much doubt that I’ll end up including this in any other collections of this comic, so consider this a “web exclusive!”

day twelve.

chalkboard photo post #2.

Normally I try to figure out some kind of “theme” to go along with my chalkboard drawings… something that reflects back into whatever we’re learning or, at the very least, is sustainable over the course of five days.

This week I did “guy holding a sword of some kind.” It makes no sense, didn’t reflect back on my teaching, and was just kind of stupid.

There’ll be a comic about this somewhere (far) down the pike, but I have a bunch of action figures decorating my room and one of them is a crappy old Link from “The Legend of Zelda.” I’ve had like fifteen kids come up to me and BEG me to give or sell it to them. It’s one of the worst toys ever though.

…and this is where the whole thing petered out.

For two days, we played a grammar relay race game in my classroom (again, something that’ll later be seen in the comic strip) so I didn’t do any drawings on those days beside myself as a referee.

I forgot to take a picture of Friday’s.

not teaching comics

I’m not posting comics on Fridays, but I’ll usually try to post something at the end of the week. This is a drawing I did in my sketchbook at a professional development last week; I liked it enough to ink and (badly) color it.

The pretty redhead is my wife Ellen and the kid between the two of us is my son Elliot. Ellen’s currently seven months pregnant with our second son; he’s due in November. The drawing’s a bit of a joke for Ellen… Elliot loves it when we go for walks and we swing him. We usually count “One, two…” and then swing him on “THREE!” but he has decided that he’s going to start counting using only “three” whenever we do that… ’cause, y’know, “three” is when the fun thing happens.

It’s a small regret of mine that I won’t be drawing many comics with Ellen and Elliot (and Baby #2) over the next year. They’ve been my primary source of material for the past few years and as weird as it is, I know that Ellen has a lot of fans out there among the people who have read my comics in years past… but I’m sure she and the kids will break in ever now and then.

day eleven.

Two of the comics this week were posted out of order… but it’s fixed now!

day ten.

day nine.

day eight.

chalkboard photo post #1

…so I’m still committed to posting four comics a week, keeping in mind that I’m actually doing FIVE comics a week and saving a bunch for the print collection I’m planning. That being said, I wanted to start fitting in some more stuff from my classroom.

I draw a picture on my classroom’s chalkboard every day. I usually use the drawings as a way to direct the lesson for the day; kids always know when they walk in the room that they can look to the back of the room and see what the lesson for the day is. I usually couch that in a sentence like “By the time you walk out of this classroom today, you should know…” and then whatever the lesson for the day is.

Here are three random ones for the week. I wasn’t Johnny-on-the-Spot with remembering to take pictures of them all in the past few weeks, but I’ll endeavor to do a better job in upcoming months.