What Was I Thinking?

I was inspired by this post to do some printing with my sixth graders while we were talking about traditional Korean art.  In case you don't know (I didn't) Koreans invented movable type (which was a total breakthrough in printing).  So, in my sixth grade classes, we talked about the difference between inspirational quotes and mantras.  They then returned to their regular classes and found some that would work for them (one classroom teacher was much more helpful with this than the others, but what can you do?)  When they returned to art, we got to work, using some leftover foam letters that I had from another project:

We quickly ran out of As and Es.

Using a mirror to check accuracy.

You must let them dry overnight before printing,
or the letters pull off.

While this isn't my favorite one, I do LOVE
the way they turned out.

I'm so impressed with the blogger I got this lesson from, because I can't imagine cutting out all our letters!  We did have some problems:

While I wasn't particularly bothered by it,
she isn't someone that can live with this mistake:

The fix in process.

I do wish we got them done before state testing began in my building, because how great would that be? To walk down the halls and see "You can do it" "Just try" "Do your best" all printed on brightly colored paper?!

Our other Korean project is in the what-was-I-thinking category. I decided to let them design and build their ideal houses.  With my first class (notice I didn't do this part again) I let them brainstorm a list of supplies they would need and tar paper and shingles where mentioned.  (?????????) A para that comes with that class brought some in from her brother who's a builder.  It's just a crazy amount of stuff: legos, matboard, posterboard, cardboard, modeling clay, shingles, tar paper, paint. . . my room is overrun.  
We're in the process of building now, and I told one of the classroom teachers "It's either the greatest lesson ever or the worst lesson ever, there is no middle ground."
Here's some photos of work in process:

 I do enjoy the "feel" of this lesson as we're working. Everyone's got their own ideas and issues and problems and I just wander among the workers, helping give ideas to fix issues--reminds me of art school!  Boy oh boy, it's messy though.  I'll update when we're done.  I'm thinking this might end up being more a process-over-product sort of lesson.