Cooper, WATCH OUT!!

Here in Wisconsin, hunting is kind of a big deal.  Not only do I love to hunt, but almost all of my students love the outdoors and many of them hunt as well (pretty cool living in a small town in Northern WI).  So about a week before the annual Gun Deer Hunting Season, I decided that we better give Cooper a little protection since he has such huge antlers.  We didn't need Cooper, our artsy moose, getting hunted so I painted him a nice little blaze orange coat and made him a hunting cap.  The kids loved it and so did I haha.

Cooper meets some new friends

Shortly after bringing in my class mascot, Cooper the Moose, students began bringing in friends for him so that he wouldn't be lonely.  Very thoughtful and fun haha but it has certainly gotten a bit out of hand as I now have over 100 animals surrounding Cooper and every time students come into my classroom the first thing they ask is "Did you get any new animals Mr. Malcore?"  Here are some of his first new buddies.

Cooper shows his Packer Pride

A couple of weeks after I introduced Cooper the moose to my students, I decided it was time for a wardrobe change...GO PACK GO!!  I painted Cooper a #52 Clay Mathews Green Bay Packer jersey and the kids loved it.  With a few days students had brought in a helmet for him and a #50 AJ Hawk jersey for Cooper's girl friend Lucy, another moose that a student brought in so Cooper wouldn't be lonely.

Hello Class!! Say hi to Cooper.

This past summer, the summer of 2011, was my third summer at an 8 week sleep away camp in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.  I had gone on many job interviews before leaving for camp for the summer and had my fingers crossed so hard they were blue in hopes that I would secure an art teaching position before I left.  My dream came true!! I was offered the Elementary Art Teaching job for the Peshtigo School District which is about an hour North of Green Bay, WI.  Needless to say... I was ecstatic!  While working as a camp counselor that summer, I was able to do a lot of traveling around the East Coast with my campers and the idea dawned on me that I should take full advantage of this.  I decided to create my own class mascot and use it to help introduce myself to my new students in the fall.  Being an avid outdoors man, I have always had a strange obsession with moose, so I found a cool little moose figurine and began carrying him with me everywhere I went, taking photos of him doing various things and posing in front of famous and historic sites in Boston, New York City, and various other places along the way.  I named him Cooper the Moose and he soon became a celebrity among the children at camp so I new that my students would also like him.  When I returned home from camp and began setting up my classroom, I made a slide show of all the places that Cooper traveled to this past summer.  This way, I was introducing myself to the students and they learned about some cool things that I got to do without me saying "I did this, and I went here" because all the focus was on Cooper.  The kids loved him and especially like it when I paint different outfits and costumes on him.  Here are some photos or my little artsy moose...Cooper

Cooper checking out the Harvard Campus.

Cooper getting ready for a famous  Duck Tour of Boston.

Walking on water in front of the Prudential Center.

Can't go to Boston without trying on some Red Sox.

I took a group of campers on an off-camp hiking adventure and kids had a blast finding neat places for Cooper to pose.