Last Day

It is the last official day of my holidays.  I think I am just as bad as the kids when it comes to holiday mourning.  I like my pyjamas.  I like sleeping in.  I like going shopping and taking hours to decide which top looks best.  I enjoy going to silly movies and laughing out loud.  Cooking mac and cheese and browsing pinterest is a wonderful way to pass the time.  I don't wanna go back to school. 

Unfortunately the fun stuff doesn't happen if I don't have any cash in the kitty and the cash disappears quite quickly when one does not go to work. 

Usually, by this point in my holidays I am chomping at the bit to get back into the classroom.  But this time around I am sort of dreading it.  Perhaps it is due to the marking that I have been doing this week.  Perhaps it is because I have not done nearly enough planning. Perhaps I can't decide what values are the truly important ones.  Perhaps I have lost my way as a teacher.  Perhaps the little muppets have finally got the better of me. 

Perhaps (and this is far more likely)... I just like my pyjamas. 

M :)

Blocks, Blocks, Blocks

After my rather exhausting sleepover with Six, I decided it was time to invest in some blocks.  I went shopping with one of my colleagues last week and we ended up at Target.  We love Target.  They were having their annual toy SALE.  I happened to walk past the toy aisle and found a bag of 200 Mega Blocks that were 40% off.  Needless to say when Two (who turned 8 a few months ago) came over on the weekend, we had blocks to play with.  Unfortunately I was having too much fun during the construction of our magical castle to take progress photos.  But I'm sure you can imagine the conversation we had as we decided to add on a barbeque and courtyard inside the castle walls. 

Two did such a great job that I have contracted him to construct the castle that I will build when I am rich.  There will be rooms for Mum and Dad and all the kids to come and visit.  Grandma and Grandpa can come too.  We will need lots of bathrooms.  I must have a library and we need a gymnasium so that the kids can play handball with the BFF.  I suppose we will need a room for the BFF too.  There will be a media centre, movie theatre, games room (for the Xbox etc), a living area with board games and card games and comfy chairs.  We will have to include a sewing room for Grandma and a music room for Grandpa. An art studio for me and the kids would be great as well.  We can dream. 

Oh, I should mention that building a castle wasn't enough.  We had to build a castle with every single block in the bag.  There was one piece that is not actually attached, but it is parked in the driveway. 

See the pictures of our finished castle below. 

:) M

Five Year Olds are Creative little Critters.

What is that? Where are you going? Why? What is it for? Where can I put this? What are you doing with that? Are you making something? Did you make that? Can I make one of those? Can you show me how to do that? What are we having for dinner? Who is that? Does she live here? Are you going to help me?  Why? Where is it? .....

These and many more questions have been the continuous soundtrack of my last 24 hours.  Six... my five year old nephew came for a sleepover.  He asks lots of questions.  He is very inquizitive.  He also has a fabulous imagination.  We did all sorts of craft and then had a great time playing with our creations.  There are photos below. Six would say, "can we make a..?" and I would say, "I'm not sure, let's see what we can do with this."

My creative side is quite tired.  So is my back.  I hope you enjoy looking at the photos and if you have kids in your life, I hope you find some inspiration too. 
:) M



"Can we make a Pteradactyl face?"
You thought is was a bird didn't you?!  No.  It is a Pteradactyl.  We are going through our "Dinosaurs are awesome" phase.

  

















We used:

• Pepsi slab card insert
• two pie cups (silver foil for making puddings etc.  I bought a pack of 50 for $3 and they are great for lots of craft projects)
• googly eyes
• Red coloured card (for the tongue)
• another cardboard insert (one I had saved from somewhere), I cut this into right angled triangles and taped them to make the bent beak shape
• acrylic paint (I really need to buy some watercolours) watered down 
• Masking tape and glue tape.



Paper cranes... Six calls them swans... in a nest with Mum and Dad sitting on the outside.  Six made one of the big ones, I made the other one and the small ones.  He made the nest.

 For the Cranes We used:

• instructions that the BFF printed from the internet (thanks Bestie)
• origami paper, precut into squares with several colours in a pack (small cranes)
• two sheets of scrapbooking paper (big cranes) from a mixed pattern block.

For the Nest we talked about the things that a nest would look like in the wild and used our imaginations to make a nest of twigs, feathers, leaves and mud:

• a plastic bowl (I keep a stock of these in the craft box for painting etc).
• tissues (torn up)
• straws (cut into small lengths)
• coloured string.

Jellyfish

• more foil cups
• string that we painted blue
• yellow ribbon with a small amount of blue paint on the bottom
• googly eyes
• blu-tac (we ran out of glue) and masking tape.

The PJ Day

My TA and I have bonded over our shared belief in the PJ Day.  We both ascribe to the theory that every school holidays must include a PJ Day.  Some people travel on their holidays, some people spend every day at the gym or visiting museums or going to movies or shopping.  But none of these things equal the PJ Day.  The PJ Day is one day on the holidays when you don't get dressed.  You don't do anything truly purposeful.  It is a day of pure gluttony.  It has to start with a sleep in, include junkfood of some sort and involve laid back couch potato kind of fun.  My TA has three daughters and she enforces the PJ day with all the girls on holidays.  Everyone in the house (except for Dad, because the poor guy has to go to work), stays in their pjs they have pancakes for breakfast and watch dvd's while eating popcorn.  I love this theory and I have always practiced it.  So, how did I spend my PJ day this holidays?

I stayed in PJs all day (der) and breakfast was left overs.  The morning was spent watching dvd's and playing a very silly game on my phone.  Lunch was more left overs (or was it Pizza? I don't remember).  The afternoon was spent in bed, reading Mary Poppins.  I will tell you more about Mary Poppins another day.  Then I did some washing and made mac and cheese for dinner.  I watched some more silly TV until the BFF came home.  Then I listened to her stories about a holiday camp that she visited that day and we both had a good old giggle.

Three days later and there is a bit of a problem.  Today it is raining.  I am still in my pj's and I have to say that after telling you all about the PJ day philosophy, I am thinking that today would be a perfect follow up to my first day of holidays.  PJ Day take two.... hhhmmm.... it has a nice ring to it.  Then again, I do have three classes of assignments to mark and two classes of books and folders to sort.  I have 30 report cards to complete.  There is a mountain of clean washing that needs to be sorted and folded and put away.  There are dishes in the sink.  Six is coming over tomorrow and I have LOTS to do to be organised so that I can give him my undivided attention.  So, while the pj's and the couch are calling, I think I will have to settle for the trackies.

I wonder how many PJ people are out there?  If you like to have PJ days, when do you have them?  How do you spend them?  What do you eat?  If it is not a PJ day, what is the ritual you enjoy every "school" holidays?

More Later. 

:) M

The last week

It is the last week of term.  We are all counting down to the two week break.  Teachers and students alike are very tired.  My colleagues and I are finding that assessment is either not submitted or thrown on the desk in front of us in a rather haphazard pile of papers.  Students are settling for "near enough is good enough" and do not seem too perturbed by their teachers' disappointment.  This leads me to ask why.  What has happened in the last few weeks/ months that has resulted in such a widespread attitude of indifference?  I don't know the answer to this.  I don't know how to solve the problem.  My only idea is to ride the wave to the weekend and hope that next term will bring with it a renewed energy of learning.  My teaching team mate and I are planning on sitting down over the break and devising a new game plan.  We have resolved to rebuild our classroom atmosphere and discipline.  I am spending plenty of time on the edublogs about the place and collecting every idea small and large.  We are going to sift and sort and organise until we come up with something that works for us.  When we have it, I will share it. 

While I have many other things to share with you, they all seem  to be morphing into a huge jumbled mess.  You will all have to wait until the holidays for me to untangle the brilliance in my brain so that I can share it with you. 
I will say that there has been learning happening in my classroom.  Little miracles happen everyday.  Teachers are moving onward and upward.  Books are beckoning.  Sleep comes and it goes.  Friends are few but fabulous.  Family is loud.  Life goes on. 

On that note....
:)M