A Letter to Parents

Dear Parents,
 Please let it be known that for the last 3 weeks of the school year your child will be learning absolutely nothing of value except how to make Christmas decorations. They will undertake numerous projects that involve cutting, sticking, cellophane, and the odd sprinkle of glitter. We hope that these hand-made, beautifully crafted decorations will adorn your house and Christmas tree for many years to come. 
These activities will take place between the hours of 9am-3pm daily. When said activities have been exhausted to the point of calloused fingers, a Christmas movie will be viewed to keep your child further entertained and give the teacher a few moments of P&Q. 
Things get even more exciting in the last week of school, when your child will be asked to help clean the classroom. This includes scrubbing desks, washing chairs and dusting shelves. They will then be rewarded with a class party that will hopefully last the entirety of the last day of school. 
All that said, I do love my job...

Dehydration and soggy bodies

A couple of days ago I had this fantastic idea to do a science experiment with the class. To be honest I have been a bit hit and miss with science this term - I seem to enjoying buying numerous books about *FUN* and *EXCITING* science experiments and then never manage to crack the spine...
We've been learning about plants this term - yes, we've already done the standard 'bean growing' experiment, and that went really well until we had a string of days over 32 degrees and all the plants died on us! Whoops (note to self- keep plants out of sun next time).
So for this experiment I decided to look at the importance of water for both plants and our bodies by dehydrating potatoes in salt water. Ah yes and all was going according to the plan laid out in my gloriously new and shiny science experiment book until we realised that the potatoes were going to take a lot longer than the half an hour stated to show any results. In fact, we had to leave the damn things overnight and even then they didn't really show a huge difference!
Anyway, the kids enjoyed the experiment and especially enjoyed peering at the potatoes every 2 mins throughout the first day to see if anything had changed.
So then came results time and an explanation about how our bodies are similar. We discussed the results and noted that the salty potatoes had (eventually) gone soggy, lost some colour and were wrinkly. We had previously talked about dehydration on our bodies and the balance of salt and water necessary to keep us going. So when I asked the class how this experiment linked to dehydration in our bodies, one boy put is hand up and said "If we don't drink enough water we will lose colour, go all wrinkly and really soggy!"
Yep close enough. I think I've now scared them into drinking water. You can thank me later mums.

First Post and Upcoming events

Thanks for stopping by! It's going to take me a little while to get warmed up and get out onto the court to score some game-winning goals, as you could say I'm a 'blog virgin', but once I'm on fire you won't be able to stop me (until the Christmas holidays and then, thank god, I'm be pulling up a seat by the pool for a couple of months!).
Now that we're on the downward slide to the end of the school year (did I hear some cheers from the crowd?), all things Christmas are about to explode in my classroom. The kids are not going to know what's hit them! And god-forbid anyone should try to kill the Christmas spirit by claiming Santa's not real - what do you mean?? I will ensure that these 8 year olds continue to believe for another year that the man in the red fat suit is real, even if it kills me.
Another joy to add to my to do list in the coming weeks is organising an excursion with my class and the one next door to us. Yes, because I've got nothing better to do with my day than fill in 10 page liability and medical forms just so we can go play games and have lunch in the park! Awesome! 
It's going to be another great week - stay tuned!