O Holy Day!!!

When Jesus, the King of Kings was born in Bethlehem, he was born in a stable. In a place humble and lowly, he did not despise our lowly birth. And who were the two groups who were visited by heavenly hosts to tell them about the wondrous event. Three Kings or wise men- high born people, learned, wise, and esteemed: Salvation can be seen and was seen by those who are great. And the other extreme. Humble shepherds, those who serve and tend the animals- to a certain extent the low-born. And yet united together they came to worship the King called by heavenly hosts. Salvation is available to all, near and far, high and low, no matter what their background:

Jesus

Eternally

Saves

United

Souls!

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!

Strictly ballroom!

Tomorrow is la Finale of Strictly Come Dancing! For the first time since I have ever watched it, I can't decide who I like best! I've always had a favourite. I didn't see the first series so I can't comment on that. Second one, Aled was my favourite, Third, I liked Colin best. But it's a good thing I haven't got a favourite as they don't usually win!! (except Connie for 'Maria!'). I really really like the series, it's just amazing to see the commitment the celebs make to the dancing and to see their progression over the weeks. And best of all, they are dancing my favourite dance tomorrow, the Quick-step!!!! If someone could teach me the Quickstep, I would be very happy!!!

Beautiful Clouds

Round-robins

I seem to have read a lot recently about those letters you get around Christmas time informing you of what various people have been up to across the year. Pomgirl has provided a hilarious counterpoint for the stereotypic type of letters, which would certainly make for interesting reading!
However, I have to say that one of the lovely things about advent-tide and the run up to exciting time of Christmas itself is the promising thud on the door-mat of cards and letters. I wait gleefully for my mother to finish reading them (sadly, they are usually addressed to her- but I get to read them!) and greedily find out what people have been up to during the year. The majority of people who send them to us are really funny and have us in fits of laughter! We hear of exploits of new children who have been licking snails and decorated a carpet with nappy-rash creams. We can sympathise in their losses and rejoice in their joys!
Just now, we got a letter through the door from someone my mother worked with in the 70's, who she probably hasn't seen for that long, but it's lovely to hear what people have been up to. The aforementioned person, being up to date with our news in return has asked if I would like a Thai flute which he has had for a long time since his children aren't really into world music, which is incredibly kind, considering we have never met!
In this time of e-mails and blogging, the arrival of a tangible letter seems all the more exciting. Even if it is a duplicate sent to umpteen men and their dogs, someone somewhere has thought about you and has sent something in the post to you. It's not a VISA bill, it's not an offer for a new credit card that you would never need, it's not some mail-order catalogue, it's from a person who has thought to send you their news! And it's rather nice to have a brief window into the life of someone you might not otherwise get to see very much due to the busyness of life!

On that subject, I haven't really got around to sending Christmas cards to people this year, the student life has rendered me incapable of such organisation, but I have managed to make 25 minature christmas cards thus far from various recycled things and a little glitter and a dash of sequins. In fact I am rather pleased with them! (will post if I have time to find camera!) They are to be sent to the lucky recipients in the surplus of unused offerings envelopes from last year (tis a bit wasteful if you choose to give once a month to have all those envelopes!).

Anyway, I have to dash, am off to play at a school carol service!

Write soon,

Kx

Gone!

So ATSE is now over! Lions and tigers and bears oh my, I have a lot of stuff to write up this weekend- woe is me! Today was interesting. The complete and utter lack of sleep I've had this week (due to not being able to motivate myself to start planning before 8.15ish each night) caught up on me this morning. Soooooo sleepy today.
Had a bit of a disastrous morning. I left the house at 7.40 in time to catch a train, laden with many bags, but when I got to the station, I did my automatic, 'just check my ticket is in my bag' routine, to discover I had left my handbag (with phone, keys, purse, ticket...) at home. So I waddled back down the road with my many bags, and was greeted by an amused mum. So I legged it (as fast as one bearing a trolley-bag, 1kg of biscuits, presents and handbag) could go. As I climbed the hill to the station, I looked to see if the 7.54 was coming. Nothing in sight. I went into the station. Monitors were completely blank. It had just turned 7.54, so I had no idea if I had missed the train or not. No station staff. No announcements, no visuals. It reached 8.05 and finally a train came into the platform (no idea what train it was) it was stuffed like a turkey, no room in the train for Kezzie. It left, I was bereft. Texted my teacher then phone died. Finally train came in at 8.10ish. Squeezed on. At the next 2 stations, people stuffed themselves in ridiculously so the driver attempted to shut the doors around 6 times (If I realised that I am holding people up, even if I am late I will give in and get off. But then I didn't know where they needed to be). But they didn't. Eventually somehow the doors closed. But then we sat for 10 mins between stations in our cramped positions. No announcements. And this happened twice with 2 other stations. No announcements whatsoever. We eventually reached my designated station having taken 3 times the amount of time it should have taken. I arrived at school just before school started- grr. I understand that trains are late. As Chris's recent post 'A graded scale of sorry' there is no doubt that trains will be late. I live in London, I am lucky to have frequent transport links. And they usually point out that we are ever so sorry blahdiblah. That's fine, at least I know what's happening. But there was nothing, no announcement, no visual representation, no staff to ask. At least the automaton gives you some idea of ETA!

Following my late arrival at school, first thing I took my small group (only 4 of them thankfully) for maths. Since it was Friday, I could choose exactly what I did with them, so I decided to combine the two things I wanted to check they were sure of: Word problems and addition and subtraction and devised two pages of word problems using their names, trying to link these to their interests. And put their photo on the page (which they loved!!!). I have to say that bribery works. M. and L. were so excited at the prospect of earning 3 points, that they stayed focused for an entire hour and got loads of questions done! (They earned 2 as they had done 2/3 of the questions). They really liked the questions and as it was wet break, M. even asked if she could do more over break. She also came up to me in the afternoon and asked if she could complete it! S and A worked slower and had some confusion over using counting on the numberline for addition! But, they worked solidly and I was pleased with them. After break I watched the EMAG co teach a lesson which was enlightening. After lunch, I attempted to teach science. I say attempted. I was trying to teach why we have the seasons. They really really didn't get it. Using their ideas from my previous lesson I attempted to address these. Lots of htem had the idea that we have more daylight in the summer than winter because the Earth rotates slower in the summer. I reminded them of how many hours in a day, and thought they got it. But one girl came up to me half way through and said 'But I don't understand why the tilt causes different day-length, I thought the slowed down?'. I admit that the cumilative effect of sleep deprivation had caught up with me and I was desperate for my class mentor to come and rescue me, but she was occupied. They were quite disruptive, which I realise of course is because they didn't get it. Oh the joys of reflective teaching- you can get something out of every lesson!

We started talking about next term's planning. I am going to have to take 80% of classes. It's a bit scary. My school mentor gave me my evaluation sheet. She's given me goods for most of the standards except for planning and organisation (surprise surprise) and monitoring and assesment which were both satisfactory. All food for thought!

Tomorrow, I have a lovely Christmas concert: All sorts of songs. I have to sing 'Oh Holy Night' and play the 'Snowman' on my flute as well as the chorus stuff. Yay, looking forward to it!

Bis bald!

*One of the girls bought me a Christmas present! How cute!

You know when you've been tagged

Rach tagged me, so here's an attempt at restricting my word count!...

1. Yourself: disorganized
2. Your girlfriend/boyfriend: Vacant
3. Your hair?: in need of attention (I tried to think of one word)
4. Your mother?: unique
5. Your Father?: precious
6. Your Favorite Item: pajamas
7. Your dream last night: none
8. Your Favorite drink: tea
9. Your Dream Car: solar-powered
10. The Room You Are In: lounge
12. Your fear: heights
13. What you want to be in 10 years: family
14. Who you hung out with last night?: Me
15. What You're Not?: wide-awake
16. Muffins: triple-choc!
17: One of Your Wish List Items: new piccolo
18: Time: 10.05
19. The Last Thing You Did: ate
20. What You Are Wearing: comfy
21. Your Favorite Weather: spring
22. Your Favorite Book: I capture the castle
23. The Last Thing You Ate: Phish food
24. Your Life: busy
25. Your Mood: sleepy
26. Your body: mine
27. Who are you thinking about right now? evaluation
29. What are you doing at the moment?: avoiding
30. Your summer: lazy
31. Best part of your life: church

I choose to tag Welshy and Sarah

Prepare for a Blogathon!

It was 7.20am this morning and my class teacher phoned me to say that she had forgotten to tell me that she was away this morning because of an appointment, and was slightly concerned that the school may have forgotten to book someone to cover the morning 2 sessions. So, ever so slightly apprehensive I wended my way to school.

I arrived at school, and as it turned out, there wasn't a teacher booked, but I was asked if it was ok that a teacher would be doing her planning outside as I took the class.

So they came in. I admit I was a little bit nervous because the previous day both my teacher and I had been stuck on a train, and I only arrived at 8.50am, and I looked after the class during registration (with the deputy Head being wonderful there) and it had been mayhem with parents asking questions about school trips and home coming time etc etc. But this morning, they came in, they sat down and they read absolutely silently! I couldn't believe it!
So I gathered my thoughts and at 9.15 I got them to shut their books. And then, I used a warm-up starter for Literacy that a lovely teacher at my observation school pre-PGCE had used. I took a word from the Rude dictionnary and asked them to make a meaning out of it. (Anyone who heard about what I talked about in my interview will know all about this). Then they did it in groups, then presented them to the whole class and we declared a winner. It worked, and I think they liked it, except for two kids who don't like each other having to work together. Then I did a quick intro and recap of what we are doing 'rewriting Black Beauty for a younger audience', got them thinking about continuity, importance of spelling, using a dictionary to check spellings they think might be suspect, simple sentences, omission of connectives and set them to work. I then went around trying to point out what people needed to change, think of in a different way, encourage and support the use of dictionaries. It was quite manic, but generally as a rule, when I stopped them and let them know my expectations and the fact it was too noisy, they generally obeyed. I also demonstrated drawing a simple horse to two girls who managed to get the point I made about flowing lines and definite shapes. They were a bit of a pain at the end, so I used the happy-about them staying in at play-time threat which seemed to work. Luckily I had our lovely LSA for the second half of the session to assist me. Then I went to cover my teacher's playground duty (there were other TAs on duty, so I wasn't doing it on my own which would not be good in terms of the law!That's a Standard that I can fulfill- knowing the law!).
After break, I kept hoping that my teacher would be back as I find Maths (especially when I am not sure what it is about too much) really scary. Sadly she wasn't so I started my Mental Starter which was a lovely 'Beat the Click' courtesy of Primary Ideas which was ok. Then began introducing the teaching. I found it quite hard! I set them off to work investigating 3D shapes drawn on dotty paper and copious amounts of Multilink. I found the classroom management alot harder here. Luckily my teacher arrived some time a bit later and helped me with the confusion of where the hidden cubes in the picture might be. I survived.

In the afternoon, we had a bit of a manic time trying to get the scanner to work (this was the main point of the latter half of my ICT lesson) during Silent reading. It didn't. Then I introduced the DT/ICT topic of designing a symbol of peace/unity/friendship by looking at what symbols are and where we see them. I think I taught them several things, including how the Swastika has been around for 3000 years, and different symbols for Christianity other than the cross, though I made a misconception about the crescent moon and star being a sign of Islam as the picture was on a Turkish flag and a girl in my class corrected me. I then modelled what I might do for my symbol and why. This was fine, and they ended up producing some FANTASTIC symbols to represent their aims. My favourite was a Tree with two squirrels in. His explanation was beautiful.
The ICT part of the lesson was fraught. I took my group off to show them how to use the digital camera and got them all to take pictures of their accessories. This took ages. Then the computer refused to register my memory card on the USB when we were trying to download the photos onto the computer. So I had to do it in the classroom. And then returned to the kids, and had all sorts of difficulties trying to upload photos onto their web-pages. But we did it. And I introduced some of them to 'Paint' which they hadn't used before.

Sadly, I waited ages for my teacher to talk about planning, as she was doing extension classes, and then everyone wanted her attention, so I had to wait a while and we didn't get to plan for long.

The Head Mistress found me after school and thanked me for working beautifully with the kids in the morning, which was a lovely confidence boost, considering I didn't realise that anyone (except for the teacher planning outside) was keeping an eye on me!

It was a long day, but I survived! If only I felt so positive about this planning which I am currently procrastinating over!

A mathematical equation for Wednesday

27 children + 5 adults + 1 science museum = complete, utter exhaustion x10 to the power of 9

Let me in!!!

An ill wind that blows no one good...

Funny incident in the classroom this morning. SOMEONE in the classroom was consistently passing wind all day. It was quite unpleasant. At one particular time in our maths lesson my lovely teacher stopped the class and said something along the lines of 'Look children, if you need to fart, please can you go outside to do it'. This caused hilarity for everyone. Apparently when you are a teacher the smells make their way towards you. Good warning.

Why are things like passing wind so hilarious to children (and me?!)? I always wonder why some cultures have a different reaction to the production of bodily gases. In Indonesia, everyone burped without embarassment or any reaction. In Britain it is rude. I wonder how the different reactions came about?

Week 4, going, going...

I have 3 days left at school, and SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo mucho to do before I go!

Today I did a Running Reading Record with my child in Y1, which was interesting experience and I also did writing miscue with her. It was hard-work getting her to keep writing, and I didn't quite keep to the rules, as I kept encouraging her to write more, and sort of giving her ideas, as she kept stopping, but it was a good learning experience. AND it means I have done all my stuff for my English essay!

Maths is another issue. I don't know if I have enough material to write my essay. Wont go into it.

Having looked at my last 3.5 weeks, I have actually not done a huge lot. There are constant interruptions in class, I have a lot to learn, and I just get home and want to collapse- I really dont want to be doing copious amounts of work, but I have to try. But I don't know how well I am coping with it. Like tonight, I came home, and I ate dinner, and chatted to another student on the phone, and my sister. And I just really feel like I just want to sleep. I just find it so hard to concentrate.
We are not at school tomorrow as we are out on a trip all day. This will be a fantastic experience, though does not bode well in terms of my profile of teaching I have done, as it is another day out.

I seem to sound really negative on my blog at the moment, I don't mean to, but it's just mad mad mad! There are times when I think, why?

I survived my whole class observation last week, though my time management leaves a lot to be desired. Hmmmm, worst thing to have to teach on your first whole class maths teaching? Problem solving!
Monday I was supposed to do mask-decorating for my ICT lesson, and I had a big lapse in confidence and felt like it wouldn't work. My class-teacher was wonderful and let the whole class do it. Thank heaven for that!

Let's hope I survive this last furlong...

And to make myself feel better, and to bring us back to all things fluffy in true Welsherella style:
Marshmellows, chocolate cake, fluffy happy thoughts, holidays!

Oh and...
Deck the Hall with boughts of Holly (it's Hall singular!)
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tis the season to be jolly
Fa la la la la, la la la la.