50's and 70's girl!

Yesterday was an extraordinary day!  To celebrate the jubilee, my school hosted a special picnic day.  It has been long in the planning.  I was a member of the committee, but the hard work was down to my deputy head teacher who was simply fantastic!

Each year group was given a decade to study and learn about, encompassing all those in the Queen's reign (50's to 2010's!) over this half term.  This included study of the technology, clothing, music, key events etc, culminating in today's special assemblies presenting their work.  But first, the picnic.  Therefore the dress code was YOUR decade of study OR red, white and blue.  Technically, I was in Reception and Year 2 who were studying present day and the 90's respecitively.  But I am mostly in Year 4 (70's) and my heart in the 70's! 

We had a special jubilee breakfast organised by the breakfast club- so it was hilarious to see all the different outfits whilst we sat and ate croissants and red and blue fruits.  There were some amazing Union Jack maxi dresses, some 80's neon affairs, several 70's dresses (my floppy hats were worn by both year 4 teachers!), a wonderful 60's mini-dress, 50's capris, our head in a demure 50's outfit, and the best, a dinner lady who was Brittania!

The children had made a wonderful effort with sprayed hair, accessories, and those who had gone for decades were astounding!  One girl in year 6 was wearing an almost identical oufit to mine with the colours in reverse which were Mum had made and she had designed and chosen.  A whole plethora of 60's hippies dashed around the playground, several masssive afros alla Jackson 5 wandered around and many many Union flags were crafted into amazing outfits!

 I decided to go 50's in the morning and went in my Vivien of Holloway vintage-inspired rockabilly dress and petticoat.  I accessorised with a hand-me down cardie, used a Vivien cherry brooch attached to a polka-dot headband vintage and thrifted pearl necklace, earrings and sunglasses!  This dress always makes me feel special!  It was also an experience walking to school in it!  I got lots of looks!

 The morning was spent looking after Reception who were dashing around playing whilst mass-face-painting occured, each class had a slot on the bouncy castle.which I helped to supervise whilst getting them to sing "Jubileeeeee, Jubileee, jubileee, jubilee for the queen..." to the tune of "Ingerland" (that annoying football song).  I dashed off for a practice with my samba band!

Lunchtime, the dinner providers had excelled themselves with a wonderful picnic for the children of Coronation chicken rolls, cheesy pinwheels, chips in a cone, salad bag and then an ice-cream for all.  It was kind of exhausting but the happiness of the children was evident!  As a 40's sounding hit came onto the music system (a professional outfit was hired), I taught 2 girls some basic lindy-hop and one of them really got it and followed my lead!

As all the children gathered in the playground for a disco, one or two of us sloped off for 5 minutes sit down and to eat our lunch!  To play with my samba band, I changed into outfit 2, my Mum's 70's home-made kaftan (it took years of persuading for her to part with it. She's got an even nicer one which she's still holding strong on.  Give me time...), worn with ASOS Sienna gladiator sandals, Monsoon feather earrings, Dream catcher necklace (gift) and thrifted purple, felt hat!
I felt SOOOOOOO comfy wandering the playground in it! (and walking home, despite the looks which I frankly didn't care about!)  The samba band performed in between prize-awards which went amazingly and everyone was very impressed. I was really happy with them!

 Time had flown SO quickly and then we found ourselves going back in to get their things to go home, myself with year 4 now.  As various commemorative gifts were given out to the children, I sat and looked at around at the smiling faces!  This was community and we were all very pleased.

 I noticed one little girl's hat (Hmmmm, I don't have one like this and I'd like one!) plonked on top of the cupboard and remembered how she looked EXACTLY like me!  I have a picture of her and it's like looking at Mini Kezzie- big hat, turquoise flowing dress, and necklace.  The other kids were calling her Miss A ALL day!

Finally, to top it all off, they were given a special Jubilee cupcake! 

The day was amazing!  Did your work do anything special to celebrate it?