Advent Calendar Day 2: Chains of kindness

Firstly, I apologise that this is a day late. I was going to schedule it on Thursday night for Friday morning but I had the most dreadful headache when I came home on Thursday night so I went straight to bed and I've only just got home on Friday night- well Saturday morning now. I apologise that I haven't been able to visit anyone for the same reason. I hope to catch up on Sunday.

Today's picture is of my music room door at school.

When I was teaching Year 3 on Wednesday, after singing assembly, we only had 10 minutes to learn Jingle Bells with one class before heading off to be an audience for the Years 1 and 2 Christmas production.  When the children and I came back, it was time for the other class.

In that time, the LSAs had created these beautiful paper chain trees for all 3 Year 3 classes.  I wistfully admired them and told them how brilliant they are.

They must have sensed my longing as the subsequent day, when I returned to my room during my PPA after 2 hours of hearing my 3 focus readers and then rehearsing all 14 readers for the Christmas production KS2, I found that my door too had been adorned with a chain tree!

I was so delighted and touched when I found a note on my keyboard saying, "We realised how much you loved our ones so we made you one too!" with a note from our lovely LSAs.

I think it is lovely when people do little kind deeds for others at any time, but particularly at Christmas time. It makes you feel warm and cosy on the inside.  What sweeties! It might not have cost them anything but it did take them time and a lot of heart.

All the children who have been in my room since then have expressed delight at it so it is not just me who was pleased!

Have you ever come back to surprise decorations?

xx

This forms my Advent Calendar of day 2 with Julie at KC's court

T

Reverse Advent

Frugal Queen has been sharing ideas of how to do Reverse Advent #Advent Challenge this year- giving things away every day instead of receiving something for each day of Advent. I really haven't managed to do this really dilligently, but have tried to do this on various days (not managed every day) and it's amazing how you can feel blessed because you tried to do something for someone.

1.  Someone had forgotten to do their cleaning duties in the staffroom so I emptied the teabag bowl, washed up mugs and cleaned the workshops.
2.  Took in a Cadbury's yule log and left it on the table for staff to eat.
3.  Taken in three boxes of Microwave popcorn so staff can make up some hot popcorn each day for
4.  Sold some new cat/polished stone ornaments from my Grandad's house (they were still in the box they were sent in at the Christmas fair, plus a few other bits I had, making £68 to give to the Salvation army for homeless people over Christmas. + Gift-aid, that made about a £84 donation!
5.  At the Christmas fair, gave 4 slightly broken (easily fixable) ornaments to a child who is very diligent and crafty so she could fix them- she had hovered round my stall all evening and really wanted to buy a few more ornaments than the two she'd bought. She was really chuffed ;-)
6.  Given a photo frame to a little toddler who was obsessed with this item but parents wouldn't buy it for him and he was crying.
7.  Gave a Jack Wills dress, Monsoon cardie and 2 other dresses to a teenager at church.
8. Gave a green lacy F21 top to a TA at work who is having a difficult time and finding it hard to make ends meet at the moment.
14.  Took in a pile of jars and tins of pasta sauce, vegetables and fish for the Food Bank to church.
15. Brought some gluten free Eat Natural bars for the Gluten-free member of our team that the bakery wouldn't cater for tomorrow's Christmas lunch.
16.  Bought another Yule log for Thursday.

It cost me very little, cleared a little bit of space but hopefully it made someone's day.

And do you know, it was me who ended up blessed, x

Why not try doing some random thing today yourself and let me know if you did it, as I'd love to know about it!

xx

#Adventchallenge 

Valentines for others, for outfits, for us

Ah, Valentines day! The day that divides opinion- just commercial, lost the original meaning, overrated, celebration of the acts of a long-ago saint or just a nice opportunity to remind someone that you love or care about them?

A couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd like to do some random acts of kindness (or just random giving stuff to people!) and thought I'd like to paint some pebbles with hearts and place around the playground for children to find and keep. BUT, with the weather being what it has been and playtime in the playground being a very unlikely event, I had to put a lid on this. However, Nora Bird talked about doing some random acts of kindness this week so I thought it would be nice to too.


Yesterday, at lunchtime, when I went to buy some snacks for the kids at school, I also took the liberty of buying 42 kitkat bars.  After I had served teas and coffees to the staff, I then sat and wrote Happy Valentines day on each of the bars and after an Art-attack style shot with them (see above), I put one in the pigeon-hole of each and every teacher and teaching assistant in the school, plus the caretakers.  This morning, someone asked me if I had put them there.  I deflected the question saying, "I found mine in there last night and ate it on the way home."  In the staffroom, I similarly avoided similar questions and had to tell one blatant lie.  They assumed at first it was the head and deputy but when I saw the deputy in the staffroom as they were speaking, I presume they found out it wasn't.  It was really nice and fun to see the confused but pleased reaction without them knowing it was me.

Also, I had punched a whole load of funky foam hearts in lines and turned these into cute, simple bookmarks with some more hanging-tag ribbons.  I laid them out on the desk by the door to the music room and when I had a class, if someone admired them, I gave them one of the bookmarks.  I did the same for a few classes and then gave the rest to my Music Makers after school. It was quite sweet. Something that took me literally about 1 minute to make each one and they really liked them.


It wouldn't be a blogging Valentine without the customary, Valentines day outfit shot.  So I wore a bright red Pop Boutique sailor dress with a Primark heart cardigan and navy flower print tights.  I wanted a pair of red heart earrings, so I simply punched two red hearts (mentioned in the bookmark thing) and stuck a tiny pair of red studs through them to attach them to my ears.

Hearts, red AND florals- Clique or what!!?!?!


And finally, CBC and I made each other cards:
His is the pink one - he changed the words of a beautiful folk song by Luciano Berio from Black to 'brown, brown, brown, is the colour of my true love's hair'.  Simple but gorgeously executed!

Mine is the black one.  I 3d-decoupaged 3 hearts, hand-cut from a music Score (the one used for all my wedding thank you cards) and added some outline stickers at the edges and a greeting.  I always like to make sure my Valentines don't conform to the standard colours!!

After school, we headed home.  CBC had been to Waitrose and bought tuna steaks, veg and a jelly (the dine in for 2 menu) with chocolates and wine (and had also bought me chocolates despite me saying no flowers or chocolates please, just a card! Nice though).  We ate dinner and CBC promptly fell asleep on the rug. Hence why I am writing. Sigh.
Happy Valentines Day people!

xxx

Linking with Claire Justine's Creative Monday