Bless her - I need to sort new ballet classes for Mary - she informs me her shoes are now too small so she can't practice in her room properly anymore and she wants to be really good when she goes back - main issue all the "schools" I've found seem obsessed with putting shows on which I don't think is a good attitude for ballet and certainly wasn't the attitude of the original class (one of the reasons we picked it).
We all loved the dance school at the Guild Hall but her orig ballet teacher had a baby and has moved to Bristol and that was before the summer :/ Am I being over cautious? Elderly ballet dancers I knew thought that pushing shows too early was bad news for proper technique.
The school the teacher recommended is in Cheltenham which seems a bit of a trek every week with everything else the kids get up too :/ Again part of the attraction of the orig class was I could walk to it if Alaric wasn't here, which I did several times. I was hoping the drama group would fill the gap but she still wants to ballet her little heart out and I often find her in her ballet outfit doing summersaults on the trampoline or lining her teddies up to show them how to dance.
I don't think she's talented as such, she's just a bouncy 6 yr old who happens to love ballet and has done since before she was out of nappies so I don't really want her to be getting stressed about shows but to be having fun and learning about her body and exercising in a way she truly has a passion for :/ I never did any of the dance malarky as a kid so am kind of wading about in unknown waters.
Really wonderful news, the Cuddly Science event Ada Lovelace's Coding Time at the Museum of Gloucester on Saturday 14th Oct 2017 is not only having a wonderful OhBot Robot but also Simple Graphics by Kitten Technologies 😀
Kitten Technologies
This event is aimed at kids and is ticketed at £5 per child, there is puppet story telling, colouring in sheets, Robo Robs Jobs the board game as well as the OhBot programmable robot head and the simple graphics programme. I am very excited about how this event is shaping up 🙂
11 am to 1 pm Saturday Oct 14th 2017 I shall be taking Cuddly Science along to the Museum of Gloucester for an Ada Lovelace Day celebration tix £5 - the event is aimed at kids and will contain:
Ada the puppet explaining about herself and the technologies of the victorian era leading to modern day computing.
Colouring in sheets I have drawn of Ada, computers and other sundries - the photo is of the currently finished ones but there will be more before the weekend 🙂
Ada's friend Oh Bot Robot - a programmable robot head which the kids can complete programming tasks on including composing poetry!
Robo Robs Jobs - a board game that teaches children about the fundamentals of programming with out any scary numbers or computers 🙂 Very important to help engage all levels of understanding and expertise and the game can get a difficult as the players want!
Other bits and bobs 🙂 We are very excited about this Ada Lovelace day is an annual celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) and has events going on both nationally and internationally. These range from talks to shows to interactive events - check out where your nearest event is on the Ada site.
Last year we went to a grass root community event in a disused shop in Gloucester organised by Nickie Wildin. It was part of a national movement of Fun Palaces, to fight austerity and bring arts, science and culture to... well... EVERYONE - this is one of the centre tenants to both Cuddly Science and Salaric Craft - me and Alaric believe that science and art are for everyone.
You can read and see photos of last years event here.
This year we are at Cheltenham Library on Saturday the 7th of October 2017 organised by Stephanie Organ and boy do we have a line up! There is poetry by Angela France, robots with Oh Bot who we met at the Cheltenham Science Festival, there are language sessions, crafting, Cheltenham Hackspace... and so on - just check out the posters!
I am there as both Cuddly Science and Salaric Craft complete with puppets, Alaric dressed as a yeti and surprise poetry pouches!
I am just a little bit excited about this!!!
Tomorrow I am running two of my Sustainability Series of workshops as Salaric Craft at Gloucester Cathedral as part of their Sustainability and Harvest Festival - it marks the 1st yr anniversary of the solar panels going live and is part of an on going development process to make the Cathedral green and sustainable.
One of the workshops is making paper flowers from old magazines and books and turning them into table centres and displays, this includes making the "vases", basket making, and weaving paper and is adaptable to all skill levels.
The other workshop is creating jewellery from reclaimed materials, this is another upcycling workshop - some of the materials are "rubbish" like old paper, card, bottle tops and some things that were surplus to requirements and were saved from becoming needless landfill like half used bottle of nail vanish and metal washers.
The Sustainability Series of workshops and talks that I have designed as part of Salaric is very important to me as I believe it a) helps people learn skills that maybe life changers or even life savers and b) it helps people become more aware of the waste and issues surrounding the environment and hopefully will help curb things like global warming c) it gives people ideas of cheap ways to fix, repair and make things which in these times of austerity is something that many people need (p.s. these workshops are free tomorrow 🙂 )
Mary | sarah | 
Fri 13th Oct 2017 6:49 am | 
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