Ammonites (by sarah)

I Am An Ammonite is a poem written by Marcus Moore as part of the Cotswold Water Park Trust. I feel very lucky that they all said yes to it being illustrated and placed in the Science-Art Exhibition at Centre Arts in Cheltenham. The poem is on canvas and I attempted to make it seem as if it was in a sea full of ammonites and also a sea turned to stone - all at the same time.

This week is National Science and Engineering Week which is why this week is the week of Science-Art being shown. If you get a chance do pop down - it is only there until Saturday.

If you wish to read the poem you can see it on here on Marcus's blog. And yes I took a wonky photo.

The Sound Panel (by sarah)

It a year of fiddly work but there is a sound panel complete with sounds of space, slime moulds and cracking ice to name some of the eight.

It is obviously not a full sound cave but it a proof of concept and a piece of science-craft in its own right. It could not have come about without the aid of ESA, UWE, Ella Matthews and Alaric. Not to mention those who sponsored the project so that we could actually buy the components without them there is no why I could have afforded to make this.

For the next week as part of National Science and Engineering Week it will be on display at Centre Arts in Cheltenham.

World Book Day :) (by sarah)

Thursday was world book day - it caught me slightly off guard as it was a day earlier than I'd put in the diary! But I'd known what Jean wanted to be for a while - a Dwarf, not just any dwarf but the one that carries Bilbo about in The Hobbit. So we dug out a knight outfit I picked up in a charity shop a few years ago and made a beard out of some fun fur we had laying around (left over from a dog costume I made for a halloween party right at the beginning of the dawn of this blog!).

Jean loves The Hobbit and after Alaric had read it too her read it herself and has been getting me to read bits of it too. She was grumpy that I wouldn't take her to see the film!

I think she made a really good dwarf 🙂 You wouldn't believe how militant she was over exactly what colour and length and fit the beard had to be! But it was all accomplished without any actual sewing.

We love world book day here, my little girl picks who she wants to be and we make the costume together normally the weekend before as a family activity and she takes the book into school.

She enjoyed the dressing up but was a little disappointed this year as they have a supply teacher who didn't realise it was book day so did normal work and she had to show her friends her book at lunch time instead. She said everyone was sad about this.

So when I came across this BBC article I was annoyed and hacked off. So much so I posted a reply:

The idea of them picking a character from a film or TV tie-in book is actually a good thing. Those books are essential to getting reluctant readers reading. The kids get to play games and talk about their favourite books and share stories.

Then there are the vouchers which though under used are appreciated by many families and I myself bought my first reading book because of such a voucher.

I think this article misses the point of fun from books, gently encouraging the children into the realm of reading rather than making it inaccesible and academic.

There is also the issue of costumes - really they shouldn't be an issue - you have to spend time with your child anyway so if you don't want to spend loads of money make something out of what you have at home with your child. With Fabric glue and stick on velcro you don't even have to sew. Most children also now have some sort of dress up gear in the home if you get really stuck.

Also I am seeing a lot of reaction against making subjects fun for learning at the moment. This makes me sad as it is a way of getting those who are uninterested interesting - after all World Book Day isn't really that needed for kids like Jean - she loves reading, she adores books and so on. What they are for is the ones who are struggling or have given up or think they can't do it. That is where the magic lays and for the kids that aren't struggling - well these fun days give them social skills and good memories.

I've seen people saying that kids associate fun with 'a doss' but they don't - not really get bored if it is too easy. For the kids that want it to be easy maybe that's because they are actually struggling - now don't get me wrong we all no there are lazy oiks out there but they are a minority and who knows such events might even get them interested - sometimes they are the more intelligent ones anyway.

Especially at primary school age children learn through play, this doesn't mean the play can not be challenging and useful. Different children learn in different ways so have a good variety of techniques and methods is good at least for the younger end of the school age range.

Sultanas (by alaric)

THE SCENE: Jean is eating a chelsea bun.

JEAN: "I don't like sultanas."

ALARIC: "They're... really sad to hear that. They say they tried as hard as they could to be tasty for you."

JEAN: "I absolutely hate them."

ALARIC: "Oh no! Some of them are crying now!"

JEAN: "Well, I'm eating them anyway."

ALARIC: "Ah, that's cheered them up a bit!"

JEAN: "What, even though I'm killing them?"

ALARIC: "Oh, you're not killing them, you're liberating their trapped souls."

JEAN: "Really? Well, they'll just be 'tanas' then, without their 'souls'."

The Pussy Cat Sisters (by sarah)

Last weekend I came in to find the girls both dressed as cats rolling around the floor in the living room - they were both going 'meow!'

One was called rainbow heart and the other pink sparkly - pink sparkly ended up asleep on the sofa with Tom the cat.

Then the next day they were pussy cats again - Mary seems to think she is a pink version of the 'wolf' out of Where the Wild Things Are.

Rainbow Heart or Jeany as I call her seems to have a new cheeky pose thing going on - I struggle to get her not to pull the cheeky face for photos!

See what I mean?

I think they enjoyed themselves.