Day 5 – Ice Skating (by sarah)

Here is day fives painting showing an ice skating scene 🙂

Jean has been making crowns with rubies on 😀 I was a fail mum and failed to finish yesterdays advent wrapping due to sore hands but hope to do it and a few extra days today whilst they are both out!

And Joy-Amy's vid on increasing awareness of Fibro - a chronic pain condition.

Day Four – Plague! (by sarah)

Here is painting number four - The Ice Cave, and as of last night I am no longer the only sick bunny. Alaric came home from work yesterday and had to cancel cubs - he never does this but unfortunately he has picked up a stomach bug or maybe this bug - what ever - he is ill. He was not in a state were he could take Jean and her friends to school this morning either which was DOOM and LOOM but fortunately their parents stepped in meaning they are doing both school runs today 🙁

But apart from that things are good and I am on the mend which is fortunate if he is on the down (really hope he isn't!).

Anyway for those of you who are interested today's advent for the girls is one of my Blanket Farm tales - Baa Baa Blue Sheep.

Day 3 – The Guarding Frost (by sarah)

Day three of Advent - The Guarding Frost. This one is actually for a story idea 🙂

It shows Ician in her tower and The Guarding Frost which is the bird. I have also ordered Christmas cards and stickers and things using some of my illustrations and what not. They are £2 each or 10 for £15 next year I will be aiming to get bulk prints done so they will be a lot cheaper but if you want some year you are basically buying the limited print run I've done to see how well it works.

Also if I can fix my laptops audio there will shortly be Sarah's Christmas Collection including PErcival's Christmas Wish and The Little Book of Festive Poetry in CD format.

I am still sick annoyingly and have started to cancel stuff for the rest of the week which is very sad as it included the Frozen weekend I was going to run for Jean and Mary - fortunately I hadn't gotten around to confirming it with most of the parents so most of the kids didn't know.

On the other hand the upcycled graze box advent is still going down with a huge amount of excitement with the girls 🙂

Today's is The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry - yeah I'm not doing all Christmas story just kids stories I've written - a future version may well be just winter/Christmas stuff.

Excitement! (by sarah)

Well it's day two of advent so here is number two of the Ice/Snow paintings I've done. I've been kind of pottering and managing scanning of more paintings and even doing a few new paintings as well. There was lots of craft with Mary which has left everything rather glittery - the lovely little thing curled up with me and let me sleep until 11 this morning, I can just about speak this afternoon so am on the mends. Of course I had to miss what should have been my comedy showcase thingy for the end of the course I was doing but hey ho - onwards and upwards and I have actually achieved things today.

The girls are loving their advent and Jean is even putting up the wrapping paper covered boxes in the window. Tonight they had The Little Book of Festive Poetry 🙂

Also I actually managed to eat some food that wasn't just leaf salad or soft fruit! I did give Jean an ultermatumn that there will be no house decorating until room tidying is done - she thinks we are evi now.

I have Elsa nails 🙂 Jean is after stealing the nail vanish.

Cuddly Science at The British Science Festival (by sarah)

Photo thanks to Fiona Austen

The weekend saw me, Alaric and Jean at the British Science Festival in Birmingham. I was doing the most indepth version of Cuddly Science yet - everyone who knows me will no doubt now be sick of hearing about Cuddly Science but just incase here is the run down 🙂

I came up with an idea during my science communication course at UWE and have spent the last six months working on it, initially just as a piece of course work but I soon realised that this was the thing that would link together all my skill sets. It grew and adapted.

It is a set of puppets, larger than life versions of influential scientists, technologist, engineers, maths peeps and medical persons. Initially I focused on Ada - she was a natural choice as we have taken part in every single Ada Lovelace Day so far!

Ada went on a few trips out and about telling kids about programming computers and her own erratic childhood. But right from the beginning I knew this needed to be bigger, I have a list of puppets that need to be made.

I now have 5 puppets, I only actually had two proper shows prepared for the Science Festival as I'd planned to repeat one of them. But people decided that they were going to keep coming back to my next show so I improvised the last show which was more about the experiments and science games we'd sorted out.

As mostly Cuddly Science is just me, each puppet has their own show with an activity of some sort for the kids to take part in. So Darwin told of how he wasn't very good at school or sitting still and about his discoveries and this led onto DNA (which wasn't about in his day!). We then did a little DNA extraction experiment with the kids which they loved.

Ada has a game that Alaric designed and I have done the graphics for, called Robo Bob's Jobs. We want to make a giant version of it as too our amazement there were way more than the 30 people we had designed our shows around and we need something seen from the back etc. The size of the crowed and the increase in business of the library during the day caused some issues with noise levels so I want to get a portable PA system as well. I need funding.

We also had some bits from Universe in a Box which the kids loved and was the stage for Brahmagupta, a 1500 yr old maths and astronomy dude. I generally entertained the kids between shows with the puppets and also during the activity sessions. We also had colouring sheets which I had drawn - manga scientists with room for the older kids to write down little factoids about the scientists etc...

I want to draw some more of these and maybe have a proper bundle for people to take away with them or down load from the web etc...

There were also science crayons for the colouring in - it was very popular and parents were desperate for their kids to have one of each of the pictures.

Those who could here the shows seemed to really enjoy them and I had so many people coming up to me to say how brilliant it was, how the children really responded to the puppets etc... I did get very nervous for the Ada show which was strange as I have done that one several times before. There were a lot of people there but not as many as for the last show which was improvised so should have been more nerve racking!

This is why I am off to do an improve comedy course at the end of the month - I am going to nail those nerves!

The appeal of the puppets was pretty universal and I got people who were just in the library and hoping for a story time - I equipped them with programmes for the rest of the festival and some of the kids would have played Al's game for hours and hours and had to be shoed away by Ada Puppet.

Ada was termed a princess by many and at least one parent turn round and said that they hadn't known girls could programme. I obviously thought about all of this when deciding what puppets to put in but was amazed to see impact straight away. Questions from adults and kids a like - mainly about Ada and Brahmagupta - it was the idea that people like "me" have done big science, tech, etc.... I really did not expect to see it so vividly.

I believe science is for everyone and this has been a big part of wanting to do science communication and the science art and it has made me more resolute and determined that Cuddly Science needs to get out there. It maybe one of my mad hat schemes, it may just be stupid puppets that me and my mum designed and games my husband made and a mish mash of my science education, experience running craft workshops, being in musical theatre, being an artist, poet and childrens instructor. It may have gotten it's inspirations from all over the place but Cuddly Science has the chance to make a difference, to help build a better world.

The library and festival volunteers were amazing at looking after us and a chain of people I know from various things came to see me which was very encouraging 🙂 Jeany loved it, especially when I let her set up the Story Steps at the library!

The library itself was pretty epic! And I loved the fact it was connected to the Theatre with poetry on the doors 🙂

I even bumped into a fellow poet just outside 🙂

And got to go to dinner with friends and meet their little one and stuff.

More photos of Birmingham:

Jean and Alaric found where they had been doing the custard walking 🙂

And so yeah - Cuddly Science is GO!