Feel Good Friday

Hi everyone :)

I don’t know about you guys but I really need a ‘Feel Good’ this Friday.  On Monday I found a gorgeous little milk jug and sugar bowl with pansy flowers all over it.  When I told Mum about it she said… “You and your pansies”.  What can I say… I’ve always liked their beautiful colour and they seem to be such a pretty flower.

I did a bit of Google searching and came up with some lovely pictures for this weeks layout:

According to Wikipedia the name 'pansy' is derived from the French word pensée meaning "thought", and was so named because the flower resembles a human face.

I must admit that I do love their beautiful little ‘faces’ and at the moment I’m thinking a lot of ‘thoughts’ about Matthew, his family and my kids at school.  The funeral is on Monday and it’s probably a really good thing that I’m doing the scrap retreat this weekend as it means I’m too busy packaging, organising and sorting to let my mind drift too far away.

I’d better go as the courier has just been and I have a whole heap of goodies that require my attention.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend xx

Some tragic news

Hi everyone

Sometimes life is really, really unfair… and right now is one of those times.  On Monday night I got a very heart-breaking phone call.  One of my students had just passed away in a tragic accident.  To be honest it just doesn’t seem real.

Matthew was washing his jersey in a bucket of water and using ‘kid logic’ he decided that it would dry quicker if he put it in front of the fan… so he plugged it in… with wet hands… and he got electrocuted. 

Just before the school holidays start we remind the children to be careful on their bikes and scooters.  We remind them to watch out for people hanging around the skate parks and things like that.  But sometimes the dangers are so much closer to home.

Matthew was a neat kid… always up to mischief… and yes he drove me insane at times… but he was also creative and funny and a big part of our class family since he came into Room 4 last year.

This afternoon Matthew will be coming home until the funeral and to be honest I feel like I need to go and see him and say goodbye.  But how to you say goodbye to a ten-year old?  As I said, sometimes life is really, really unfair!

Project Life: Week 16

Hi everyone :)

I’m a little late with this post but I have a really good reason!  It was Mum’s birthday yesterday and I wanted to surprise her by taking her out for dinner.  After talking to Loreen’s husband, Keith, I decided that ‘The Flying Burrito Brothers’ in Tauranga sounded like a good place to go for dinner… and it was AWESOME! 

They had a wonderful atmosphere, fantastic service and staff and best of all the food was delicious, quick to arrive and reasonably priced.  I couldn’t fit the ‘food’ photos in this weeks pages so I’ll share them here instead. 

We started off by ordering  PLATO GORDO -an entree platter to share.  There were so many little treats on the platter and everything tasted good… and we ate everything… even the jalapeno chilli's which were corn crusted and filled with a jalapeno spiced cheese!

Each item came in it’s only little dish so we could swap them around and get to try everything.  After sharing that we decided to skip straight to desert because we knew we’d be too full otherwise.

Check out these delicious plates:

Mikayla had CHURROS which are Mexican style donuts… but these were not like any donut I’d ever tried (yes we shared our desserts around too!)  They were crisp, light and really ‘melt in the mouth’!

Mum had BANANA CHIMICHANGAS – which were bananas wrapped in a tortilla and fried with cinnamon and sugar.  Amazing flavours!!

And I had AZTEC TREASURE – layered chocolate cake smothered in chocolate ganache and then covered in a chocolate sauce… a chocolate lovers dream!

I have to say we had a brilliant night… and I even went online this morning and left them a review. There was also a little ‘serenading’ happening… but more about that later!

So on with my week!  We had our final week of the term and it was a real push to get everything I wanted to get done finished but somehow by Friday most of it was actually done.  Here’s an overview of the week:

This term we’ve been learning about ‘Communication’ and we’ve done a variety of things including making letterboxes, writing formal letters and learning a bit of Morse code.  We also decided to make her own paper.  You might remember that last week we had a ‘ripping’ good time… well this week we turned all our paper pulp into real paper and the kids were fascinated with it!

They’ve decided to turn them into treasure maps so we can put them up on our class wall.  Unfortunately we didn’t get the maps finished but we can still re-visit them early next term.

After my success with making jam I decided that I’d have a go at making plum relish… YUM!  It’s got a bit of chilli in it and it does pack a little bit of a punch but it’s super nice with cheese!

And while we’re on the subject of food… Peter (the Principal) still owed me a cake for taking over the NZEI rep job and this week he actually came through with something for me.  It wasn’t a cake… but it was delicious!  It was all broken into shards (a bit like peanut brittle).  There was a layer of caramel, a layer of chocolate and a layer of something else… I could taste a little salt but couldn’t figure out what it was.  At morning tea time I asked him and he laughed!  It turns out that it’s Salada crackers… honest!  There is even an online recipe if you want to try it out!

Later on in the week we had a Duffy Assembly and the kids were thrilled to each receive two books to keep.  It’s a fantastic programme that really benefits our kids a lot!

On Friday we had a great last day of term.  We watched the DVD of James and the Giant Peach since we’d read the book as a class during the term and the kids really enjoyed it although they were a little disappointed that the ‘cloud men’ weren’t part of the movie.

I made some little owl cakes for the kids but was a bit let down by how they turned out.  The cakes rose too much and I had to cut the backs off to get them to sit right and unfortunately the detail of the owls was lost.  The kids didn’t mind too much though because I put some icing, pebbles and icing sugar on them.  If you know of a good cake mix that doesn’t rise too much and gives great detail when they come out of the moulds then I’d love to hear from you!

On Friday afternoon we did the second part of our letterbox activity that we didn’t get to finish when Whaea Charlie was with us.  Trey decided to be my helper and get it all organised and he did a great job!  It was really neat to see him get stuck into it… although at one point he decided that teaching was a ‘breeze’ and he could sit back with his feet up!  If only!! 

Which brings me to the end of the week and Mum’s birthday again.  Since it was her first birthday without Richard I really didn’t want her to be by herself for the evening so going out for dinner looked like a possible option.  Thankfully she was keen on the idea! 

As I said earlier, we had a great night.  Remember I said there was some ‘serenading’?  Well,  just after we got our desserts Jose came over with a HUGE sombrero for Mum to wear and then he grabbed his guitar and sang her happy birthday.  She was pretty tickled by the whole thing!

As we came home she kept saying ‘thank you’ over and over because she really had had a great night.  I was so pleased that Mikayla, Toby and I could all be with her.

Toby thought it was pretty cool to stay over at Grandma’s house too!  He especially liked it when I made up the sofa bed and put ‘our’ blanket on it.  He snuggled up there for the night and made himself quite at home.

So that’s been my week.  I’m doing this post from Mum’s place (i.e. pinching her internet) because I want to go to the education centre here in Tauranga before heading home.  I’ve got a few things for school I want to get LOL

I hope you all have a fantastic week xx 

p.s. If you do have a recipe that would be good to make in my owl tins I really would love to hear from you!!

One Little Word–March update

Hi everyone :)

I just realised this morning that I haven’t actually blogged about my March pages for One Little Word and yet they’ve been in my album for a while now.

In March, Ali asked us to TAKE ACTION!  We had to select one thing (little or big) that we could do to move forward with our word. 

I decided that being really organised at school would be a BIG action that I could break down into steps during the month making it much more likely to actually be achievable.  It also helped that I was having a student teacher during this time and quite frankly sometimes two heads are better than one!

I started off with a ‘title page’ for March outlining the prompt and why it was important to me:

It’s funny how the monthly intentions I set in January seem to be fitting perfectly with each prompt because it was a bit ‘unexpected’ that I would have a student teacher right at this time. 

It was also ‘unexpected’ that the FOTS (Friends of the School) group would choose this month to give each teacher a budget to spend on their classroom.  That budget (which HAD to be used in Term 1) meant that I was able to purchase folders, clear pockets, labels, laminating pockets and a variety of other organisational materials… such a cool bonus!

Ali provided us with a cool template to use to work out what we were going to do as well as when and how we would do it.   The template also included a place to ‘document’ your progress as you went.

I had to adjust the template a bit to fit my needs but it worked out brilliantly. 

I broke things down into the school weeks with each week having it’s own focus to concentrate on… first math, then reading and then writing.  The idea was that by the final week everything would be coming together and I’d be working ‘smarter instead of harder’.

As it turned out I actually achieved far more than I had intended.  It definitely did feel manageable most of the time and by the end of March it was all going strong!

Since I’m such a visual person I decided to include a ‘photo evidence’ page in my album as well.

The really awesome thing is that it has been easy (although still quite time consuming) to keep everything going through April.  My weekly planning sheets are all in their folders… my planner is still really quick to do once the planning sheets are finished… and the kids really love the task boards!

This prompt has been fantastic to work on… and the difference it has made in my school life has been incredible.  It’s also been a bit ‘unexpected’ how much impact my One Little Word – CHOICES – has had on my professional life.  It’s been hugely positive thank goodness!

So there’s my update… enjoy the rest of your weekend xx