The Vicar of Wibbly hath spoken...

(ps Ali, that is my new name for you in case you decide to start a blog of your own!)

So I have bowed to peer pressure and changed my display photo having received an email today from "She who must be obeyed". S.W.M.B.O. must be obeyed for three reasons

1. She is my oldest (well, longest serving) friend
2. She will soon be a vicar
3. She knows too much

The e mail read as follows...

"though i have tended to eschew (??sp? or is that how you spell a sneeze?!) blogs in general, have just snuck a quick peek at yours, and might i say that it is quite amusing! Lovely photo of you in front of your name on the beach the other day. Think you should replace frankly disturbing photo of you with bin taped to your head with this more flattering, and much more amy-like pic. i know you are mad, and it's important to have a picture that shows that, but you are also quite sane at times, you know!!"

From reading that it will be clear to you that Ali has not been initiated into the cult of Green Wing (and perhaps it is better for the future of the Cof E if she remains that way!) as that "disturbing...bin taped to your head" is, of course, the Topmiler, which I spent many happy hours making for Telly Addict's birthday. Anyhoo I have taken her advice and changed the photo for now.

Interesting day today as I turned up at work not having a clue what I was going to be doing and spent the afternoon teaching the children Christmas carols.

And so it begins, the slow descent into glitter-covered, tea towel wearing madness.

Holiday club and some fairly shameless stereotyping

Well I have had a fab week taking part in the holiday club and now I am convinced that "sailor chic" is the look for me. Think gaudy yellow bandana, think tatty plaited pigtails, think hooped earrings...oh yes. It's a great look.

I was responsible for a group of seven Year 4 boys who were great fun. One in particular seems to have all the skills in place for charming the ladies when he's older as, while Karen was praying with them today he leant over to me and whispered "Did you have your hair done yesterday?" The answer was yes, I had, and at great personal expense (more than I'd planned actually as I left a brand new hardback book at the hairdresser's by mistake - yes Dan it was the Karl Pilkington one!). He was in fact the only male in the vicinity who had noticed, or at least was the only one who bothered to comment!

I won't make one of those "huh, typical men" comments as I know certain men of my acquaintance don't like it as they feel it is blah blah derogatory blah blah tars with the same brush blah blah men are supposed to be different blah. However I would like to point out that if they would only stop conforming to these stereotypes for a few minutes I might be able to stop bandying them about.

Now the lesson today was about being merciful because apparently when we show mercy, God is merciful to us. Hmm, better get started on that then. Anyway, perhaps the hair looks terrible and they were all just trying to protect my feelings...

What a week!

Me on the beach!

Phew, well the last week of term was really hectic as it involved Parents' evening, a lesson observation by the Deputy Head and the Harvest Assembly, for which I really didn't have to do much except turn up and bash out a couple of songs on the piano, but the stress of it seemed to permeate the whole school. Then on Friday I went down to Bournemouth, where Mum and Dad have a flat which they kindly lent me, with some friends and their children. We had a fantastic time. The beach restaurant just opposite the flat makes amazing breakfasts (although by the time we got round to going to the restaurant it was more like lunchtime!) and their "lighter breakfast" of sausage, egg and toast turned out to be 2 HUGE sausages, 2 fried eggs and about 24 bits of toast! I shall not be eating for a few days yet. The weather was a fantastic mix of Autumnal (threatening grey skies, crashing waves, slightly peeved looking seagulls pretending that yes, they did actually intend to go that way and no, it was not just the wind) and late summer (golden sunrise, lapping waves and no need for a jumper). It was really good to relax and take our minds off work and none of us could believe we had only been away for 3 days when it was time to pack up and leave. This week, for all you land lubbers who don't know, I'm helping out with the holiday club at church which has a sea faring theme. Ah ha me hearties etc etc. It's a long time since I've helped with a holiday club (my career choice meaning that I would usually rather steer clear of children during my holidays) but it was great and certainly the most high-brow club I've been invovled in. Whatever happened to the days of making a bookmark out of that thin, pastel coloured card or a picture using pasta shapes and (if you were REALLY lucky) a can of gold spray paint!?

The view from the balcony - Sunrise over the Isle of Wight

Only Smarties have the answer!

Small Blonde Boy (he of metal arm fame) was unimpressed with my maths lesson on Friday morning. We had given each child a small box of Smarties and asked them to write down what fraction was red, yellow etc. Then they had to see if they could simplify that fraction and find equivalent fractions etc. When that was done, I would go and pinch one of their smarties and then make them do the new fractions. Finally I asked them to make up some problems e.g if 3/8 of my smarties are yellow whilst 2/16 are green what fraction are other colours? As I was scooting round the classroom I happened upon Blondie at his table and had the following conversation...

Amiable Teacher: (cheerfully) So, how's it going?
Small Blonde boy: (silence, shuffling Smarties about)
Amiable Teacher: So, have you got a problem? (meaning had he written one) Small Blonde boy: (disgruntled) Yes. You keep taking my Smarties.

I've got to admit, he had a point!

Drivel, drivel and a bit more Green Wing obsessing.

Well, there hasn't been a lot going on really (a blog starter that never really bodes well) but thought I would say hello. Today we smashed a coconut on the playground. Honestly, the children were so excited, I wish they'd have a little self-respect. Although, to be frank, I was fairly chipper about it myself. We also ate pancakes in maths (fractions thereof. "If I offered you 2/3 or 4/5 of a pancake, which would you prefer and why?") and made spinners in science. So not your average day at the office I suppose.

I thought I would also share this little gem with you that I came across whilst googling certain lovelies on t'internet. Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind Tutt (ex-Green Wing, now Barclaycard) in a little cartoon. How cute is this (in a dark and evil manner)? Clickety click on the piccy.

Hurray!

Thanks to Telly Addict I have spent a very pleasant evening watching the GREEN WING DVD!!! Well actually we only watched the first 3 episodes but hey, any port in a storm. I knew my desperate post would bear fruit!

Self restraint...

...I haven't got much. This week the DVD of the second series of the fabulous (if somewhat inappropriate) Green Wing was released and I am trying so desperately not to buy it. This is because I know that there is one episode still to come, which has not been shown on TV, and which is not on the 2nd DVD. As a result, once that episode is shown, chances are they will release the whole caboodle in a box set. I love box sets! There is such a sense of completeness and neatness about them so I am trying to hold out, but it is killing me knowing that it is out there, with all its wonderful deleted scenes and commentaries and behind the scene action! (I do realise that some of you are now sitting there trying to decide whether the word "geek" or "nerd" is most appropriate for me or have lost any respect you once had for me - I promise you I'm not like this about many things!) I will try to put it from my mind.

Highlights of the day.
One of the chidren wrote in their book that Queen Victoria's uncle was the Duck of Kent, which tickled me, mainly as I like ducks and was pleased to think that one might once have been in charge of Kent. In other news I sent one of the boys in my class out to do some spying (long story) and dressed him in a top hat and shawl so as "not to draw attention to himself"! Fortunately he saw the funny side: I have been quite hyperactive due to tiredness.

Well, I'm off to bed. Busy day tomorrow and I might pop into Morrisons after work to just have a little lick of, I mean look at the Green Wing dvd!

Sleepy today...

...I have a severe case of weekfiveoftermitis which is very common in teachers (somehow weeks 6 and 7 never seem so bad!)

Today we made clay people in the style of Giacometti thinking about how we can portray emotions in the person's body language. Mine looked tired! So far, none of their heads have fallen off though which is an improvement on last year. I will try and take some photos when they are finished: they really are a thing of beauty!

Fun lessons... why do I bother?

Ok so today, while the other children were in assembly (or assemberly as they call it) I had a small group of children in the classroom with me to practise some maths and this time I was giving them real life problems to solve (never say I don't learn from my mistakes!). Anyway in such a scenario I often make up problems regarding the group of penguins that lives in my back garden. Those of you who have even on ounce of common sense will realise that of course I don't have any penguins living at my house but for some reason the children always go along with it. I might even dare to say they enjoy the penguin problems.

Anyhoo the first couple of problems I gave them involved a large number of the penguins flying south for the winter. At first they didn't bat an eyelid and dutifully worked out the difference between the number of penguins before and after, then much hilarity ensued when they realised that a) penguins apparently already live in the south and b) penguins can't fly. Seriously, their sides were splitting about that.

Apart from one boy.

Stoney-face boy.

The lesson continued as follows...

Amiable teacher: Ok people, how about this one. (reading off my little whiteboard complete with sketch of penguin). I bought 176 turnips to share between my 6 remaining penguins (I know, I know, but I have to entertain myself somehow and there is something inherently funny about turnips). How many would they have each, if I shared them equally? Now before you start, who can tell me what we are actually being asked to do?
Stoney-faced boy: (hand in air) I've spotted a problem with this question too.
Amiable teacher: Oh, what?
Stoney-faced boy: (Stoney-faced) I don't think penguins like turnips.
Amiable teacher: No, you're right. They probably don't. How would you work out how many they had each though?
Stoney: (turning to his whiteboard, chuntering quietly) they probably don't want any...
Amiable teacher: (Encouragingly) Choppy choppy!
Stoney: (really grumbling now) I don't like turnips either I don't think.
Amiable teacher: (losing rag slightly but in a sort of calm, sinister way) Well then, hurry up or you can eat the remainder.

It didn't seem to matter that there were no real turnips in sight, the threat of the remainder was enough and he finished his work. His grumpiness really amused me.

On a good note, "Not Connor" (see previous post) actually did some work in two lessons today. Also in science we were investigating how the shape of a foil boat affects how many coins it will hold before it sinks. Needless to say, we spent a fair while pouring over a tank of water filled with bits of silver foil. It made me glad I don't work in an office and they would almost certainly not pay me to make foil boats and then sink them whilst humming the tune from "Titanic".

The weirdness of children

There is something about spending your days shut in a room with 25 little people that can make you feel as though you are losing your mind. Actually, let me rephrase that. There are many things about spending your days shut in a room with 25 little people that can make you feel as though you are losing your mind.

One of them is maths.

Last week we were learning about division and multiplication and we have a pretty funky way of dividing larger numbers (not long division thankfully, never did get the hang of that!). Anyway I asked the children to create some "real-life" situation division and multiplication problems that we could put on the wall for the other children to solve. This was all seemingly going well until I called one child up at a time to type up their problems when the following occurred...

Amiable Teacher: (to small blonde boy) So, what is your problem? (tittering to herself at the fact that statement can be taken two ways!)
Small blonde boy: (veeeerrry slooooowwllyyy) Well miss...there were... 243 children...
Amiable teacher: (fingers hovering impatiently over the keyboard but smiling beatifically) yeeeeessss...?
Small blonde boy: and each of them wanted a metal arm. H...
Amiable teacher: (jumping in confused) ooh, is that one of those toy things?
Small blonde boy: (patiently) No...it's an arm...made of metal. With a hole at the top!
Amiable teacher: Oh I see (not really seeing at all). Well, the thing is, that sum would just be 243 times 1 wouldn't it?
Small blonde boy: Yeeesss
Amiable teacher: well, it's just... that's quite an easy calculation isn't it?
Small blonde boy: (humouring me now) I know.
Amiable teacher: (desperately thinking of the 23 other children's problems yet to discuss) Well, couldn't they want four of something? That would be a good calculation wouldn't it?
Small blonde boy: (Disgruntled) Alright. Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm........... hmmmm.....urrrrrrr......... (Amiable teacher begins mouthing the word "sweets" over and over in an attempt at subliminal messaging)....ok. Four swords!
Amiable teacher: (putting aside all the practicalities surrounding one small child owning 4 swords, let alone 243 of the little blighters) Fine! Well done, off you go!

Needless to say, once he was out of sight I changed the word "swords" to "sweets" and everyone was happy. Well, I was anyway.

Ironically there is probably a policy somewhere telling me that I should not be encouraging children to fantasize about sweets during maths, but healthy food such as carrot sticks. Even more ironically, I sincerely doubt that anyone has considered the perils of 972 swords in such a confined area (let alone 243 children with metal arms for goodness' sake!).

Dear Tony Blair...