This Week

This week has been quite a sociable one. Yesterday I had a meeting with an educational psychologist about one of the children in my class.Then I showed her up to the staffroom as neither of us had had lunch. We had a conversation about career paths and the changes to special needs and educational psychology training and role. It was interesting. Straight after school there was a union meeting-not very well attended this time but very interesting and one which meant I talked to a few people I never see at school. My friend Cleo is the union rep in school so it is nice to see her from time to time as well. We are all so shut up in our classrooms at that place that some weeks I don't see her at all! Then last night my friend turned up out of the blue at school so I showed her around, we looked at the ASD special provision area, - a new thing called 'The Harbour' and run by a lovely woman called Wendy, who took time to show us around. Children apply for a place in this provision and spend some time in there and some in class with support. My friend also works in a special school for children with various learning disabilities so they were talking the same language and getting excited about the resources they had. Then we came home for a cup of tea then went to the local shops together. Today I had a really interesting conversation with a young Canadian teacher who has been coming to the school as a supply teacher for a while now, but who I have never talked to. He overheard me talking about a child in my class with a speech sound difficulty, and how I can help him . The teacher had a speech impediment as a child and related in interesting detail how he felt at school going through lots of tests and medical examinations to find out what was 'wrong' with him. The way this affected his self esteem was significant, and, as a result of how he felt, and how he and his parents chose to deal with it-in the end choosing not to carry on with the tests but to work hard and to develop his own ways to study, has become a reflective teacher with a great interest in the different ways that individuals learn, and a real desire to empower children to realise that they can learn even if they feel judged or depressed by their experience of school so far. As well as all this he is a tap dancer! Most interesting.
Then tonight another friend who I have not talked to for a while rang me and we were on the phone for an hour. I am hoping the weekend continues in the same way!
The felt pictures were last weekend. The one below is one of four. I was thinking of table mats and wanted to make them look like china plates. I am not sure they do but I quite like them anyway. I have two this colour and two with turquoise borders.

 Face before felting. I am getting better at keeping the small details in place as I felt. 

 Rose larger piece. Afterwards I thought I should have left the bottom of the stalk leafless as it would have looked more 'right' but too late!

 I am using some new bubble wrap and it leaves really deep indents in the surface of the felt. Not sure what can be done about this.

 I finished my second flower wreath this week. I like these colours together. I am making bunting now.

New home corner resources at school. I love the fifties feel of the design. They are wooden painted models and very different to the usual plastic stuff.

 This is one of my lovely colleagues tossing a play dough pancake! It is black play dough scented with coca cola flavouring-it smelled delicious! (I didn't make it and had to ask about the smell-just couldn't place it)

 Weird face I drew last night. It is snowing in front of the face as I was just trying to cover the face up a bit! I enjoyed folding the end of the page.

Driving home tonight. The sky was amazing-sun setting, smudgy clouds, and contrails gradually breaking up in the most beautiful way. It was a pleasure to sit at the traffic lights watching it all.

 My work pile for tomorrow. I am going to take my time and try to enjoy it! I cleaned the house tonight so I can get all this done tomorrow but I will probably have a break and go to meet my friend at the boot fair for a while. Then on Sunday I am going with another friend to an antiques fair. I am planning not to buy anything- or very little at least! But it is fun to look.