Project part 1

I blogged last saturday about a wonderful site of Bella McBride which inspired me for special lessons.

Today we had the first lesson.

The group consisted of all girls and one boy.
He was added to the group at the last moment, so I had no chance to change plans.

So I just decided to go ahead and have a look at the site and etsy shop.

The girls decided to make a bag, and the boy hesitated. He wanted to make a bag for his mom, but he also liked the mushrooms of velted wool.
He took quite long to make up his mind, but then suddenly one of the girls said she wanted to make a bag and put a velted mushroom on it.

So all kids start with a basic pattern and end up with completely different bags, because they have a free choice of colour.

It's such fun!!

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snow and snow and..more!

It was a slippery slide this morning.
And when snow began to cover the streets, I had problems seeing the slippery parts.
I nearly fell against a car, but was lucky to be able to get a grip on the ground with my feet.

The children were less concentrated.
So I helped out a teacher in the classroom.
But when large snowflakes slowly drifted down by the thousands I just did what I wanted to do and invited the kids to do the same: open the curtains and watch!

We told the children that when they were bored they could sit down and read or draw in silence.

After 10 munites everyone was sitting and silent, and when we started they were able to concentrate.

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Last day of the workweek

I almost overslept this morning.
The rain was washing the roof so thoroughly that the sounds was pleasant and sleep evoking.

Because I also have the radio as alarm and I heard the news from afar, I got some kind of reality check in my dreams and suudenly sat straight up in my bed.

When the streets would have been slippery I would have been too late, but now I was in just one minute before the start of the day.

I have problems leading such an overorganised life.
But I have to get used to it.

Right now the streets are plain ice and it's snowing a bit.
I'll do the groceries tomorrow a bit later than usual.
That means a bit of extra sleep. Won't hurt.

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Parents and bullying

First day at the new "job" today.
All went well, as was expected.
I took the opportunity to watch the remedial teacher.
To me the most interesting were the younger children (between 6 and 8) with concentration problems.
She was very playful with drawing their attention.
It makes me wonder what the causes of the attention problems are.

The evening about bullying was a huge success.
A lot of parents and almost all teachers came, including the people who watch the children in the lunchbreak and even two of the cleaningladies.
It's a subject that concerns them all.

Before I started I told them about the option of having this evening to give them information, including some tips to deal with day to day bullying, and to put another evening on the agenda to look back on the results of the tips and to answer questions.

In the end we all liked the fact that I gave the option, because the people who live far from school would be home at a reasonable time and all had the opportunity to test out some tips.
A strategy was proposed and accepted to deal with bullying during the lunchbreak, so the school and parents can use their enthousiasm immediately.

And a father offered tapes or DVD's so the safety camera of school can be used to record what's happening during that break. And we can all see it if we want.
Isn't that great.

Some I'm very happy.

Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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caught one cheating

My short time job is over.

The collegues were very nice, and the breaks were OK. But the job itself was the most boring of all.

We caught one boy cheating at the end of an exam and handed him over to the examination board. They have to decide.

I was so glad when I was finished.

Some people asked me to be present at the graduation party.
I haven't decided yet.

The whole experience is ofcourse sweetened up by the extra money I've earned.

Now I have to start studying for my own exams.

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This was the last time

This was the l;ast time I did this job.

I never thought that doing nothing would be so boring.

Just a few days more and I'm ready with my "job" of surveilling during the final exams.

The first day I thought it was fun, but when I was approached like the enemy after schooltime I had a change of mind.

Ever walked the whole morning between long rows of tables/chairs/students, on the lookout for cheeters?

Ugh!!! Never ever again!!!

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extra money

It's good to be able to earn a bit of extra money.

I was asked to help out at the final exams of a school nearby.
They needed people to assist the teachers watching out for fraud during the final exams.

A perfect chance to earn a little bit of money.
It doesn't pay well, but it isn't very tiring and they have good coffee.

To my surprise we even got soup and bread during the lunchbreak, with great cheese and ham.
The table was decorated with a large bowl of fruit.
Because there was far too much the older teachers told me to eat better and take another piece of fruit to the examinationhall.

I took an extra banana.
Couldn't put the kids through the rough experience of someone eating an apple. LOL!

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