Yep, well I only posted about half an hour ago, and I am back. It is not often I have any parenting tips to give, and don't worry I am not about to start now. But... I am going to share my latest lunchbox idea!
Not as healthy as a salad, but hearty and filling, with a carb a dairy, a meat and a veg all wrapped into one.
They have bacon, cheese and corn in them. Mmmm mmm.
I do have to admit, the ones I made last night were a complete disaster. The flour was gross and I had misread the salt measurement. Ugh. Those babies hit the bin faster than they could let off steam!
Tonight, with new flour and a more careful perusal of the recipe, this was the result.
Hi guys! I have been getting pics from our church's monster garage sale on Saturday ready to show you all. The proceeds from it go towards finishing our renovations for the church.
But I won't show them to you tonight, because I don't want to have a late night in case what happened today, happens again tomorrow......
'cause today....... I TAUGHT, FOLKS!
Imaginine the horror that momentarily coursed through my old veins at the speed of light when I got to the office to sign in as a helper, and the secretary buzzed the junior principal that I had arrived! I knew then that something was up. Apparantly the teacher whose class I have been visiting, came to school today, but very quickly realized that she should actually be in bed. And they wondered if I could maybe do the numeracy and literacy, and get paid. The teacher next door would open up the folding wall between us and teach both classes the new maths concept, and I would assist. That sounded do-able.
And it went well. I just wandered around doing crowd control, etc.
But at recess, that teacher said, 'How about we close the wall, and you give literacy a go on your own?
Kerthunk. (yes that was the sound of my heart pumped so hard with stress that it just popped right out and dropped onto the pavement beside us. I really was surprised that some vital organ didn't cave in, to tell you the truth.)
But what I said was, "OK!" with a bright little smile!
Then,'Um, excuse me, I might just go find a few things to do with the class."
I remembered from last week that the literacy class was so much naughtier than the numeracy class. Different kids, you see. The teacher I am with has her own home room class, but she takes a group of kids from all three classes in Stage 1 with similar ability in Numeracy, and a group who have about the same abilities in Literacy. And last week, the literacy kids were noticeably rattier. So I was scared.
It did not help that I had left at home the notebook into which I had put all the things the kids did last week, as far as routines and the teacher's special phrases for things that the kids are used to. It also had all the kids' names, plus brief descriptions so I could learn their names easily.
all I could do was look at her program, and gleaned a couple of things I knew I could manage.
A kind friend in the staff room gave me a mug of brewed coffee and a big hug (which I needed more) And then the bell.... And then it began........
What did I do with the darlings for an hour and a half?
Had them sit on the floor in front of me. Went through all the alphabet sounds.
The sounds of thisweek are 'guh (aka 'g') and 'huh' ( aka, say it with me: 'h') so I had one child tell me a word that began with either one of those sounds and then another person had to put that word into a sentence. and we did that for several minutes.
Then they went to their tables and did a worksheet cutting out pictures of things with those sounds and pasting them into their alphabet books!
Then I made up a story on the spot with a ton of 'huhs' and 'guhs' and they had to do an action for each sound and try to keep up as we went along.
I showed them how to write 'guh' and 'huh' on the board, and then there was only time for clean up and a quick game of 'Heads Down, Thumbs up!'
And do you know what? Those kids were just perfect for me. They just followed along as though I was actually their teacher.
I could not believe it.
Thank you Lord. So much. And I can tell you, I was praying!
So my first half day is over. A little bit of pay in the bank to go towards our dream of one day owning some land in the beautiful hillsides here.
Hi all! This week i really want to do a couple of posts at least!
Lots has been happening.
We went to Sydney last weekend and saw Nicky Cruz. Well, at least Hubby, Roly, Spindles and I went to see Nicky Cruz. Topsy and Diva had fun with Granny and Grandad. The event was at the Sydney Olympic Stadium and at least 10,000 people were there.
It took ages for the man of the night to actually come up. The church that put on the whole night was Victory Outreach whose focus is reaching urban communities. They specialize in drug addiction and gang members. So that was very interesting! And then we had entertainment from the local hip hop church!! Blingady bling, yo yo!! They had rapping, beatboxing, breakdancing! And taught us some new hip hop words. 'Off the HOOK!' In all seriousness, it was really cool to see that God is using people from all walks of life and with lots of different backgrounds to do His work.
But the real star of the night was Nicky Cruz. He must be at least 68, but what a dynamic man! His story was so powerful.
And I have started going in to help the teacher I will be replacing for 5 weeks next term, just to get a feel for what I'll be doing. I go in every Monday and Tuesday for three hours. I have really loved it this week. It has certainly put some of my fears to rest, and the teacher is so lovely. The down side is that I have had to say goodbye to my Topsy for those two mornings.
But my friend Funny Farm is an amazing woman! She has taken such great care of Topsy.
The first day he came back with this:
If you can't read why he got the award, it is for ' being an outstanding member of the group on his first day in Day Care. ' My son is outstanding, everyone! And he has a piece of paper to prove it! Haha! Isn't that gorgeous?
This is the book in which Funny Farm tells me what Topsy got up to, what he ate, and if when he had a nappy change (diaper change).
The Valentine's card he made me!
And a DVD of his day! (which I will try and post sometime soon, once I figure out how.)
Now he knows how much better some people have it and I will have to raise the bar at home!
Now Robby, you may want to look away for this next bit.
The cat was poking around and tormenting something in the backyard yesterday, so I went to rescue it. But when I saw what it was I realized that pretty soon, it would be the cat that would need rescuing. SNAKE!
I raced in and got a pair of BBQ tongs and a bowl, shooed the stupid cat away, and grabbed the snake up. It was only a baby, thankfully. A baby brown snake, wwhich is the snake responsible for the most deaths in Australia.
After getting a vet to identify it, a big Snake catcher guy came by on his Harley and took it off our hands. (killing snakes is illegal here!)
PS. Remember way back when, I mentioned Spindle's tooth. Well, he needed a filling and it cost....(drumroll) $130! I don't know if that is really good, or middle of the range. But it needed to be done. Talk soon!
Posted by michelle ::
9:37 pm ::
8 comments
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Can it really be 11 days since I last blogged? I am in shock! I hope none of you have thought that I have been casual teaching all that time.
No, I have not even gone in to the school yet to see how classrooms work these days.
But I have been focussed on two things.
1. Preparing things to do with the different grades in case I run out of stuff that the teacher leaves me.
2. Trying to declutter and get some really good organization happening, so that when I do start getting one day a week, family life is impacted as little as little as possible.
Here is some family news:
1) Roly went on a sleepover with his old best friend (who came back to school this year and immediately reconciled with Roly) They spent the whole time watching DVDs and playing playstation. *eeeks* And Roly ended up watching two movies he knew he shouldn't have. He is now banned from going to his friend's and now the sleepovers will be held here. I didn't torture the movie confessions out of Roly at all; rather it all became known to us in dribs and drabs as he told us all about his weekend. *Edit* I have been asked what banned movies Roly watched so I will tell you. They may make me sound a bit pedantic, but on another occasion Roly ended up seeing a violent movie at another child's home and he had to come home he was so frightened. The ratings are there for a reason. So the movie Roly watched was Dukes of Hazard. Not violent I guess, but it shows girls in a sexual light that my impressionable son does not need to be exposed to. Also he watched a couple of hours of WWE wrestling. We have a video of it at home ourselves, but the kids are only allowed to watch a little bit of it at a time, not hours at a go. And last but not least, he watched several episodes of the Simpsons, which he knows he is banned from watching. Hubby and I personally love the show, or used to when we watched it 15 years ago. But it is a cartoon for adults, and I really think that young kids can glean no good from it!
2) Spindles had a sleepover with his best friend. While a little bit of computer was played, they swam, fished, and did some work in his friend's blacksmith 'shop'! His Dad helps him make 'weapons' out of recycled materials, using some blacksmith skills. And his 'shop' is actually an old barn turned into a workshop! Very different, huh! From Roly's square-eyed theme that is.
3) Don't worry, Diva had a crafty play day with one of her best friends, so she wasn't left out.
4) Topsy has taken to 'falling over' whenever he wants attention. We respond by saying cheerily '1..2..3.. UP!'
5) Last week we lost another chicken. This one had some very unusual water retention disease. It was kindly put down by a farmer friend. Out of six birds, we only have 3 left! I took this pic, just before she went to visit our farmer friend.
The kids must have buried her in a shallow grave, becuase our stupid dog has dug her up twice. Uggh!
6) Ministry wise, it is going to be a very busy year with new things on the agenda as far as children's ministry goes.
7) This Thursday, our family is going to Sydney to hear Nicky Cruz. It is his first visit in 20 years and his last. We are very excited. Except for Diva, who is pushing to stay with a friend. she is not keen to travel at all. Very unlike her! We'll see what happens.
Posted by michelle ::
10:22 am ::
7 comments
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I had to bite my lip from screaming with laughter.
Tonight, Diva, who is very proper and dignified, decided to have a bubble bath with Topsy. After a couple of minutes I came in to see how they were going.
Diva was playing with an oversized bath toy and held it up to show me and tell me about it. The toy thankfully obstructed her view of Topsy.
He was playing too.... sort of.
Wearing only a huge grin, rolling his hips like someone balancing a hula hoop, he was gleefully 'watering' as many bubbles as possible before his bladder emptied. It was quite impressive, but I thought this might be one feat that Diva might not rejoice in.
