18 October, 2014

Made it!

Well I've made it through the first stretch of the year.  We have a week off starting today and even though we're not going away, I'm really looking forward to it.  Kit and Ella returned from their respective school trips to Cambodia and Thailand on Thursday and Friday all excited and wiser and slightly worn out.  Poor Kit's gone off to do the PSATs today at school (very bad timing).

I have some fun photos of share of our little Deepavali celebration at school.  On Thursday night I went out with some people from work to have a curry in little India, do some shopping, get some henna done etc.  Yesterday I had the best day at work, swanning around in my Indian attire and only taught 2 classes!
Serangoon rd, Little India
So much shiny shiny 
 I was mesmerised watching the man do my henna
ready for work
we have all kinds of random things in our parking garage at school.  I drive past these cord spools every day (Iwant to steal one for the art department) and finally walked back to take a photo yesterday
 My lovely friend Libby in front of my display of her class' work
blurry i know, but with our henna
 Then it was off to the gym (with the WORST lighting for taking photos) for the show.  I had to watch it twice as we specialists are always required to "usher".

 I got to see the demon putting on his make up.

The show told the story of Krishna defeating the demon which is the Deepavali story of light and good defeating darkness and evil.

There was quite a bit of violence (I never really caught on as to who the woman was other than the demon attacked her and Krishna defended her)
 
The first show was for nursery through to 3rd grade and was toned down a little, although still a little long I thought.  The second show was for 4th and 5th graders and the newly returned from their field studies trips in Vietnam and Cambodia, 11th and 10th graders who were made to go to school even though there was nothing for them to do.  Kit was among them, and lets just say, they were less than enthused about having to go and sit through this show.  Fortunately the performers picked up on it and really played to them; getting involved with a bit of audience participation when the demon was running away and hiding from Krishna. (that's Kit cross legged at the front)
 And he may have been the bad guy, but he had the BEST costume.

 Anyway, after all that excitement, it was back to my classroom for some actual teaching (still in my gorgeous frock).
My 5th graders are beginning a unit about observation of natural forms and how we can use it to inspire  us.  I had a great time last weekend buying some shells and cacti, I even got some peacock feathers in Little India on Thursday night.
I love this photo (it was totally not posed- just something I caught happening)
I made some simple card focus frames to try and get them to really be looking at certain areas.   I bought some magnifying glasses too, and for the most part right now, there's not so much drawing going on as there is looking.  But that's absolutely ok.  I loved seeing them almost lying across the tables to be able to really look at displays in the middle.
Then I waited around at school until 6:30 for my girl to come home from Thailand and we went home and had a lovely evening.  She bought me some elephant pants and a lovely little rice paper book (Kit got Matt and I both elephants).  
 But the biggest gift was to have them both back and to see how utterly inspired they were by their trips.  They both had to go and see various NGOs : Ella helped catch fish out of mud that was used for farming, Kit helped to build wheelchairs.  And it was nice to have my girl home to sit and doodle on her with Henna while we watched last Sunday's Doctor Who episode.
Not quite as gorgeous and delicate as mine!  I need to practise.






2 comments:

  1. Looks pretty good to me - you can henna me anytime. So it must be a year since I was with you!
    Maggie XXXX

    ReplyDelete
  2. That sounds like an exciting time! So glad the kids got a lot out of their trips. Have a lovely week off. mum xxx

    ReplyDelete

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