Friday

Last night I was tempted beyond resistance!  There sat the box in the living room, luring me on and I had to give in.  Out came the scissors, the screwdriver and the endless supplies of patience, while I attempted to assemble my Vax using what all the reviews had warned me were very poor instructions.  And they were right.  Misleading pictures (photos would have been a lot better), bits missed out, lack of clarity . . . but I got there.  I am grateful for the warnings; I was properly prepared!

However, there's no way I intend to try to use it before Saturday.  For a start, I gather it's extremely noisy so it would be very rude to use it in the evening - rude to my neighbours, I mean.  And I want to be wide awake and alert.  And I need to have some 'dry' runs, practising slowly forward pulling the lever and slowly backwards with the lever released.  Apart from that, I just have to decide which bit of carpet to start with!

Yesterday afternoon we started the last part of our multimedia firework pictures.  I picked up the idea years and years ago, from the first student I ever mentored.  She was on her final school experience and she was very good.  Art was her special area and she had some good ides, some of which worked better than others, inevitably.  Since then I have refined and modified her original idea and - well, this year I am jolly pleased with the results.   It ticks so many boxes for the art curriculum - colour, line, shape, imagination, a variety of tools and techniques, developing basic skills like drawing round shapes and careful cutting out, an element of choice within the structure.  And, most of all, it arouses a sense of awe and wonder in the children as they see their creations taking shape and developing.  We didn't get them all done, some will finish them next week, but the children who did finish were supremely satisfied with their efforts.  I took a few photos - remember, these are five year olds' efforts - and they're going to make a lovely display!
(Just to say, the red border isn't somewhat sloppy mounting, it's the table they were on, cropped to look like a frame!  I don't frame that badly!  Usually . . .)