Reasons to be Cheerful: Tiger! #R2BC

 
Its time for the happiest linky around. So come on over and share the things that have made you smile this week - no matter how small. As host I will visit, comment and share all the posts that are in the linky. If you are new to the linky then here are the simple guidelines (we are far too nice to do rules!):

• Posts must be about things that have made you happy
• Add the badge code to your post (see end of this post)
• Add your post to the linkup below
• Visit the other posts and comment to share the love
• If you want to then share those posts

So what has made me happy over the last week?

1) Tiger

As mentioned already my daughter and I got to hand feed a real live tiger when we went to the zoo:

Such an incredible experience!

2) Girl Time

I don't spend as much time with my daughter as I would like so a whole weekend of just the two of us was great. Love her quirky sense of humour:

3) Proud Mum

#TeacherTuesdays World War One Trench Model

This week's challenge was a model of a World War One trench on a limited budget! First up the lid of a copier box had part of the sides cut out, display border stapled on and the top edge folded in. I then stuck tea died bandages on the folded cardboard to act as sandbags. A few used tea bags and some polystyrene packaging for more internal sandbags:

Mud coloured paint liberally added:

Today we added more polystyrene sandbags, a wooden ladder to reach the trench front and some more little features:

More photos:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Its October #R2BC

 
Thank you to Michelle for hosting the linky in September and its now over to me for October. This means I have to be more on the ball! I look forward to reading and sharing everyone's posts this week and I hope you visit the other lovely bloggers. 
October is always a reason to be cheerful for me as its my birthday month and my daughter has her birthday too. Before we get to those here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Back to Fell Foot
I finally made it back to Fell Foot parkrun after another couple of weeks off. It was a stunning day to be running along the shores of Windermere:

2) Being Crafty

I have already posted about some of the things I have been making at school this week. Its been great to be allowed to be creative whilst teaching a child more about World War Two. Here is my template for the final Anderson Shelter I made:

3) Being Positive

I am continuing to create messages for the new venture with my daughter. We have put out our second video and are thinking up ideas for the third!

So please join in and share your happy posts and give some R2BC love to your fellow happy bloggers!
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#TeacherTuesday This week's makes

I am trying to be more organised on what I post when so Tuesday's I will try to post something related to my teaching! Actually this week I am acting as a Teaching Assistant which has given me much more of a chance to get creative. There are have been two strands to my makes as the class are studying The Iron Man story and World War Two. 

The Iron Man

It is amazing what you can make with cereal packets, milk bottle tops and some paint & glue. This is the dragon from the story ready to eat up the people of Earth and all the living things:

I was given a top tip of adding PVA glue to the paint to help it cover the cereal boxes better (the waxy coating on the cardboard repels the paint!).

World War Two

First of all I made use of Twinkl to download some paper aeroplanes to decorate the room:

Then we have been coming up with ways to make air raid shelters. This is my test run for an Anderson Shelter:

There will be a fuller post on the Anderson Shelter next week when I have created the final version. I've also had a go at making a Morrison Shelter (I so need a hot glue gun at home!):

Reasons to be Cheerful: Coraline and more #R2BC

Miraculously I am joining in with Michelle on the actual morning of the linky this week! I am recovering from a cold and feeling so much better than I have since Friday night.... That is a big reason to be cheerful but here are my smaller ones:
1) Coraline
My daughter had the part of Coraline in her school's Torchlight entry. She was easy to spot with her bright yellow jacket:

This is a taste of the energy on her float as they had been going for 1.5 hours by this point and were nearly finished:

2) Star of the Week

As a teacher I would hope that all the children in a class would at some point get the Star of the Week. However for my son to get it on the first full week of school must mean he has done something to impress his form tutor:

Simple Science with kitchen ingredients

One of the great things about being a primary school teacher is the fun you can have with science! My son loves the fact that I try out things at home with him too. For this week's lesson we were looking at seeing if we could prove things were alive.

Celery Drinking

For this one you need:

• a fresh stalk of celery
• food colouring
• water
• glasses/cups

Put a few drops of food colouring into the water and put in the celery, I did try chrysanthemums but they didn't work!

After a few hours you peel the edge off the celery to see how far the food dye has gone:

I replicated the experiment with a class of 4-6 year olds and they could see the colouring had moved up:

Yeast Breathing

For this experiment you need:

• yeast
• sugar
• warm water
• a bottle
• a balloon

Put a spoonful of yeast with a spoon of sugar in a bottle. Add some warm water (not too hot or it will kill the yeast!) and shake it up. Then out a balloon over the top to seal it:

When you leave it warm water the balloon will gradually inflate as the yeast lets off carbon dioxide as it breathes: 

The children were amazed by this simple experiment!

Reasons to be Cheerful: Philosophy, Fell Running and Teaching #R2BC

How can it be February already and my turn to host Reasons to be Cheerful? Thank you Michelle for hosting us in January. Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Tilly the teapot
To make my class of young children think about what is living and not living I took in my pet teapot Tilly. It raised a few laughs but we also had a good discussion about what makes a pet and can we love things that are not alive:

2) Proud Mum

Another mum took a photograph of my son finishing strongly in last weekend's fell race. He is getting over his fear of running down steep hills which helped him to his faster time. I wonder how he will do on Sunday:

3) Another Canine Cutie

Reasons to be Cheerful: Teaching, YouTube, National Running Show and more! #R2BC

The lovely Michelle is hosting again this week before I take back over for February. Please do pop over to her place and say hi! I seem to have plenty of reasons to be cheerful this week and here are a few of them:
1) School Display
I have been enjoying creating an England display at school with the help of the children. Alongside the St George from last week we now have a dragon and Big Ben or Elizabeth Tower:

2) Fell Running filming

I had a freezing cold afternoon videoing the Giggleswick fell race in the snow:

I am astounded that I have had over 700 hits on my two videos! That really did put a smile on my face. I will be doing a fuller blogpost about this tomorrow...

3) National Running Show

My son and I had free tickets to the first National Running Show at the NEC. Plenty of reasons to be cheerful meeting folks I have only spoken to online and listening to some famous runners. 

Reasons to be Cheerful: St George, Cute Canines and a Proud Mum #R2BC

I am joining in with Michelle for this week's Reasons to be Cheerful. She is recovering from an operation so make her smile by joining in and commenting on the other posts. Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) A cracking photograph
I snapped this shot of the Parish Church whilst walking home on Friday night. It really showcases how wonderful the architecture is:

2) St George
I have created this picture of St George which the children have painted for the class's England display:

Next up its Big Ben!

2) Cute canines

I was lucky to encounter two cute and photogenic dos this week! On the left is Alfie the Border Terrier and on the right is Bracken the collie:

3) Proud Mum #1

#CountryKids Using our senses to find signs of Winter #ForestSchool

It was quite a relief that the snow flurries last night didn't cause me any problem getting to work this morning or stop us having Forest School! There was plenty of snow on the mountains that we can see from the school grounds though:

As it was bitterly cold we had to be both well wrapped up and active whilst outside. So I explained our mission inside before we even went out into our forest area. We were going to use four of our senses to find signs of winter:

• hearing
• seeing
• touching 
• smelling

We omitted taste for obvious reasons!

The first thing we noticed was that the birds had eaten most of the food we had left out the previous week. We had to collect in the pipe cleaners to make more to put out next week.

The children sat quietly for a short while so that we could see if we could hear anything... There was very little bird song and mostly just the sound of the wind! Then the children set off to use their senses to find something for all four:

Seeing

The youngest children had to climb trees to see the snow on the mountains high up and far away. They could also see that the leaves had fallen off the trees.

Hearing

As well as the wind they heard the sound of leaves crunching.

Touching

For a brief time they took off their gloves to feel things. Most of which were very cold or even freezing.

Smelling

There wasn't much to smell, although one local farmer had obviously fertilised his field! With a lot of snotty noses it probably wasn't the easiest sense to use..

We then took a tub of fallen leaves into school for a project to be done after lunch.

#CountryKids Simple Bird Feeders for Forest School

This week I had my first day leading Forest School with young children. I needed to have a simple activity that we could all do from age 3 to 6. So we first of all made simple bird feeders by threading cereal. Obviously I could only film myself making one but the ones in the trees were made by the children:

Then out in the forest we took bread, spread peanut butter on and dipped them into bird seed:

All the children really enjoyed making the feeders and we just have to hope that when we go out next week we can see whether they have eaten them all!

Reasons to be Cheerful: Schools Out For Summer #R2BC

We have had a pretty rubbish last half term as a family so I am so glad to be coming up for air now that the school holidays are here! Coming to the end of my NQT year made the light at the end of the tunnel turn back on... Here are my end of school year reasons to be cheerful:
1) Run on Scout Scar
My son and I joined his club for an extra training run up Scout Scar. It may have been drizzly but we had a lot of fun on a hilly run in a beautiful spot:

2) Blooming lovely
My roses are really coming into their own now and looking glorious:

3) Family Fun

Reasons to be cheerful Flaming June #R2BC

This has been one of those months when focusing on the small positives has provided light at the end of the tunnel! Being able to smile and laugh when things aren't going well means that it's not all doom and gloom. So here are the things that have kept me sane this week:

1) Splat

You can't help but smile when your child gets a face full of cream when playing a silly game (he laughed when I got hit too!):

2) Super long run

I braved the heat to achieve my longest run for over a year with 7.5 miles through beautiful countryside:

3) Proud mum #1

My son did a fell race on that hot day and tried his very best:

He also had sports' day and helped his house to their first victory in 13 years! 

Reasons to be Cheerful: Family Fun #R2BC

Late to the party again this week! Hope Michelle can forgive me... It has been a rollercoaster week but I have had a few things that have made me smile:

1) Family Fun in Barrow

Working in Barrow has made life quite stressful but last weekend I took my children for an afternoon and evening there to show them what it is like:

First of all we watched Barnum at the Forum, then we shopped at TX Maax, watched a film at the cinema and finished off with Pizza Hut! An awesome time and great to have such fun with everyone together.

2) Proud Teacher

Despite some sleepless nights our class assembly went really well and I am proud of all the hard work they all put in to it:

3) Furry Family

I got up close and personal to our furry family members whilst cleaning them out at the weekend. Isn't Bubble a handsome fella:

Hoping to go and visit all the lovely bloggers who have joined in this week..