Staying Positive

I've been naughty. I promised you an update - and I failed! It's been hectic, but I promise to try harder and update more regularly. Can you ever forgive me..?

I do have lots of news for you, though (I really think I should do Five for Friday - perhaps next week).
Here goes:


1.  Firstly, a huge marshmallow clap to Susan C who won my Educents/Conscious Box Giveaway. Susan's box will be with her on 10 May.

2.  It was weigh-in day today. Drum roll please... dddddddddddrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I lost another 5 lbs! That makes a total of 1stone 3lbs in 6 weeks! I'm over the moon. I knew I was a little overweight, but I hadn't realised I was carrying that much. It's amazing really. I don't look any different (not to me anyway) and I don't feel any different but the weight must have been there in the first place for it to come off.  Only another 1 stone 5lbs to go to my target weight....groan. I must stay positive.

3.  I've been on the hunt for a new post. But Merthyr isn't the kind of place where teaching jobs crop up very often - teachers tend to stay till they drop... Today I managed to apply for not one but two posts! And the best news - one of them is literally just 200 yards from home. Now, I'm not getting too excited yet as there tend to be huge amounts of applications for jobs in these here parts (450+ sometimes), but I'm staying positive.

4.  I've been hard at work in the garden. With Spring threatening to show her face I thought it was time to get out there and clear away Winter. It's a long, hard, dirty job - but it'll be worth it in the end - I'm so positive it's scary. I'm planting up a raised vegetable patch and I've got great plans for a climbing vegetable garden. The framework is all in place, now all I need is a couple of fine days to get the planting done - my greenhouse is groaning. I've got two of the cutest hanging baskets all ready to give a loving home to some Tumbling Tom tomatoes. I can't wait until it starts to shape up.

5.  Now for some classroom chatter. Last week we looked at antonyms. Most of the children had no idea what the term antonym meant. I gave them a few examples and they soon cottoned on. We paired up lots of antonyms and glued them all in place - kids just love cut and paste activities. Here are some pics for you:

 

 Some of the lower ability children worked on sounding, blending and writing CVC words. They did remarkably well with very little intervention:

This little chap is amazing. He has only been in the country for around 4 weeks. When he arrived he spoke no English at all - not a single word. But he's a confident little guy and insisted on speaking in his first language to anyone and everyone. We have been working on emergency words and phrases and vocabulary-building exercises. He could identify all of the pictures in his own language so I knew it would only be a matter of time before he took off in English. When I saw him last week I used picture cards to help him to remember words he had learned. Now, these cards are a bit like jigsaw pieces with the second piece being the matching word. How totally surprised was I to find that my little guy was actually trying to sound the words to match to the pictures! What a hero! He really earned his sticker that day.

My kids always make me positive...