Disneyland is coming (hooray)

Disneyland Resort Paris is fast approaching. It seems more of a reality now...we got the Euros this morning and I've just printed off the tickets for everything...and have discovered that the Travel Inn in Folkstone could be on the same street as some relative of my in-laws. What a coincidence!
We're now counting the sleeps and we've only got 2 more left before we go and the kids are excited- oh and so are we :o)

Grandma's 90th Birthday Meal

Today we had a lovely meal at a local (posh) hotel for my grandma who will be 90 on the 4th January. We did it today because it's the only time between now and then that we can all be together, as my sister and her family must return to Eastbourne tomorrow.
It was a lovely meal...except Dan wouldn't sit still or eat which ruined things a bit for Graeme! He is only 2 (well, 3 bar 2 weeks) - Dan not Graeme! We got through the meal with no controvertial comments from my sister or my grandma which was a blessing :o)
Alice, of course was very disappointed that she was seeing her cousins for the last time until February but we didn't have tears or tantrums this time...she's growing up.
My grandma enjoyed herself though, I think! She enjoyed seeing the grandchildren all together.

Shattered!

I'm feeling exhausted after another restless night with someone kicking, wriggling and whining all night about being poorly...Dan was very restless too :o)
Poor baby was absolutely red hot all night - at one point I got a cool, damp cloth the dab on his face and cool hime down. It must have worked as Dan fell asleep after than for a couple of hours. We got up at 6.00am after being kicked again for the umpteenth time. Good job we're not at work at the moment! I do hope that Dan's better by Sunday, when we go of to Disneyland Paris for New Year (hooray!).

Twitter

I've begun to Twitter (or is it Tweet?). Lots of people are doing it apparently so I thought I would...not sure about it yet - I don't think I "get it" at the moment, maybe I need to Tweet more or something :o))
We shall see :o)
Maybe I shoudl start to "Follow some people"...but I feel daft!!!!

Christmas

We have spent a lovely Christmas together. Yesterday, we all went to Graeme's parents' for Christmas dinner and then onto mine for tea. The children received so many wonderful presents it was difficult to get them into the car at the end of the day :O)
It then took Graeme 2hrs to build Disney castle for Alice! Dan felt ill and fell asleep on the sofa, which meant that he had a (dry) night in pants. He was, however not well all night - burning up and got up at 5.00 am (with Graeme) and he has continued to be not well all day (maybe he's getting his last teeth - his cheeks are on fire).
This morning, Graeme constructed a Disney kitchen - what an amaxing man he is! (Maybe he'll build me a castle and kitchen one day).
Grandmas, Grandads, Great-grandma, Christina, Jon, Esther and Theo came to tea this afternoon and the children enjoyed playing together. It was fun.
Now it's Boxing Day evening, children have been bathed, the Simpsons are on and we (I) look forward to Pirates of the Caribbean 3 when the kids are in bed.
Ahhh...fun times.

Merry Christmas

Couldn't resist this lovely picture that I found...

When's Santa coming?

Well mummy has broken up from school so that means it must be Christmas...only it doesn't happen like that does it?
The children are über excited and now all of the presents are wrapped so it seems that we're ready.
We had a lovely meal out with friends from the MFL department on Thursday. It was a really lovely evening and I realised what good friends I have - something I often forget! I must admit that my head ached on Friday but I still got on with the distaster area that claimed to be our dining room.
The house now looks like a house again, after about a month of no viewings and exhaustion which meant that very little tidying had been done. Of course by 8.00am tomorrow morning it will look like an earthquake hit it again, after children get up :O) I don't mind really, I know how very lucky we are to have happy, healthy children, especially at this time of year...I wouldn't swap them for the world.
So, as we watch CSI and take a deep breath, we prepare for the mega excitement of tomorrow and our annual Christmas Eve walk up in the hills...at SheepDip - Osmotherly. It really is beautiful there.

Taboo and other fun stuff

It being Christmas and everything I thought I'd let my Year 11 class have a bit of fun yesterday. Firstly we did the Wise Guys' "Schlag mich Baby noch Einmal" from the Sunderland School's webiste (can't find it nowon the website), using their YouTube video. It's so funny when you give out the work sheet and the think "oh yes, another dodgy German song"" then some begin to realise what it is and then the video starts and the penny really starts to drop. The first time through very little blanks got filled in, as they stared in disbelief at the screen :o)
They must have enjoyed it as they asked on of my colleagues to put it on again when she had them in a science cover today!
Next we played Taboo. I made up some game cards with their words on plus "verbotene Worte" and then "wichtige Vokabeln". That too seemed to go down well...my group a brilliant boys were still playing when I wanted to move on. I must admit I was worried about how it would go, as sometimes these things fall flat don't they?
One day to go can't wait...

Good times and bad times

It's been an odd day today filled with some highs and some lows (well it's that time of year isn't it??)
The day started with me checking my emails, as I hurried out to work after having showered Alice and washed her hair (as well as getting myself showered etc too) to find an email from Sylvie telling me that we'd been awarded a "Quality Label" in France for our Je blogue, tu blogues...Let's Blog! project. She enclosed a copy of the comments that had been made about the project, which included "un projet remarquable de tous points de vues" and "un vrai modèle de projet éducatif", among other complimentary things. Although this was awarded in France, I feel very proud of our pupils and the work that all have put into this project. It can only go from strength to strength.
I then had to squeeze in a lunch with Y8 pupils who are going to take part in our Dutch eTwinning project, as our partner school's teachers are here for a visit. We weren't alllowed to take the children off timetable for an hour, although it must be said that pupils were out of school for rugby, football and christmas concert rehearsals at various points throughout last week. In addition to this it was Christmas lunch so very few pupils turned up. I must say I felt embarassed, eventhough I'm not leading the project I still feel "repsonsible" as I put the wheels in motion for this :o( Of course that affected my whole afternoon and I'm still feeling down about it now :o(
It's very hard to find positives about things at this time of year after a day like today...I must remember the eTwinning thing.
Looking forward to tomorrow, I think!

Nine Readings and Carols

As Christmas approaches the trips the Church become more frequent and those of us with small children spend our time a) breaking up fights between over-tired and over-excited siblings and b) seeing how many times we can see Santa. Today was one of those days.
Lunchtime saw us at my parents' for lunch, followed by carols round the Christmas Tree in Carlton (or rather carol) and a visit from Santa who gave out presents (to all children whose parents / grandchildren had handed presents in at the village Post Office the week before!). It was very nice despite the cold and mud and Santa arriving a carol or 3 too early :o)
This evening involved more Christmassy things. I had been invited to sing at Redmarshall's carol service. They have a lovely Saxon (I think) Church so, I took Alice and the two of us plus Mum, Dad and Grandma squashed into the old-style pew that have a gate on the end to lock us in and I sang the beautiful "Stille Nacht" unaccompanied during the service. Everyone seemed happy with my performance. The service was followed by mince pies and wine (a concept I find difficult to come to terms with, being a good Methodist girl myself).
The funniest part of the evening came when I went to drop Dad off at their house, while Mum took Grandma home and he didn't have any house keys with him :o) He came back to ours, as I wouldn't let him go in the shed until Mum got back. (Secretly, I think he wanted to have a quick trip to the pub!)
Graeme's now at the gym and I'm enjoying watching the gorgeous Heath Ledger in "A Knight's Tale" before I have to get up to go to work tomorrow while everyone else in the family is on holiday :o(

Christmas Party

Well it's the weekend again and Friday brought another Christmas Party. This time it was our staff do in Stockton. I must admit that I wasn't that keen to go, since my friends were ill and couldn't go. However, I was persuaded to go and it wasn't as I thought it would be. The food was not good but the dancing and company were. We had a good dance and that's the most important thing! I even talked to some staff I didn't know before so that was a bonus.
I left at about midnight because I'd got bored by then, so I'm afraid I just snuck out without saying anything - I'm sure that nobody would have noticed.
One thing that was really nice, however, is that one of the members of staff who came to my podcasting training in November has put down podcasting as his CPD project for the year so I feel that it was a great success :o)
We're doing Christmas decorations to day and just spend over £80 (!!) on 2 trees and reindeer and sleigh outdoor light thingie at a local well-know garden centre known as ...Parrot's due to Dan's great pronunciation of the words :o)

A day of speaking

Today was my day for mock orals - oh joy :o)
25 Higher German orals this morning and 24 Foundation French ones this afternoon. To say I'd lost the will to live by the end of the day is an understatement.
I fail to understand why children do not believe teachers when they are told that they need to be prepared. However, having said that most of them did exactly how I expected them to do but I still came away feeling disappointed that my star didn't get an A* in that part of the exam. On the other hand I was chuffed to bits that a couple of others who are seen as "a bit lazy" had obvioulsy done their work and came out with great results and actually had a conversation (OMG)
My next challenge is to get those who I think could get upto A* to come to an after school club to help them achieve it. Of course, some will and some won't c'est la vie.
Still I feel more positive than in other years after them.

How to get A* in MFL?

Pray for a miracle, I think :o)
After a journey by rail to Manchester Airport that ressembled a bad dream I arrived at a conference led byn Terry Murray about how to get more A* grades. It was very useful - if just to remind me of strategies etc that I already know but had forgotten (ie don't send someone in with coursework marks of 104 when A* is 105). He also suggested giving sweets at the end of oral exams and having something for pupils to fiddle with when they're nervous and don't know what to do with their hands.
Well lo-and-behold it was our mock orals today. So last night I tripped off to Tesco's to buy a big box of roses and a cuddly teddy. I can safely say that the chocolates made them smile (and realise that maybe I'm not the witch they think I am), as did the teddy. It's lovely soft (cheap) doggy from Tesco. Some actually used it too - included that lad who got the highest mark over all. Of course there were the usual sceptical looks from colleagues - particulary out Head of Area elect who was in today, who looked at me as as if I was a complete lunatic - however, the kids seemed to like it (and find it useful) and that's what counts at the end of the day :o)

Etwinning work

My Year 10 French GCSE class have been making powerpoint presentations about school for the eTwinning Blog Je blogue, tu blogues...let's blog. I amalgamated all of them into one very long powerpoint and then converted it into a slideshow by uploading it onto Slideshare and then embedding it into Let's Blog. It's important to note, however that the width for slideshows on Slideshare is 425 which is too wide for a standard blog, so I change the width to 375 in the code that I paste into the blog to make it look tidier :o)

Meine Ferien video on Teacher Tube

Whilst I was out of work yesterday watching Alice, obviously I had to leave work for my classes.
I was in the computer room for one of the lessons with my bottom set Year 10 class so I left them a powerpoint about holidays with (facual) errors for them to correct - they wouldn't be able to correct grammatical errors. Then I made a video about "my holidays", using Photostory3 for Windows by adding photos I found in google images, putting one word captions on each image and then recording myself doing the narration giving more details. Photostory is really easy to use - you just have to follow the on screen instuctions :o) A more detailed description can be found in the Teacher's Corner of my Langwitch Wiki
After making the video, I then uploaded it into my TeacherTube account and embeded it into my blog by copying and pasting the code provided by Teacher Tube. Pupils then had to answer 6 questions about the video by sending their anwers via the comments at the bottom of the post.

The Weekend's here

Well, the weekend was here and now I feel like it's almost over again.
I had a lovely afternoon at Red House on Friday, watching Alice in her Nativity Play "Rock around the Flock". She was a shepherd, along with the other Year 1 class and the whole of Year 2 aswell I think. It was really great to go to St. Mary's and watch. The Church was packed. Graeme also managed to get there from the main school and see her. The mince pies and mulled wine after only added to the fun :o)
We then headed off to a well know toy shop to see what Santa might bring Alice. We came away victorious but a little crestfallen, as the toy she set her heart on is much too small for someone of her age and intelligence.
Friday evening came and Graeme and I headed off to the Riverside Stadium for Red House staff Christmas do. It was a fun night, with lots of dancing to bad music since the DJ (who we both taught at Manor) didn't have much that we liked - NO JAMES SIT DOWN OR SCLUB 7!!!
Saturday evening now and I'm enjoying a glass of wine (or 3) infront of the tele whilst Graeme is having a night out with his friends in Hartlepool.
I'm now beginning to think about what to do with my classes over the next 2 weeks, without resorting to DVDs too early :o)

NEW G&T Project

I went to Yarm School today to discuss a new project that we are going to work on with our Gifted and Talented Linguists. It seem that funding is available for project between Independant Schools and State School called Building Bridges. So 4 - 5 schools from the area are to submit an application for a project using dramawith MFL. I don't usually do drama things...ICT being my thing, however it will be realy nice to do something different and branch out.
I can't wait to get started :o)

Welcome

Mother, teacher, singer, podcaster and ... BLOGGER.
This is me, though not always in that order.
In this blog, I'm just getting some thoughts down about things happening in my life and the lives of those around me.
If I do something "wizzy" using ICT in my teaching, I may even add that and someone may learn how to do something new :o)
Happy reading...