This morning we had arranged to meet Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna at Littlehampton museum. It’s a really small but very well laid out modern museum that we have visited a few times before. We only had an hour or so thanks to cutting fine our timings for today which was enough time for the museum but probably a bit of a trek over there to not do something else afterwards to justify the journey. The kids all did trail sheets – Davies and Scarlett chose an I Spy sheet, while Jack and Maisie did a different one so we coexisted happily finding things and writing the answers. J&M then went on to do a second sheet while D&S found a ‘draw a poster of your favourite thing in the museum’ challenge which will be used to create a giant mural made of lots of childrens’ work. Davies drew a stuffed jay and Scarlett did some china from a fancy beachfront hotel from 100 years ago.
Julie took out a loan box and we cast a glimpse over the list of available ones which looked quite interesting so we might revisit that at some point and see about borrowing something else – we’ve had a geology one before which was good and they seem to have added plenty more to the list.
We left them at the museum and nipped home to grab a sandwich to take with us to the allotment where we were meeting Caz, Bid, Archie and Elliot. The children imediately went off to play in the woods while Caz, Bid and I did some digging over, some planting, some weeding and some chatting. They have offered people power and planning input on the allotment which we are very gratefully accepting with the promise of sharing whatever we grow.
We had a lovely couple of hours in the sunshine working and chatting about stuff while the kids were off playing together. They had to head off as they also had further people to see and places to go so we parted company.
The kids and I came home and they watched Black Beauty which I’d ordered in to work as part of next weeks Chatterbooks sessions on books and film adaptations but it didn’t arrive in time so I brought it home instead.
There has been much furtive Mothers Day making going on here too so they both spent some time holed up in their bedrooms doing secret things too.
Then it was time for Badgers. It was something of a free-for-all tonight as Julie, the leader wasn’t there thanks to her daughter having chickenpox. Neither I nor the other woman helping our group were there last week so we winged it really. We had 9 children in our group and 3 laptops to help them make newspapers. We called them into a circle and talked about news, what makes news, shared some news that had happened to us all today (something new they learnt at school, one girl’s shoe had broken, a birthday and so on), looked at a newspapers layout, coloumns, headlines, adverts, pictures etc. and then split them into groups to create their own. Some were great and could do stuff like editing text, others needed more help but they all created something. In the meantime another assistant leader was coming round with a camera to take their photos for another activity so we got them to take photos to accompany their news stories and go in their papers too. The group I was working with came up with the idea of a newspaper for a fantasy world they’d made up so we did a couple of news stories and some adverts, another group did an interview and the other group of older girls did a more newsletter style effort.
The children then went downstairs for their drink while we saved their efforts on the laptops and went down to join them. We found all of the Badgers on the floor with their hands on their heads having ‘been naughty’. Davies was sitting rather than lying and several of the kids looked pretty pissed off. When I asked them about it later they said some of the children (quite possibly themselves included) had been messing about and the leader had made them all do that. They were both pretty shocked by it and a bit fed up and I agreed it was degrading and unnecessary. I suspect she had found herself alone (which shouldn’t normally happen but I think we were still upstairs and the other helper was still in the kitchen tidying up and she’d not been able to maintain control so she went with that method. Not something I would ever do, or feel at all comfortable with but hopefully a one off and not too lasting an effect on any of the kids 🙁 Or maybe other people think that is okay?
Back home again Ady was still not home so I made the kids a quick tea of eggs and toast, got a fire lit, cleared up the kitchen and started dinner before he arrived home. We swapped then and Ady carried on with dinner while I watched Lambing Live with the kids. The later bedtime of 9pm for the last few nights seems to have helped with bedtime issues a bit – they are now properly tired when they go to bed and seem to fall asleep quicker despite going to bed later. Not sure it is something I want to run with all the time though – 9pm really eats into our evenings.
I am now pleasantly achey from the work on the plot this afternoon and feeling nicely tired from a good busy day :).
I get tetchy at 9pm bed as it means Pea is 10pm, actually she is most nights anyway but having the little two around seems to make it feel worse!
Don’t like hands on head at all, I remember having to do it and fingers on lips, didn’t do me any harms just couldn’t see the point! Crowd control for some people is just not possible, they panic and think of the first thing in their head. Don’t think for one second it would cause any harm, just annoyance especially for kids like yours who have never had that treatment. I’d have an open chat about what’s the best way to crowd control, expressing in a gentle manner your opinions and offer alternatives.
horrible she did it (I agree with it being degrading and demeaning) and horrible that she felt the only way forward for her – for whatever reason – was to do it. Feel sorry for her really as think it would be a panic driven directive. Nobody who wants to work with kids could want to have to do something like that. I would shout (which you’re not allowed to do) and that would upset some of the gentler folk and is probably worse than what she did.
Impressed that it worked though – I know I wouldn’t be able to get them to do that!
It is clear that I am not ever going to be cut out for helping run a kids activity.