I was only slightly hungover this morning and headed off to work to be greeted with ‘could you do storytime today please Nicola, Yvonne’s off?’.
So that would be 15 children, 17 adults, half an hour of singing, stories and coloring then. No problem! 😆
The benefit of doing Storytime is you get the whole morning off to prepare, so from 9am to 11am I just mooned around choosing some books, read them through a couple of times to ensure I’d be able to read them upside down okay by just needing prompts, thought about a couple of songs and then as there were no suitable colouring in pictures in our stash of mastercopies I freehand drew the outlines of a cat from one of the stories I’d chosen and a parrot from one of the others, photocopied them and then coloured in one of each as examples. Then I had a cup of tea before I faced my audience :lol:.
It actually went fine. I think I prefer storytime to rhymetime as you get more back and are geninely talking to the children rather than their parents. I am less comfortable with the fact that children faced with an adult reading them stories are very keen to get as physically close to that adult as possible. My own children’s snotty noses I can handle, snot not genetically related to me I have rather more problems with :lol:. I read Too Loud, Love like this, Have you seen the crocodile? and Don’t say that Willy Nilly! and I managed to get them all joining in with all the books. I had them making snapping crocodiles every time I said the word ‘crocodile’, I had them making animals noises in Too Loud, repeating the phrases that Willy Nilly wasn’t supposed to say and miming out some of the elephants actions from Love like this. And somehow manage to link in ‘the elephant moves from side to side’, Twinkle twinkle little star, if you’re happy and you know it, wheels on the bus and then took requests and we did Little Peter Rabbit had a fly upon his nose. It went well :).
At lunchtime I had a bit of a charity shop fest and managed to get 6 items for Tarly for £6 including some Next, Gap and Boden tops 🙂 And then went into another charity shop and found two cardigans in my size. I tried them on and one is lovely, big, snuggly and single button, perfect for slobbing at home or wearing to work. The other I spent about ten minutes in the changing room trying to work out how to wear! It is mohair and silk and a lovely colour and feel and in the end I was so intrigued by it that I bought it just to bring home and try and work out. I said the volunteer behind the counter that I wasn’t quite sure how to wear it and she said they’d all been looking at it when it came in and trying to work it out! I got it back to work and Wendy and I tried it on again in the staffroom and tried to work it out and then Ady and I have been looking at it tonight. It is one single button with a totally asymmetric neckline and hemline and odd seams at the back but what is very perplexing is a sort of extra wedge of knitting sewn in on one side which I sort of thought must be supposed to be draping somewhere but couldn’t work out where. Having googled the make inside I discovered it to be some German designer who’s stuff sells on ebay for in excess of £100 and is indeed all quirky and odd with different drapey bits here and there. I paid a fiver for it and actually really like it so will keep it until such times as I decide I’m not actually going to wear it and could do with the money and then flog it :).
The afternoon was uneventful, it felt l o n g. I arrived home about five minutes before Ady and thanks to a bit of my famous scheduling we managed to get Davies and Scarlett’s tea cooked and fed to them, dinner on for us, baths had, large chunk of current bedtime story read to children and then in bed all with time to spare before the Masterchef final at 8pm.
I spent some time later in Davies’ room telling him about storytime and managing to remember all of have tou seen crocodile and don’t say that willy nilly which he enjoyed hearing and telling him which bits I got everyone to join in with. Then he wanted pictures drawn of the characters I did for colouring in so I drew them for him too. I think it feels slightly odd for him to hear about me reading to and drawing for other children, as indeed it feels odd for me to be doing it. Nice to still share it with him in some way though.
Tomorrow we’re EOFFing and I need to fit in a visit into town to the bank and be home to wave my famous husband off for his weekend of TV appearances ;).
go on. link to the drapy style stuff!!
Comment by HelenHaricot — 01 March 2008 @ 10:40 pm
Here’s some of her stuff on ebay Helen
http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=barbara+speer
Comment by Nic — 01 March 2008 @ 10:53 pm