World Cup Fever.

Now that the my plans for the old swimming pool, first conceived many years ago, are nearing completion I am almost able to relax and simply enjoy this part of the garden. Being higher up the hill the scree garden gets the first and last sun of the day even as the shadows creep down into the valley. This morning before going off to work I still took time after feeding the hens, to simply stand in the sun and revel in nature's beauty.

I had always wanted to have a stone wall in which I could grow rockery plants so I was very pleased to find such a wall already built on one boundary of the pool when we moved in. A kind neighbour gave me many cuttings and seedlings from her garden when I first moved here and these have been supplemented by a few plants from our London garden, plant swaps at the WI and the local garden centres.
The paving still needs a final weeding and a lot of the pointing replaced but it all looks so much brighter after my marathon pressure washing sessions. All the more temptation to take time out to sit with a coffee and read a book.

On another note the football (soccer) World Cup has taken over at home and at school. We've decided to take it as our current theme at school and each classroom is a shrine to football. I had a really good day educationally with my class. I decided that the children would spend the whole day having a Blow Football Tournament. Their first task of the day, once they had sorted themselves into teams of 3, was to think of a name for their team. Even that was a challenge for some and one dear group of boys were still undecided after all the others had chosen names and written labels and name cards; one boy wanted the team to be The Fire Bats, another The Fire Bombs and the third boy , ever the diplomat said he didn't mind either name. Following my suggestion to use both names they decided on The Fire Bats Bombs! Then they had to choose team colours and each child design a team kit and make a card goalie. The next task of the day was to use long paper art straws and masking tape to construct a goal to use in the game. Lots of maths involved here and co-operation skills. Finally they had to measure the tables to find the centre spot and also place the goals centrally at each end, more measuring. At last having decided on the rules and the point scoring system they played against most of the other teams (we ran out of time). Lots of 'learning' in many areas and great fun had by all.
Somebody at school has found a site that allows you to watch live tv and one class at least had the opening ceremony running on the big screen in their classroom while they did other football related activities. I'm not a big fan of football but I can run with a theme especially one that gets the children motivated. One girl today brought in a book she had made about North Korea and I was able to tell them a little about the country and the very closed and restrictive regime that it is under. There are so many ways we can expand this theme into all areas of the curriculum.