Play Time.

Evening sun at school looking towards the junior school with the corner of my classroom/hut in the foreground.

The school play is now taking over our lives, long rehearsals started in earnest today and next week's timetable is mainly rehearsals and singing practice. At this stage it seems to be going well, only 2 more weeks and we'll be doing it for real. This year we are doing 2 evening performances to fit in with parents' schedules. It would be nice if we had a couple of hours later start on the following mornings to fit in with our personal schedules. Dream on.

Look blue skies! makes a nice change. This morning I had the Headteacher and one of the Literacy co-ordinators come to observe my guided reading session (where a group of children read the same book not together but at their own pace.) I do my guided reading out in our cloakroom where we sprawl on a couple of PE mats that I have stashed away in there. The fun part of these sessions is that we do a lot of talking about the book, predicting what will happen, looking for information, delving into characters and their motives/feelings. The children enjoy our reading sessions and we have already had 3 1/2 hour sessions on a book they would normally have raced through in one go without taking in what it was all about , and we haven't got to the end yet. I was pleased to get very good feedback as this is a lesson I do enjoy and feel confident in.

By the time I had put up one small display after school (clay cobras) and written notes home about costumes for the play the sun had gone. Tonight's full moon made for some interesting and dramatic cloudscapes. Poor old camera goes back to the shop tomorrow. What will I do without a camera ? Mine accompanies me at all times, it's part of my life. All I can say is they had better repair it quickly ............ or else !!!