Rain All Day.

Despite, or perhaps because of the unceasing rain it has been quite a relaxed day. It had been arranged that half of each Year 2 class would walk up to Rock Park for a Schools' Remembrance Day ceremony at the war memorial. They were going to place a poppy wreath there that they had made themselves. There is a marine base at Chivenor and we have a number of children whose fathers are on active services so it is especially relevant. Yesterday (Armistice Day) the children took part in the 2 minute silence at 11.00 while we were at the swimming pool. One little girl told me her Daddy cried because a friend of his had been killed. How do you cope with that? Anyway, it was decided not to take the children out in the rain for nearly 2 hours so we had longer to get on with the writing task I had planned for the children to do. My class are very creative and once they had written their instructions for making a Diva they were only too happy to do their own creative activities. They get through the sellotape at a rate of knots and I have limited their access to the chenille pipe-cleaners to 2 per day per child or all my stock would soon be gone. Their main passion is for paper folding and they come up with all sorts of ingenious ideas. A group of boys have been developing fantastical bomber craft along with a detailed airfield. Some of the girls have been working on a ghost map with things hiding behind flaps. Not exactly on the curriculum but who cares? We also fitted in our first complete run through of the Christmas Play as it is only 3 !!! weeks until they have to perform the play to their parents. I foresee a lot of rehearsing in the next few weeks. While we were in the hall I could see some of the youngest children (4yrs) out in the pouring rain on the bikes and scooters in the waterproof all-in-one outfits that the school has for such days.The rain stopped me from taking any outdoor pictures so here is one of our 4 cats, Smudge. He's the lowest ranking cat of the group and the most vocal. He spends most of the evening wailing at me in an attempt to hurry up the evening feeding time. He's also a very clever cat and can open most cupboards. We used to have to barricade our old fridge as he worked out how to open that as well. He even could pull down the handle of the porch door to open it. He's on the blog today because if you care to drop into Sarah's sweet family blog Catching The Magic at www.Chezlee.co.nz you will see that he was definitely in New Zealand last Wednesday.