Warm.

I'm feeling rather worn out this evening. Not only was I teaching all day but a nasty cold has crept up on me and I'm at the achey stage. School itself was fun with a morning visit to Pilton Street where the children tried particular places by solving clues. (The literacy focus was to look at what makes a good clue.) The street is packed full of wonderful old buildings with lots of interesting features though I think the highlight from the children's point of view was  a degu in its cage inside a ground floor window (most of the houses along Pilton Street are right on the pavement.) We also went into Rotary Gardens to collect leaves, measure trees and look for minibeasts. I did try and get them to listen for birds but the sound of the tree surgeons working on the biggest tree with chainsaws put an end to that. It was great fun for the children but there is a certain amount of stress when you are ultimately responsible for 30 children on a narrow pavement and crossing the road. The parents who came along were a great help, such trips wouldn't be possible without them. Back at school the children were only too happy to sit on the carpet and eat their morning fruit while we talked about the wildlife we saw. That was then followed by a literacy task for a couple of groups and after phonics in the afternoon the children planted seeds in plastic bags, a kind of hydroponics, drew and labelled previously planted seeds and drew some of the many leaves we had brought back from the park. Never a moment to relax. After school I drove across town and attempted to do several things and failed at most of them. The custom logo shop doesn't do fabric badges only items of clothing, I didn't find 2 things I wanted to buy and when I presented myself at Tesco's pharmacy for a flu jab the qualified person was about to go home. Not a very successful shopping trip. Then to add insult I managed to knock a container of oat bran out of the cupboard, the lid fell off and oat bran scattered all over the kitchen floor. Still it's Friday tomorrow and after another full day in school I will certainly appreciate the weekend.