Sunday, 14 April 2013

Photo March, Blogging April, Easter with Friends and Experiments, Poorly before Placement, College News, Knitting and reading, Work and Another Kind of Work



Hi! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m sorry. Life gets so busy now, and then I find other things to do in my free time, and before I know it, a month and a half has gone already.

So March was meant to be ‘take a photo everyday’ month. Well. That didn’t really happen. I got some photos, but it wasn’t a success. Having to use my phone for photos rather than a camera was discouraging, and life just got busy, and I was too busy having fun to take photos. April was meant to be ‘blog everyday’ month – and you can see how successful that was!!

Easter was lovely – I caught up with lots of friends, and had lots of baby cuddles with my friend’s baby . He’s 5 months now! How time flies! A neighbour kindly gave me lots of baby clothes in 6-9 months to take back for him.

I blew eggs for the first time this Easter. I also dyed eggs for the first time. And filled hollow egg shells with yummy goodness for the first time. Look:

 

 Aren't they pretty?! And I dyed them just with food colouring! And they were brown eggs, not white, so I was amazed the colours came out so vividly.










A few green ones...











 This one was filled with brownie - yum yum yum!






This one looked rather aged, with an antique feel to it. I don't know why, it just came out that way!





 It is meant to look white inside - I filled it with a base of chocolate then white chocolate truffle mix on top. One day I will give you my recipe for it, but that might be challenging, since I don't really measure the ingredients at all...







See? So much fun to do! And so much fun to eat!











I didn't realise the dye would penetrate the inside of the egg, but it did. So the egg was a beautiful colour on the inside, this stunning aqua colour! It was slightly mottled too, which gave a gorgeous result.











I reached the chocolate layer... nom-nom...




Digging in with my spoon - it was a challenge to break into the chocolate on the base, but when I did, it levered straight out in one delicious piece!










 All gone! but see the pretty pieces left over? Well worth it, and something I hope to make a tradition of over the years!






I have a cold. Boo. It’s not too bad today, but yesterday was kinda rough. But there we go!

I start at my new placement tomorrow. I’m at the nursery attached to our Nanny College, which should be interesting. I’ve heard rather mixed reviews of it from other students – many say that there just isn’t all that much for students to do, as the placement operates a really strong keyworker approach. I think the approach is good in terms of forming strong connections with the children. But it must be a challenge for students. It means we can’t get practical experience of nappy changing, and things like that whilst we’re there. But I can understand why the placement works the way it does. For me, a person who hates to be doing nothing, the challenge will be finding jobs for myself to do so that I’m never just standing like a lemon. And of course I want to try to do as many creative activities as possible. They have an outside area there, so perhaps I’ll be able to do some gardening with the children. But we’ll wait and see what tomorrow brings!

We have new heads of Set. In first year, we get a new head and deputy each term. I hope they do well. It’s hard, because we’re asked to vote for the representatives we want; but we don’t know who actually wants to do the job. And without knowing that – well, there are 50 of us to choose from! There are so many people who would perform well in the role, but it’s very difficult to pick. It’s something I think I would be good at, but I’m not inclined to go for it in any way. I did so much of that in primary and high school, I’m kind of over the whole thing. Other people should get a chance, people who want to do it.

I’m knitting at the moment. But I’m not going to tell you what I’m knitting until I’ve finished it! I have some yarn for a pair of mittens too, but I’m going to wait until my current project is done before I start them. My sister has emailed me the first instructions for the mittens, so I’m all excited and motivated to finish the current work. I’m also still reading Sense and Sensibility. I’m really enjoying it, but I don’t often get the chance to indulge in reading purely for the sake of it. All too often I’m trying to do 2 things at once, and reading is not something where I can do that.

Not only do I have my first placement week starting tomorrow, but I have a module to work on next week. It’s a reflective blog, based on our time in placement and with a specific focus. My focus is free-flow. This is where the rooms in the nursery are divided into different types of rooms – creative, technology, sensory etc. and the doors are all open, so the children can all wander in and out of the rooms as they choose. There aren’t many resources about free-flow, but I’m planning to look at typical aspects of running a nursery which the free-flow design might affect, such as challenging behaviour, development, safety etc. This gives me a wider range of resources I can draw on, so hopefully this module should go pretty well! I also have 2 other modules to do this term – 1 on child health, where my focus in my group is immunisations. The other is on Working with families. I’m looking forward to them both, actually; I think I’ll enjoy them.

I also have a regular job! A family have asked me to babysit for them 3 times a week! They're lovely, with 2 boys, and I really enjoyed my first week last week. They're all so friendly, and so I enjoy it and enjoy the experience. The money helps, too - the security of it being regular is reassuring.

I’m hoping to start updating regularly again, but don’t hold me to that! Life can be so hectic, so I make no promises.

Love love xx

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