A Collection of Morning Prayers for School

Following up from a blog post I wrote nearly 2 years ago(!), I’ve just been putting together some suggested prayers for our church primary school. I used some of the suggested ones in the blog post and some others I sourced from around the web. This is the selection I’ve given them for first thing [...]

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World Book Day in Glorious Technicolour

The kids eventually agreed to go in the costumes they said they would yesterday morning, although the Queen switched from the purple dress (which had been mine and she said was too baggy) to a blue one of hers (which is now too short and she had to wear with jeggings). And didn’t they turn [...]

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World Book Day Crisis?

If you are a parent with a child in primary school, you may today be panicking about World Book Day tomorrow. This is the occasion when many schools encourage kids to come in dressed as a literary character. My three are going as: Violet Baudelaire from the Lemony Snicket Series of Unfortunate Events. This involves [...]

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Plastic and Puppets

This week I finally put into action a project that I’ve been wanting to organise ever since our friends the Rocks showed us their fantastic puppet theatre constructed from PVC plumbing pipes. After a bit of internet research we decided that we’d try and make a fairly large theatre, as we usually have two puppets [...]

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I Love Alarm Clocks!

Not my own, you understand. I am definitely morning-challenged and I have a battle with myself every day as I force myself to leave the cosiness of bed. But we have recently discovered the wonders of children with alarm clocks. Some folk complain about how their kids are always up at 5am or some other [...]

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A School to Learn in

Our kids are happy in our church school here in the parish. The teachers are kind and dedicated and are working hard to make it better and better. The school is in a disadvantaged area and it can be hard to ensure that all the children learn to their full potential. But the staff are [...]

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Counting Buttons

My kids have come back from school at the beginning of the new term with a new counting rhyme. They count the buttons you have on your clothes and chant Lady Baby Gypsy Queen Elephant Monkey Tangerine Then you are pronounced to be one of these. Today I am (thankfully) a Lady. Happy was declared [...]

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The Bling Bling Girls

One of the things I’ve loved about taking the Engineer to school this year is that in the Reception class you get to walk in with your child, help them locate their coathook and get their lunchbox in the trolley. And then you get to hang out with them and their friends for a bit. [...]

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The Engineer’s Friend

My five year old son, the Engineer, is very good at making friends. So when he started telling me about his new friend Cap a few weeks ago, I didn’t think much of it. Then we found out that Cap was living with his mum and her partner, and another couple, just over the road. [...]

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Reading Rules

I am currently spending two mornings a week in our church school, reading with some children who need a bit of extra help. I’m having lots of fun with youngsters who are keen to learn and love to read stories.  This Jessica Hagy card from her wonderful website sums up what I’m seeing in practice: [...]

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