Sunday, October 19, 2008

It is cold here today, thanks to the wind. Have been having a waterbottle in bed these last couple of nights! During the day, cold or not, I am loving the autumn colours, clear skies and that sense of "something around the corner" - being the festivities of Halloween, Firework Night and Christmas. Have started Christmas shopping via the "net" already (a first for me) and looking forward to a shopping trip to Lincoln very soon. Have been trying hard to avoid all the Christmassy decorations and glitter in alot of the shops, we find they really do put a damper on the excitement of it all when they appear too early. I remember, about three years ago, browsing round a garden centre choc full of beautiful Christmas glitz at the beginning of September. It was fun at the time, but we suddenly realised that Christmas had started just a little too early and there was still a 4 month wait until the actual day!

P has retired to bed early this evening (and yesterday evening actually). He had a bit of a work get-together and "jolly" on Friday which ended in a late and boozy night so perhaps he's either suffering from that or is coming down with "something". During his "jolly" he and his team had to put on a performance of Michael Jackson's Thriller. P opted to be in the group to make costumes (chicken) while others watched and memorised the dance from the video! In the evening he went along to the team's fancy dress (Halloween) party wearing his cape, mad professor wig and skeleton gloves!

Finally decided on a colour scheme for our rather dreary, cold bedroom. We have a treasured quilt on the bed in shades of burgundy with gold needlework etc., and wanted something warm on the walls to compliment it. We already have a blind and muslin curtains (which we took with us from our first home in P'boro) which would pull the whole scheme together. Decided on a brown (yep, sounds boring and yuk, but actually it's a lovely warm, rust brown - that makes it sound worse doesn't it?!) So, when you read in the mags about cheaply slapping on some paint to change your room I don't expect the "cheap" to be 90 quid (honestly, for 4 cans of paint, gloss, rollers, sandpaper, light switch, lightbulbs (for B) and 2 small cans of spray paint (for K)). I had a couple of vouchers, £5 off a £30 spend or £10 off £50 spend which I hoped to use but to my embarrassment, not only had I shopped at the wrong DIY store, but the voucher wasn't valid until next weekend anyway!

Our two stop-motion HE group sessions that I ran went well. The first session we divided the children into groups and got them working on ideas, putting them down on paper to form a storyboard and then make props and backgrounds. In the second session, which was last Friday, the groups did their stop-motion filming. They all worked so well together and were really keen and dedicated to producing interesting films. My children, probably like a lot of HE children at home, especially in small families, often do projects on their own so to have everyone work in groups pooling their ideas, compromising and generally cooperating with others was one of my main aims of the sessions. Can't wait to see the finished results. Katie and Ben often make short films at home using the stop-motion method. This website, which I found to help those in the HE group, is easy to follow and covers everything from start to finish. For those that remember claymation Morph from the Tony Hart children's art programmes, we came across a Morph clay kit in Hawkins Bazaar. If only I'd seen it before the sessions - it would have gone down well!

Take a moment to check out my few Ebay sales (listed on the side bar). I need dosh! Cheers!

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1 Comments:

At 10:47 pm, Blogger HelenHaricot said...

hmm, morph clay kit looks fun!

 

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