Back to School

Was it really in July that I last posted? Wow. I'm such a bad blogger. I hadn't even noticed that it had been that long! I've been so flat out with uni work that everything else got put on the backburner I guess.

So... what have I been up to? I have classes pretty much all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Thursdays are the best days, because:
a) it's the shortest day at uni for me (only 2 classes, 1.5 hours each)
and
b) I have my Science & Technology class, where we get to play with materials and make cool stuff!

It's just like being a kid at school again, except we don't get bossed around by a teacher, and we have little instructions so we get to figure it out for ourselves. Things to remember for when I am the teacher, right?!

Here's a photo of me from class yesterday, where we made traffic lights out of polysterene cups, wood, hot glue, masking tape, aluminium foil, coloured cellophane, a 9V battery, 6 wires and a light bulb! So much fun- and we're adults! Can you imagine how much fun kids would have doing this stuff?

Showing off our technical prowess:


We even made our own "switch" out of a small piece of wood, thumbtacks and a paperclip, so you can choose whether to have the red, orange or green light on.


See! It really does light up!

We are learning lots of cool stuff in this class- last week we made cars out of milk or juice cartons, then we put them on a ramp and had a race! Unfortunately my car's back axle was a bit skew-iff and the car veered to the right a lot... needless to say, it didn't win.

Our teacher recorded it all on his mini flip camera and then played it on the data projector through his laptop for us all to see! We also made graphs on the laptop, interactive whiteboard and regular whiteboard- can you imagine how much fun kids would have with that? Not to mention all the learning involved- lots of maths in particular (measurement, speed, physics and gravity, just from racing the cars themselves!)


I can't wait until we get to go on prac (next Monday!!!) and get to bring all these ideas we've learnt and put them into practice in a real classroom.

Have I mentioned where I'm going on prac? My old primary school! How funny is that?! It will be weird to be back there after about 10 years- and even weirder to be there as a teacher! I'll get to go in the staffroom! That was definitely a no-no when I was a student there. It'll be like getting a backstage pass! Behind the scenes at CMPS!

Just for fun, here's me back in 1998 and 1999, in the school uniform! I'm thinking I'll take these photos in to class on Monday, just in case the students don't believe me when I tell them I went there too!

Look at that badge on my collar- that was for School Representative Council, I think.
I wish my hair still looked like that- beautiful and straight, and look at my natural colour! I will spend the rest of my life trying to get a hairdresser who can attempt to dye it back to that blondey-brown colour.

And this blue badge on the photo down the bottom here? That was for Library Monitor. Don't laugh- it was cool back then! Everyone wanted to be a Library Monitor. It basically meant that you got to pretend to be in charge of all the kids who were in the library at lunchtime.

I remember this photo day- I was growing my fringe out, and had my mum put one roller in the front just so it wouldn't hang in my eyes and look horrible by the time it came to get photos taken (because we were in the older grades, we were always the last to get our photos taken, right at the end of the day after lunch when you were all sweaty from playing at lunchtime).

I still looked cute though. If only it was that easy now. You just wait til Monday- I'll be up at the crack of dawn, blowdrying my hair, putting makeup on, deliberating over outfit choices! Kids don't know how easy they have it!