Well I was in school for 8.15 today �?I’m getting better!  First job was to wipe the tables, as one of the cleaners left and hasn’t yet been replaced �?it’s definitely NOT my job, but someone has to do it!  I’ve no TA in today as she had an appointment to attend, but I do have a volunteer helper in for most of the morning, so we should be ok.  By the time I had finished the cleaning and sorted out the mornings�?activities, I  just about had time to pop upstairs and grab my coffee before it was time for the bell to go and the children to come in.  Several children dash in the minute the door is opened and the parents follow along behind.  We do well this morning, all the children in and the parents gone by 9.05, so I called them to the carpet.  I remembered that I had been intending to teach the children our morning prayer ( being a good catholic school) so there I was in the middle of teaching those that didn’t already know it the sign of the cross, when in walks the Head ( extra brownie points there then!)  She had just popped in to make sure we were alright, because she knew I was on my own.  Seeing that we were ok she left ( to go and do some hovering �?like I said, we’re a cleaner down!) and said she would pop back later.  The volunteer helper arrived as we were finishing off the big book, and as the children were still sitting quite well, I decided to go mad and introduce them to the letter ‘s�?  We then went back through the big book finding every single ‘s�?�?such fun!

By this time the children were ready for some action so I sent them off to choose from the various activities, until it was tidy up time and out to play.  Playtime passed with one small graze to a knee, and then on the way back in to class it happened�? The first one of the year!  David was pushed in the line ( in fact more accurately he was pushed back!) fell and�?bumped his head �?so off we went to the office for the first cold pack and bumped head letter of the year!  We had our fruit and then did some number work, counting and recognising numbers.  The children were then able to choose whether they wanted to be inside or out, and I took the majority outside, with the helper staying in with the children that didn’t want to go out..  Everything was fine outside and I went on a nice ‘boat trip�?with Catherine, until it got too rough and I felt sick, so we abandoned ship and went to dig for treasure in the sand pit.  Unfortunately, Rachel got a bit carried away with her digging and  Ellen got a face full of sand.  At this point my helper came out to say she had to go!  I asked her to stay just while I cleaned Ellen’s face before she rubbed all the sand in her eyes.  <o:p></o:p>

Ok well it was 11.15, only 45 minutes before home time, only 16 children, of course I could cope!  All the children were now outside and some of them were getting alittle carried away haring around on the bikes, and we very nearly had a couple of multiple pile ups!  Then there were the children hanging upside down from various parts of the climbing frame, and I was beginning to feel a tad stressed, so decided it was time to go in.  We sat on the carpet and had a story and then practised some of the rhymes we had been learning.  Nearly time to go!  I sent all the children to sit at the tables and started handing out jumpers, paintings, bags, turned my back for two seconds and Harry and Edward started hitting each other with their book bags and jumpers!  I called the TA in from the Yr1 class to come and just keep an eye while I sorted out the rest of the bits, and then called the mums in to collect their darlings!  I was left feeling quite frazzled and beginning to think that for one or two of the children, the honeymoon period was very nearly over!