Kindergarten email addresses

As part of my FINAL SEMESTER (just a little bit excited, sorry) at uni I'm doing a research project. So I have spent the last few weeks hunting down the email addresses of Melbourne Kindergartens (to invite them to participate in my online survey).

Can I suggest that this is perhaps the most frustrating thing I have done in my whole uni course? So many Kindergartens don't have email addresses. I have been trawling individual council sites which invariably have every other detail! Plus, I know they all have government provided addresses! So the address is there - I just can't find it!

GRRR!

Anyway, rant over. If you're a Kindergarten teacher in Melbourne who would like to be involved in a short research project about refugee children in your centre please post below. Or, if you'd like a copy of my final report or list of resources for Kindergarten teachers with refugee children in their centre please also post. Ta muchly!

What's irritating you at the moment?

Frockwatch

I've never understood Mamamia's Frockwatch. I just don't get the 'looking at dresses' thing. I mean usually they are crazy & totally unwearable.

Until today. I was looking at pics of last night's Emmys (to see the pics of Jim Parsons winning for The Big Bang Theory) when I came upon Melissa Rauch's dress:

 

I love it!!! I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps the flowy soft material? Or the colours. Or all those amazing textures! Love, love, love! 

Alright, that's enough girlyness for today!

~Stretchy P. xxx

Have you ever fallen in love with a dress?

Migraines

My life this week. Fun for all the family!

Have any good tips for managing migraines??

Saving Spoons: Dinner

This week I got an email from a friend who is a new spoonie asking about that most important of household tasks: Dinner. As we all need to make food every day here's some of what I replied to her:


1. Find a good (healthy & cheap!) takeaway. I find Vietnamese rice paper rolls v good. V. healthy. (I can't eat anything with fat in it if I'm having a bad day)
2. Whenever I'm cooking properly I make enough for 4 & put half in the freezer. (We call these 'frozen mysteries' when we pull them out).

(I wish my freezer looked like this)

3. Cheese & tomato on toast/cereal are perfectly valid dinner options!

4. We did a weight loss thing a few years ago & used meal replacement bars (Optifast/Optislim/Celebrity slim etc). I keep 2 packets in the pantry for days when even eating is too hard. They are a whole meal, and healthy, and you just unwrap!

5. Casseroles/slow cooker meals are great. You can put 20 mins of energy in, put in the oven, rest for an hour, do another 20 mins!

6. Sometimes I'll partially prepare a meal. The Prince is often happy to make a salad/finish a meal or whatever if I've made a start.

7. Plan a menu. I find the hardest bit is often deciding what to eat/what we have in the pantry. If it's up on the board I don't have to worry about that & I know we have the ingredients for these 5 meals. (but don't be afraid to do something else if they feel a bit hard that day)
8. Lower your expectations. If your partner is anything like the Prince he'll be happy with a sandwich if he doesn't have to make it! (c:


What's your best idea for a spoonie dinner?




Saving Spoons idea from A New Kind of Nomal

Sleep Sweet

Some good info about sleep: Silent Nights It's written for parents of young children but has some great info about sleeping for all ages.

Fake it!

I first fell in love with Zoe Foster over at Mamamia. I fell in love with her b/f Hamish Blake listening Hamish and Andy (sadly now only on Fridays *sniff*). Anyway, Zoe's a makeup guru & has a new book out which I am ashamed to say I haven't read yet. But I have reserved it at the library & I shall be the library's copies' first reader! I think it'll be a keeper though, and I'll be buying my own soon. But for now I have to content myself with watching videos, like the one here.





Wide - awake eyes
Brilliant for the spoonie I feel! How to look better than you feel!





I dragged my younger sister all around the shops on Monday looking for under eye concealer. With no success I'm afraid. I fell in love with one that was $75, and I'm afraid I'm not willing to spend that. :o( (I could, after all, buy two of ZOE'S BOOK for that!)

Right, now I'm off to ebay cosmetics...

~Stretchy P. xxx

Baking Soda

Recently I've switched most of my cleaning products over to good old baking soda & vinegar. Here's a great post on some more of the wonders of baking soda: 7 surprising uses for baking soda


While I haven't switched to using it as shampoo I might try it as toothpaste...

Teaching ABCs & 123s

While there’s consensus at an academic level kindergarten teachers and those who work with young children can feel pressure from parents and others to ‘teach’ reading and writing. Some feel that rote counting and ABCs activites are essential for young children.

Here’s a fantastic blog post by an early years teacher in America. I just need to play with them.

(note, for the Aussies reading: when he refers to Kindergarten, that’s our Prep, reception or first year of school)

Primary Teacher Blogs

I've found a lot of fantastic blogs about early learning activities recently. (See 'Children's stuff blogs' in sidebar). But this semester I'm doing teaching rounds in a Yr 1/2 classroom. So I've been looking for some Australian blogs written by teachers in early primary. I haven't found many, but here's a couple.


Nina's Arena

Excuse me, Mrs C

Some class blogs:

A Prep class in Sydney: Clever Cookies

A great yr 2 team teaching classroom blog: (best class blog I've found)
        Grade 1/2 at the same school
        A grade 2
        And another grade 2

A grade 3 class in WA

Another Grade 3

Here's a 5/6 classroom: Allstars

And another 5/6: Adventures with Miss B

A grade 5: Mr Austin's blog

Another grade 5: The Skinny

Here's a blog about a school's gardens & sustainability work

In terms of resources there are:

The rather hideously coloured K-3 Teacher Resources

 Know any other blogs written by teachers, classes or have lots of lesson plan ideas??

Attention Gruen: best ad of the year?

I absolutely love the ABC's Gruen Transfer. Todd Sampson & his Tshirts are always a highlight. But I think this year's best ad has to go to Jennifer Aniston's Sex Tape.

via Mamamia

More Spoons please!

Sorry for my absence. I've been fairly sick & busy on a secret project.

Due to a lack of brainpower, I thought I'd post some more of my fav spoonie photos. Any good for a spoonie logo? All photos from weheartit.com

All the galaxy in a spoon

Yum!

Awww....

 

Want!

<3

Get all your spoons in order

Rose: Pilates starts again today. Have missed it soo much!

Some common sense advice

from Common Sense Girl

...on sex before marriage.



This is a hot topic with opinions I have heard tending more & more hysterical the more 'religious' a person is.

Over at CommonSenseGirl I've found some straight-forward, common sense, thoughtful advise (what you'd expect really!)

Check it out if you're interested.

Rose: have survived some serious flare days. Hubby home sick too. Not too sure how we'll survive today, but here goes....