Christmas Lessons with Year 1-2

Coming towards the end of term the lessons for the students were very fun and spending lots of time on my favourite subject, Christmas! This was a great chance for me to get the kids involved with preparing for the festive season especially when the Primary syllabus was called "Let's Celebrate"

We spent a bit of time making Snowman Advent Calendars and ended the term with some Christmas Stockings. 

The Snowman Advent Calendar to start off with was a little hectic as I had to keep an eye on all of the students and ensuring that they had all 24 dates painted and dried correctly. As you can imagine I had bits of card with painted numbers every where around the classroom. Thankfully I have teaching assistant Miss Pat ready to help with anything which I am very grateful for. Some students got on with this swimmingly and some not so well. This then had made it easier for me to split the class in two groups the following week when they were finishing them. This was a great lesson for the students where they were able to think creatively and involved a bit of simple maths which kept them very focused. This was a time consuming task for me to gather their numbers in sets of 24 with their names but the results were worth it in the end and I know that they are using them now, tearing a number away each day till Christmas day.

This is a time lapse video of the second double lesson of completing the Snowman Advent Calendars. 

The Christmas Stockings was just as fun and it involved the students to learn new skills such as sewing the card together with string and to decorate them. This was a great fun and was completed in one double period lesson. 

Below is another time lapse video of my lesson.

Christmas School Play "Verve" and Backdrop

For St Stephen's International School's annual school production called Verve, the Art Department i.e me, was assigned to paint the backdrop for the schools play "There is no such thing". The overall theme for this play was Christmas and we wanted to paint something simple in order for the students to have their own input on the design.

During the design process it was decided that the scene should be similar to Santa's grotto and to give an illusion of a big place. The doors gives the audience an idea that they lead you to different departments. 

As you can see from these photos this is no small task and the canvas is 14 metres by 5 metres squared. So it required a lot of planning for the smooth running of this very large painting job which involved a lot of the students. 

The process to paint a base layer, grid the canvas, draw the design, paint, tape and add detail took about 4 weeks with the help of the students and other members of the teaching staff. 

Once we got into the full swing of things more teachers got involved and we ended up having a dedicated team who were willing to work into the night after a long day of teaching. It ended being very much like a giant paint by numbers.

A lot of the work came from the Art club and the students of Year 10 when the deadline was drawing closer and I had to bribe other members of staff and students with Pizza to get this completed. 

The scale of the backdrop as you can see from the pictures below was quite sizeable and I was surprised to see how affective the whole piece looked.

I will have to say that this was one of the most challenging task I've ever done. Bearing in mind that it was my first term where I was a teaching my own primary art classes myself and planning and preparing became more difficult with this big canvas job looming over me. However it was a great learning experience for me and the results came out on top and I pulled it of. The students were amazing and coordinating them was a very fun process. Would I do it again next year?....No Did I have fun? Yes! :)

Science Trip at Pa Khao Phu Leung Nature Reserve and Conservation Centre

Pa Khao Phu Leung Nature Reserve and Conservation Centre was the perfect place for an overnight stay for a Science Trip with the Year 10 and 11. For a two day trip I can definitely say that the students did a lot as the itinerary was jam packed with all kinds of activities and science was applied to everything that we did during this trip. Even the stop at the petrol station, Cafe Amazon and 7/11 involved the students experimenting the viscosity of petrol and other fuels.

On the first day was an early start and we went to the Animal Nutrition Research Centre in Pak Chong and a visit to the Lam Pra Pleung Dam. There were some more activities once we arrived at Pa Khao Phu Leung Nature Reserve and Conservation Centre where we stayed the night. The students all worked together cooking, collecting wood for the fire and ended the night with some fireworks which they kinda worked.

The second day was a busier day. We found out that Sugavia Co.Ltd uses sweet grass (Stevia Rebaudiana) and extract the sweetness called Stevioside which has the sweetness 300 times more than granulated sugar. I thought this was quite interesting and having tasted this grass it was surprising how sweet it was in its natural form.

Following that we went to the Lam Ta Khong Research Station, the Milatary Dog Training Centre, a local Thai radio station Mittraphap Pak Chong FM 99.25 MHz and a Police Training Centre shooting range. 

I made a video which you can view above of what we've been up to and so that the students can enjoy once they get back from their Christmas break. As you can hopefully see that we thoroughly enjoyed it and everyone was so tired as we accomplished so much in a short period of time. 

Big Mountain Music Festival 2014

We only decided to go to The Big Mountain Music Festival the week before leading to the the Kings Birthday weekend so it was pretty much last minute as we were at first reluctant to go with all of the talk of chaos and traffic that surrounds the festival. It sounded like if a festival was ever based in Alton Towers in the UK but expecting 50,000 people and travelling there by any means and you are going to be stuck there getting there and back. It was expected to be very busy but as it was only 8km away from the school so why not? 

We had a great time at the festival and why would you not when they offer beer and Sang Som (Thai Whiskey) by the bucket load and have stages for every type of music...yes it was mainly Thai music but with the right company and a open mind you'd be sure to have an amazing time. 

The main acts included bands call Big Ass (Why would you all yourself this name?), Mild (Probably the most boring name for a band), Thaitanium (Great pun for a Hip Hop Thai group) and Boom Boom Cash. Some great entertainers and some sooo cheesy you would rather cringe amongst the crowd who absolutely love it. 

We mainly stayed at the Thai rock stage called the Ferris Wheel stage and stayed away from all kinds of Thai Pop stages which is the cheese I mentioned earlier. As the night went on into the morning we stayed at the dance, drum and bass stage and danced the night away. 

A two day festival for £40 included hay bales as picnic benches, beer and buckets, pee hill (don't fall in the mud), 6am guaranteed fun, food stalls including a burger van (for average burgers), an education of Thai music, lights and fireworks is one festival I would go again next year.