April fools day

And so we put up on the board at work that we were finishing early, but no one fell for it...oh well it was worth a try LOL!

A couple of people have asked about how I store my circle layouts. Nothing very exciting here, I just throw them into a normal album. I just wanted to stick to a 'theme' with my BOM and I quite like the circles...sometimes I think they look a bit samey, but at the end of the day, I have fun doing them and as I don't have kids to pass them onto, then really for me, that's all that counts. My nephew, Russell, reckons, he wants all my scrapbooks, and that's great if he does, and I've told him I'm coming back to haunt him if he throws out the two 'family' ones - these are my heritage albums. But lets face it, my cat has two albums, and somehow I don't really think there going to be that interesting to him...so what he does with the rest, will be up to him. If he gets married one day, then maybe I can turn his wife into a scrapbooker...LOL then they'll be in safe hands!

My journalling on my Dream Job layout is missing the last word. Shoot me. I didn't realise it until I put it into the album. Oh well such is life. I'm pretty much doing my dream job - but to extend on it a bit, I would like to lecture in Fundamental skills -which in it's simplisest form is what children need to help them with the more academic stuff. Things like reflexes. You would have seen kids who cut and their mouth and tongue and going too or are using the monkey bars and their tongue is sticking out - yep you are nodding your heads, you know what I mean (and everyone says, look at them concentrating...) Well when we are born, we are born with a few primitive reflexes (you'll recall the Moro reflex, bubs gets a scare, and out goes the arms etc). Another one is the Palmar reflex. When you were feeding babe (whether bottle or breast), your baby would have been lightly grasping your clothes and their little hand would have been very slightly opening and shutting. This is connected to feeding, they need to make these little movements to stimulate the sucking reflex and the children who are still sticking out their tongue when they use scissors etc, haven't lost this reflex yet. Some adults still have it. Try this, curl your fingers up into the palm of your hand, just lightly, use your non dominant hand (eg your left hand if your right handed) and just slightly open and shut them - like a little pulse movement - you will notice a very slight correlating movement in your mouth...interesting eh. So how does this relate to writing - well you try writing with your tongue out all the time - gets pretty tiring, kids then go "I can't write, it's too hard" yep, physically it is... so what can you do to help, lots and lots of fun things that help them to build up the muscles in their hands, (remember they also need strong arms and shoulder for writing - it's a physical skill before a cognitive skill - if you can't hold a pencil you can't write...), like squeezy bottles in the bath, paint brushes with water, and paint the fence, chalk on the drive, monkey bars (they are the best piece of equipment in the playground). Okay I'm stopping now, because otherwise I could go on for hours and hours...

Hey Alison, congratualtions on winning the BOM challenge for March!