Since leaving SBC last week, I have never felt so busy! I knew that running my own business would require a lot of time… honestly, I did. It has surprised me just how much. It’s like before you have children. Everyone tells you that you’ll have no time. And you just think ‘Well, yeah, I know that.’ and somehow imagine that you’ll be one of those parents that’s so super organised! And it’ll just be lots of repetitive tasks that can be scheduled and completed with minimum effort. So you’ll just be as time-poor as you’ve always been.
Then, the child, or in my case, twins, arrive and all hell breaks loose. You’re not even sure what time or day it is. And seriously, does it matter?! Just the seemingly endless cycle of naps, bottles, nappies, comforting! And yes, repetitive tasks such as sterilising. But it’s such hard brain work – with working out what these little bundles of gorgeousness want from you with their crying at this particular moment.
(And that question – do you attempt to keep them both on the same routine? Let one sleep, while you feed the other???)
Considering these two are now tweenagers, what is taking up all my time? Here is a round up of the past week…
- Two after school clubs for STEMKids.
- Helping out at Brownies.
- My own STEM club.
- The start of my new Coding Club.
- One new primary maths tutoring student.
- Two online coding tutoring sessions.
- One meeting at a venue for another coding club.
- A little bit of crochet for a commission.
- A lunch time and night out chatting with very good friends.
Never mind the usual stuff of washing, cooking, shopping…!
At least it’s half term next week 😉 phew!
I need to plan the week and prepare! Especially with so much going on.
SLIMEY Fun
I have to tell you about one of the STEMKids clubs this week. It was Slime making. Tried it before the session. Worked like a charm. Awesome slime.
The kids’ slime? Not so much! Some lovely, stretchy, puffy slime. Yes! Some puddles… Some coloured glue..!
The kids, though, were soooo messy – the classroom looked as if there’d been multiple murders. (Why STEMKids HQ thought to colour the activator blood red I’ll never know.) It was everywhere.
All over the desks, carpet, sink, and the kids.
Hilarious.
They had such a good time, but I really hope that the parents and school can forgive me!
Not to be put off, we’re making slime in my STEM group this week :0
Attempting to learn from this experience, I think we’ll use a different recipe and definitely a different colour! Although… it is Halloween soon!!
Coding Club
.print(“I love coding!”)
This week was the start of Coding Club. I was full of fear, first time going it alone. No backup tutorials from Code Club UK to use, and no helpers. A couple of familiar faces, lots of new ones.
I find it is a good idea to start with Scratch, as it has been designed with kids in mind. Block based, it is somewhat easier to put something together quickly. And with it’s simple and colourful editor, the kids are drawn in, and in no time are enjoying making games with the sprite characters.
The difficulty is creating an account and logging in, so this took up a big chunk of time!
Once logged on, the kids seemed to enjoy getting familiar with Scratch, and playing some of the games that experienced developers have put together. The beauty of the Scratch community is being able to get ideas as well ‘see inside’ these projects to learn.
We did have a brief 5min teaching on Algortihms, they were just too keen to get on with coding though!
I’ll get teaching in before they log on this week!
Frustrating Circuits
This week at my STEM club we attempted a ‘Frustration’ game, creating a circuit, and lighting a bulb if you touch the wire. Like this:
Quite a complicated task really if not done before! We worked in small groups (thanks to my wonderful helpers) so that not only could we stay on track but also work out problems as we went. Winding wire around bulb screws was probably the most frustrating task!
I count this club session as a #win as most of the students went home with a completed frustration game! Yay! And… my helpers are willing to help out another time! Yay!
Gold stars all around!!
Ok, I’ll leave you there. Make sure you allocate yourself a gold star and as Sublime Science’s Mad Marc says ‘Stay Awesome!’
Janx
