The Sound Panel (by sarah)

It a year of fiddly work but there is a sound panel complete with sounds of space, slime moulds and cracking ice to name some of the eight.

It is obviously not a full sound cave but it a proof of concept and a piece of science-craft in its own right. It could not have come about without the aid of ESA, UWE, Ella Matthews and Alaric. Not to mention those who sponsored the project so that we could actually buy the components without them there is no why I could have afforded to make this.

For the next week as part of National Science and Engineering Week it will be on display at Centre Arts in Cheltenham.

World Book Day :) (by sarah)

Thursday was world book day - it caught me slightly off guard as it was a day earlier than I'd put in the diary! But I'd known what Jean wanted to be for a while - a Dwarf, not just any dwarf but the one that carries Bilbo about in The Hobbit. So we dug out a knight outfit I picked up in a charity shop a few years ago and made a beard out of some fun fur we had laying around (left over from a dog costume I made for a halloween party right at the beginning of the dawn of this blog!).

Jean loves The Hobbit and after Alaric had read it too her read it herself and has been getting me to read bits of it too. She was grumpy that I wouldn't take her to see the film!

I think she made a really good dwarf 🙂 You wouldn't believe how militant she was over exactly what colour and length and fit the beard had to be! But it was all accomplished without any actual sewing.

We love world book day here, my little girl picks who she wants to be and we make the costume together normally the weekend before as a family activity and she takes the book into school.

She enjoyed the dressing up but was a little disappointed this year as they have a supply teacher who didn't realise it was book day so did normal work and she had to show her friends her book at lunch time instead. She said everyone was sad about this.

So when I came across this BBC article I was annoyed and hacked off. So much so I posted a reply:

The idea of them picking a character from a film or TV tie-in book is actually a good thing. Those books are essential to getting reluctant readers reading. The kids get to play games and talk about their favourite books and share stories.

Then there are the vouchers which though under used are appreciated by many families and I myself bought my first reading book because of such a voucher.

I think this article misses the point of fun from books, gently encouraging the children into the realm of reading rather than making it inaccesible and academic.

There is also the issue of costumes - really they shouldn't be an issue - you have to spend time with your child anyway so if you don't want to spend loads of money make something out of what you have at home with your child. With Fabric glue and stick on velcro you don't even have to sew. Most children also now have some sort of dress up gear in the home if you get really stuck.

Also I am seeing a lot of reaction against making subjects fun for learning at the moment. This makes me sad as it is a way of getting those who are uninterested interesting - after all World Book Day isn't really that needed for kids like Jean - she loves reading, she adores books and so on. What they are for is the ones who are struggling or have given up or think they can't do it. That is where the magic lays and for the kids that aren't struggling - well these fun days give them social skills and good memories.

I've seen people saying that kids associate fun with 'a doss' but they don't - not really get bored if it is too easy. For the kids that want it to be easy maybe that's because they are actually struggling - now don't get me wrong we all no there are lazy oiks out there but they are a minority and who knows such events might even get them interested - sometimes they are the more intelligent ones anyway.

Especially at primary school age children learn through play, this doesn't mean the play can not be challenging and useful. Different children learn in different ways so have a good variety of techniques and methods is good at least for the younger end of the school age range.

Painting the Body (by sarah)

So on the 15th of March I will be at Centre Arts in Cheltenham putting up bits of science-art that I and others have made/created.

Today I did some painting - I am not sure if the blood cell picture is finished (I think though I am not sure which way up it should go) and I am not feeling that happy with the liver - namely as it is in the wrong place so need to think about that. There are a few more Paintings of the Body but you will need to come to the exhibition to see them 🙂

We also have molecular jewellery, a sound panel, science knits, maths art and paleo-art.

Unsigned Sessions and Mention the Bear (by sarah)

Me and Alaric finally made it out to see some live music - something which has not happened yet this year! We went to the Unsigned Sessions at The Playhouse in Cheltenham. These are run by The Record Shop down by the Norwood pub.

It was the first time we had been in The Playhouse which has a nice light fitting I took photos off to try and sort our how my camera works! I only found the black and white setting after the gig!

The first band was unfortunately ill but a young guy came on and played some cracking tunes - I can't remember what his name was unfortunately.

We then got a band called Red Shift who were a three piece band, a guitarists with two guitars, a saxophonist and flutist in one and the dude at the back with the squeeze box who I unfortunately was not in the right place to photo.

They played some lovely covers - some of which had a depth the original songs never had.

The guitarists voice put me in mind of David Bowe meets Pink Floyd with a little Bon Jovi thrown in.

My one issue was I felt the Gnarls Berkely cover needed more energy, but having it sung by a warm female voice was genius 🙂

Then we got on to our friends' band, Mention The Bear, they were doing a 68 Come Back Elvis Special with guitar cases for percussion and more guitars than you can shake a stick at!

There was some serious hand blurring on the fret board happening and Richard did not disappoint with raw performance - if Elvis and Jim Morrison had had a love child... just watch the video I took!

Neither the film nor photos are as good as I wanted as I was just mucking about with settings to see what I got and some of them I didn't realise weren't quiet there until I got them up on a computer screen!

See guitar case drum!

Guitars galore!

Dan rocking out!

Richard absorbed by the music.

Jumping around time!

I was really happy to have an chance to wear my fifty style skirt I made last year (with modernish heavy metal themed material!) and my ancient blue suede boots 🙂 Though I am still disappointed there was no black leather!

Postcards and Stickers (by sarah)

I decided it was time to get some postcards and stickers made, I used moo.com which isn't the cheapest but is the most accessible for what I wanted plus they had a sale!

I needed stickers for the Poetry Writing Challenge I am running and then I needed postcards for the Science-Art Exhibition I'll be running at Centre Arts in March, plus I wanted to give little copies of my Inspira pictures to friends who were struggling with various things in their lives.

I have been over the moon with them - people have been saying I should be selling them but not entirely sure where to do that for best affect at the moment.