Took the day off work today, as yesterday my stitched up knee swelled to amazing proportions and nearly ensured that I wore my loose fitting jeans to bed, as I couldn't get them to peel past my elephantiasis. Turns out it isn't infected, but there is likely some other bone or ligament injury lurking underneath the gore that it making life uncomfortable. X-rays on Friday, when the pain has localised from the wound. Awesome.
So apparently, 'resting' means home, though with my two resident rugrats, I would have a much quieter and more restful time at work, barking at 26 8-10 year olds from my wheelie chair.
Today, sporting a limp and a head of incredibly bad hair after attempting to wash it in the bath last night (one word: DON'T) we manged to knock back a few chores and activities.
* Baking
* Laundry (still have it and 3 other loads to fold, but won't dwell on this)
* Vacuuming. Well, sort of. Used the Ergorapido, which isn't nearly as effective as the Dyson, but it managed to pick up the biggest chucks of crackers and crustiness if you ran over them enough times.
* Fresh pasta made for dinner. Caleb will of course have his nasty gluten free dried stuff, but the rest of us will enjoy pasta the way the Italians intended it -full of wheaty, eggy fabulousness.
I like this blog for crafty inspiration, and at some point whilst whiling away an evening reading it, I came across the idea of using plasticine to make stamps. I've been meaning to try it for ages, but kept forgetting to bring home the blob of grey mixed-up manky stuff I had saved at school after our dabble into Claymation movie making earlier this year. Actually, I really should do a post about that sometime, because it was hilarious and one of the most fabulous units I've ever taught. Sooooooo much learning took place and the kids are so proud of their work that they should be published. Awesome fun and very, very cute.
Anyway, digression aside...
This morning, Soph and I experimented by making impressions into the plasticine using a variety of things, such as:
* Ordinary rubber stamps, giving a 'relief' of the image. This led to lots of discussion about why the pictures appeared white when they were usually inked etc.
* Shapes from our very much loved shape-sorter
* Ball point pens
We also tried to roll out snakes and attach them to the 'stamp' in patterns, but this caused such frustration and angst that the activity was very quickly reformed into a more achievable one of examining fingerprints and drawing faces and limbs on them.
We used an ink pad designed for embossing and card-making, but I am on the look-out for an old fashioned styled one with a hinged lid that I think will be more suited for this type of activity - remember the kind? Can't find them anywhere.
I really wish I'd done this activity at the end of our Geometry unit at school last term. It's such a fun way to play around with reflection, rotation and symmetry. In fact, I might just have to sneak it into Maths / Art some time this term, because it's just so cool!
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