A Day Of Privilege

Yesterday was one of those rare days in which one gets to see things that leave one with a real sense of being privileged.

As ever, it's always a joy to be running The Gathering's weekly soup kitchen, especially as we're getting to know some of the regulars and building trust with them. It's a very real privilege to be allowed into these guys lives.

The most amazing privilege for me yesterday was getting to see my real son in Joel, the Joel that no end of school exams and assessments will ever see.

Book Week

It's Book Week at the International School again and once again Joel has gone dressed brilliantly and is very excited to see how all his friends have chosen to dress too.

Joel chose to go as Mr Stink from the book of the same name by David Walliams. We had so much fun making him and his clothes dirty, cutting his shoes open and generally just making it up as we went along.

The biggest problem we had was finding rabbit droppings that Joel could use as ear plugs.

David Walliams has definitely been a big hit in our house having helped Joel to a few Cum Laude at Eisteddfod and now helping with Book Week.

Read more about World Book Day here.

B Is For Bible

I have to be honest and say I love this book!

The bible underpins our faith and is the building block for church life at Tree of Life.

This is our personal collection of bibles (there are a few missing scattered around the house and car) in the office just above my desk. We have goodness knows how many versions in at least 6 languages. Some are used a lot more than others, though increasingly I use e-Sword which is a brilliant bit of bible study software!

Book Week - Character Day

As part of International Book week my boys get to dress up as a favourite book character today.

Eli might not look too thrilled but he chose to go as Little Brown Mouse from The Gruffalo whilst Joel is truly thrilled to be going as Gollum from The hobbit.

So proud of their choices!

Book Week

In conjunction with World Book Day on the 1st of March the boys' school held Book Week to celebrate reading and the wealth of knowledge available in books.

All kinds of fun activities were held including DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) when the bell rang at spontaneous times each child had to stop what they were doing and read. There were competitions and dressing up as well as storytime each day. Eli guessed the quote for The Very Hungry Caterpillar correctly on Tuesday and Joel got the quote right on Wednesday which was from Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows.

Book Week

Once again the boys's school demonstrated this week why we love it so much and appreciate the wholistic approach to education that they excel at! This week was the beloved annual book week! Everyday the school had come up with various activities for the children to join in and to grow in their love and appreciation of books and reading. For example, one day they were allowed to go to school in their pyjamas and had hot chocolate.

For the whole week they were given a 'reading buddy' from a higher year and every time the bell sounded they had to Drop Everything And Read (DEAR), grab their buddy and go for it - how cool is that! Each day there was a quotation competition for the kids to have a go at guessing and winning a prize (Joel was thrilled to win on Thursday when he guessed the quote from Charlotte's Web!) and they also ran an all-week photo competition with various staff and pupils hiding behind their favourite titles!

Exhausted!

Joel is starting to master one of the best things there is to do in the whole wide world. He's starting to read himself to sleep.

Tonight's choice, after mummy had already read the next chapter of Charlie And The Chocolate factory, was Charlie Cook's Favourite Book which is a classic Julia Donaldson tale which goes full circle to end where it began.

Hmmm, think I need to join my boys in the land of nod, accompanied of course by a good book.

Book Week

It's Book Week at school this week so everyone gets to dress up today as a favourite book character. Joel chose Flat Stanley whilst Eli is Harry from Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs so he's gone to school replete with a bucketful of dinosaurs feeling very proud of himself.

Joel was a bit gutted when he arrived as so many of the kids were dressed as Ben 10 and other TV characters but Mummy pointed out that they'll all be immediately disqualified from the judging when prizes are awarded for the best and most imaginative BOOK characters. He cheered up no end at that news!

Library Challenge - A Family Of Winners!

Recently the boys school held a Library Challenge in which the pupils and parents were encouraged to read as many books as possible within a specified time-frame and then write a brief review of each book. The lower school pupils just had to write about why they liked each book and what they learnt from it.

The challenge was taken very seriously in our house with Joel really enjoying reading more than normal and Mummy getting quite competitive!

It seems to have paid off as today at school it was announced that Joel had won 1st prize in the Junior Challenge and Mummy had won 1st prize in the Parent Challenge.

Apparently Joel was totally surprised by his win and had to pick his way through the assembled mass in assembly to collect his award from the principal. We're also told that he was really proud that his Mummy had won the parents prize.

Harry Potter - Mania Madness

Sometimes you just have to laugh. The hysteria over Harry Potter is just as bad here in South Africa as it is elsewhere, with some bookshops staying open until midnight or whatever ungodly hour it was decided the book could be sold. We know this because our regular babysitter was off to join the queues.

The problem here is that South Africa generally doesn't have a book culture in the way the UK does and so books are very expensive. Harry Potter was going on sale at launch for the usual R240ish (£17). However, Paula happened to see a small notice at our local supermarket saying they would be selling the book for R149 (£10). We knew Paula would be at the supermarket around lunchtime but certainly didn't expect to find any copies left, but lo and behold, there were loads!