Stuck.

Exciting end to yesterday on skype.  I had forgotten that half the family were coming together yesterday including the newest member, so it was lovely to be able to see so many people together.

But today has not been so good. Spent three hours trying to unfreeze my computer so no chance of speaking to anyone or to get any work done.

Beginning to think that my year 2 students are not going to be good enough to perform either their song, dance or play on Friday.  I really needed my colleague to work with me on this and although she helped a lot with the puppets, she has only made one class since and unfortunately the children seem to have forgotten the advise that she gave them about the dance. However, the children are not helping themselves, yes they have a lot of words to learn and I know that might be challenging, but because they do not listen to each other or watch me to get guidance as to when to speak they cannot do the work, yet they should in theory know from the work that they do with other teachers that that will help. Year 1 and 0 are actually better at this, maybe because they are younger they just follow me, whereas year 2 follow each other and just get in a mess.   Strangely I found an English book that seems to have come from the Soviet times in the staff room today. It actually includes the play that the children are trying to learn.(or a version of it in English though it is a Russian tale if I understand it correctly)   The book is supposed to be for 5- 6 year olds. I think that it would be very hard for children that young to replicate it, but that does suggest that my 8 year olds should be able to get it or something approximate to what I have given them.

My colleagues all asked how I got on at Talas and then they asked for their package. Package? Apparently they were expecting me to have brought them lots of goodies from the get together, so they were very disappointed that I had returned empty handed, so perhaps I have not worked out the reason behind these doggy bags.

Just listening to the weather forecast in the UK seems like weather there is infinitely worse than here. It is stingily cold, and I think more snow is due, but the days are nice and long, and light and mainly sunny so better here at present.