12 children between the ages of 4 and 7, glue, paint, leaves, worms and spiders - "what could possibly go wrong?" I hear you cry.
Yay, I'm running a kid's Nature Club at last!! Woo hoo! I've wanted to do it for years and I've finally bitten the bullet (or should that be "bitten off more than I can chew"?).
So what could possibly go wrong?
Well actually (I really shouldn't say this because it's just asking for trouble) - nothing so far - all is well...
Oh wait... yes of course - there were the escapee paint-covered conkers rolling around on the classroom carpet. Oh and the accidental smashing of a sellotape dispenser & the shame of handing dirt-covered children back to their parents...
After 45 minutes of shouting, running, squabbling, painting, sticking and shrieking every week I'm truly shattered, but I'm loving (most of) it!
So far we have made pipe cleaner spiders:
We've met a cockchafer larvae, 6 butterfly caterpillars, 5 damselfly larvae, 2 crane flies, a garden spider, a daddy-long-legs spider, countless worms, snails & wood lice and a cross earwig.
We've made leaf fireworks:
We've done conker painting (hence the paint-covered carpet) and I've hole-punched a whole pile of pretty autumn leaves so that we could thread them onto string to make decorations.
We've made spider paper aeroplanes, coloured in some lovely autumn pictures & stuck seeds, leaves & twigs into scrap books with many, many strips of sellotape.
We've also wiped down the toilet mirrors A LOT after washing our hands and I have shouted "stop playing with Mrs Keeler's electric pencil sharpener" more times than I can count, but boy have we had fun!
But, I just couldn't do it without my girls, who are the best little helpers anyone could ask for, and if it hadn't been for Sharon, the school Family Liaison Officer (who probably regrets ever saying she'd be more than happy to help), I doubt I would have lasted more than a week!
