Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity.

I HAVE TIME TO BLOG! :) Who knew I'd be so busy during the luxuriously long summer holidays that I have off?! After two beautiful weeks relaxing by a pool in Spain, I've been playing catch up with all my work and slowly ticking off the to-do list ready for the new term in September. The start of my NQT year is fast approaching now and I'm starting to feel the nerves!

It was finally time to get back into school today (I don't just laze around for the entire six weeks... well... almost) and I spent all day moving tables, laminating, making displays and generally organising my new classroom. Here is what it looked like when I arrived at 8:30 this morning...

It was quite an inspiring classroom when it was left for me but I had to take down everything that was blu-tacked for the massive Summer clean. After a lot of muscle work and hours of laminating and stapling it finally looked a little bit like this...

There were loads of ideas on Pinterest that I wanted to integrate into my first classroom so it was an exciting day having them all come together. You can check out my classroom ideas/inspiration board here and see if you can spot any of them in my classroom. 

I've grouped the children into tables and named them after British olympians and paralympians which ties into our 'Growing Together topic'. We are going to be looking into healthy living and ending the half term with a study of ancient greek olympics. There are lots of creative links that make absolute sense I promise!

I've switched the literacy and numeracy boards and backed them with lovely bright colours so that the classroom is nice and fresh even for the children that spent last year in there. My numeracy board still has some work left to do tomorrow but it has certainly brightened up that corner!

The 'UP' inspired display has been in progress since our moving up morning. I asked the children to write down what they wanted to achieve this year on a balloon so that their aspirations could metaphorically lift the house and we'd be 'growing together'. See what I did there? ;) The bookcase and desk area is sooooo much better and more accessible now too. I want to create a really attractive reading environment/chill out zone so that the children will be more encouraged to use the space. The post box is a nice touch from the old classroom, I will be using it for children to write down any problems or feelings that they might not like to talk about.

Now for the super geeky, keen teacher bit. I have been sooooo picky about the organisation of the classroom. To be honest I think it was made worse by the two weeks cover I did back in July because I had to teach according to someone else's rules until Summer. I literally couldn't wait to replace the visual timetable, figure out a way around the CONSTANT pencil sharpening and move the desk so things didn't fall off the back.

Visual Timetable - I like my timetable to have a simple image and phrase so that it doesn't take up loads of room on the board. These editable square images from twinkl are really lovely and completely free! They have a huge range of resources and I definitely recommend checking them out. I used their mini-beast borders during placement and the children loved them.

Pencil Hospital - I really hope this works, I can't cope with children spending more than five minutes sharpening their pencil to a perfect point. All children will have their own pencil and when it snaps, they can replace it with a pencil from the 'ready to work pot' and leave their pencil in the 'pencil hospital' pot. Then I can have monitors to use the 'pencil doctors' (sharpeners) to fix all the poorly pencils. Genius. Just genius.

Caught you being awesome! - For a bit of positive behaviour reinforcement, I will be giving away raffle tickets to children who are caught doing something awesome in my classroom. It could be for effort, manners, being a good friend or whatever really. They write their name on a ticket and pop it in the treasure chest at the end of the lesson. At the end of the week I will choose two names from the chest and they get a little prize from the box. Children should soon realise that the more times their name is in, the more chance they have. Probability objective ticked? :P

Lollypop sticks - I'm sure all my NQT friends will be using this idea already. Write the names of your class on lollypop sticks. Obviously I had to recruit Ryan to do mine because of my weird wet wood phobia. Theeen you have a lucky dip of names when you want a 'no hands up' class discussion.

Even though I am totally knackered, I am excited to get back into school and finish sorting out the rest of my classroom tomorrow! :) September NQTs... please let me know if you come accross any other ideas. I will be intently following my Pinterest feed in the meantime!

Hungry?

Last Sunday Ryan took me to see the YUMI community garden as he always talks about it and I am helping out with their street festival in York on Saturday 31st August. We were all talking about baking with vegetables, because Ryan had made his first ever beetroot brownies, and I was inspired to do some baking myself!

Apple Cake with Honey Icing 

This recipe is from Innocent Drink's cookbook that's full of really good stuff, Hungry? You can buy yourself a copy here :) I got this recipe back in second year and some of you might remember the beetroot brownies that I had a go at making; as well as egg frittata muffins and lentil curry it seems! Anyway, apple cake...

Ingredients:
250g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
200ml olive oil (I used sunflower oil)
75g caster sugar
seeds from 1 vanilla pod (I used vanilla essence)
zest of 1 lemon
2 free range eggs
2 apples - peeled, cored and chopped

200g icing sugar
4 tablespoons of lemon juice
4 tablespoons of honey

How to:
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C/ 350 degrees F/Gas Mark 4. You'll need two 23cm cake tins, buttered and the bases lined with grease proof paper. (I made smaller individual cakes with a silicone tray)

Mix the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and backing powder in a bowl and set aside.

In a second bowl, whisk the oil, sugar, vanilla seeds and lemon zest. Now whisk in one of the eggs, followed by the apples, and mix again.

Start to add the flour bit by bit, whisking as you go, until you have a smooth batter. Leave to stand.

Seperate the second egg and keep the yolk for another time (if you want to). Put the egg white into a bowl and whisk until stiff peaks form (um what? I just did it until it was more foamy than runny). Carefully fold the whisked egg white into the batter. You want to be delicate here, to keep as much air in the mixture as possible.

Pour the mixture into the lined cake tins and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Once golden on top, allow to cool on a rack while you make the  icing.

Sieve the icing sugar into a mixing bowl and add the lemon juice bit by bit, followed by the honey. This is a loose icing that will dribble off the sides of your cake, so don't worry if it seems a little runny.

Once the cake is completely cool, dot a few holes across the top with a metal skewer and spoon the icing all over, allowing it to dribble down the sides of the cake.

Red Thai Pork

I picked up a book called 'Easy everday healthy' by Lesley Waters in TkMaxx last summer (you can buy it here) and to be honest I haven't really used it! So I decided to try out this recipe on Thursday night. Poor Ryan and Tom were my guinea pigs but it actually turned out okay after what felt like HOURS of stir frying on our rubbish induction hob.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped (watery eye alert)
225g of pork tenderloin
2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
500g carton of passata
1 tablespoon of sugar
350g French beans, topped and tailed (I used spinach instead)
Freshly ground black pepper
Coriander or small basil leaves to garnish (naaaah, not that fancy)

How to:
Heat the olive oil in a large shallow pan (ha, good one induction hob), add the chopped red onion and cook over a gentle heat for 10 minutes until soft and golden.

Meanwhile, cut the pork into 5mm (1/4 inch) pieces. Turn up the heat under the pan to high, add the pork and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes until evenly coloured. (Again, induction hob fail... 20 minutes)

Stir in the Thai red curry paste and cook for 1 minutes. Pour in the passata and the sugar and stir well. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and gently simmer for 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, (if you want beans) blanch the French beans in boiling water for 1 minute, then drain and refresh under cold water; drain again and cut into short lengths. Add the beans to the curry and cook for a further 1 minute. (If you want spinach just add it to the curry and let it wilt)

(The fancy-pancy bit)

Season with pepper to taste. Scatter coriander or basil leaves over the curry and serve accompanied by Thair fragrant rice, and yoghurt if you like.