Wodensmeet – blood and christmas :)

the last ‘proper’ wodensmeet of this year.

WE had an early start as went to the ice rink [yes. again!] for 9am. we were the only people on the rink and i went on this time, but mostly ice-stood girls liked having the freedom of all that space. SB and BB love ice skating really, and wish closer to a rink for a regular skate. The deependers joined us, having got stuck in traffic, so more fun :).

we went on to zoes and were the last to arrive everyone was zentangling baubles, so the girls got going too. we grown ups giggled and chatted in festive mood whilst they did this, and then split into science and poetry.

poetry was comparing 2 poems where you had a right and wrong choice [i think] and then drawing something of an illustration. SB threw hers away as she didn’t like it. BB drew a dragon attackign a castle

science was a bit of a leap, and we discussed with the kids and grownups before organising, as it involved them pricking their fingers to get a drop of blood. i brought along some local anaesthetic gel, the blood kits [bought, sterile including sterile pricker, sterets etc] for blood group testing, and then we also made a blood film, fixing with isopropranolol and staining with eosin and haemotoxylin as i didn’t have methylene blue. all but 2 did do it, and they were v excited to see their blood groups, and even more so to look at their own blood under a microscope. for the H and S out there, everything sterile, done properly and disposed of safely .

after that my phone battery died, and i hope to ‘borrow’ someone elses flickr pics when she puts them up . I think we ended up microscoping on a high . we certainly managed to stain well and see both red and white blood cells. talked about the things in blood and how they worked, and also talked about blood groups and transfusion. Perhaps we had some erroneous results due to technique? but still .

we had lunch and then after lunch SB and E did lots of recorder together – sounding v good, and SB had a clarinet prac with EM – thankyou – as still ‘between teachers’ merry had brought christmassy material and the girls all made baubles or a christmas hat. BB designed her bauble base on the xmas decs I have bought from the happy potters, friends of ours.

finally ending with a singsong of xmas carols and a practice on the bells. Lovely day, thankyou

Em popped back to ours so SB and E could play the gluck with me accompanying, and Em the middle section. it sounded beautiful [tho i made a number of mistakes!] and we might play at christmas camp caberet