Happy colours!

While I'm limping on, waiting for some treatment for this thyroid gland virus, I really cannot be bothered to take photos. This is unfortunate, as I clearly can be bothered to blog. So I need to find something for you to look at! I was in need of some happy photos myself last night, and I though of Flickr. Obviously, loads of you are completely conversant with Flickr and all the clever things you can do on it, but not me. I had a yahoo account but it time-lapsed on me.

But I sought and found the Granny Chic group. Oh Happy Day!

The colours are just so stunningly cheerful.

And I have one or two photos from the last year which are that happy myself.I tracked them down last night.Happy!And I reactivated my yahoo account, which took a little while.And then this morning I joined the Granny Chic group and popped five photos (you have a maximim of five a week) onto it.And they have been accepted! (The fear of rejection was on me for a moment.)Therefore I can tell you that the Granny Chic group not only has great images in it, but it is also swiftly (and of course tastefully) moderated. Very impressive.I never showed you the cushion above, because I upcycled it for my sister for Christmas.

You've seen these doilies made into loads of things!

The restorative power of a good dose of red and blue.

Colour is essential!

This week I've had several reasons to reflect on how important colour is - not only in our homes and clothes but also in learning! This is how the week went...
I bought a huge pack of whiteboard pens for home and teaching, and Son 2 was transformed from a sulky boy who deeply resented his spelling homework into a model student - all because of colour!

My French teacher, Francoise, has had me polishing up my masculine/feminine nouns (always a problem for non-native speakers) by making a red pot and a blue pot, and filling them with words I encounter! This is an unsually hands-on method of learning for the French - Francoise is great! I used some of the charming polkadot paper from my Easter craft packs to decorate the pots this week.Then I started looking at the use of colour in my own teaching. I spray-painted these wooden letters years ago. Here my youngest pupil, who is just learning to read, is using them. The consonants are blue and the vowels are red, a well-known strategy for helping children to see the patterns in spelling and how vowels differ from the rest of the letters! See the patterns...
They are also useful when you're older - another pupil here is using them to make the word 'people', which is one of those horrible little words, isn't it? He'd got a bit of a mental block with writing it, so we switched to making it with the letters, which he can feel and see, and ended up timing him - he can now make the word 'people' perfectly in about 6 seconds!

So, I think that colour is not just an indulgence in life, but is frankly part of what makes life work. It's wonderful to live in a colourful world!

Coming this week...

I've discovered a lovely idea in blogging - the inspirational creator of The Little Red Hen has instigated a Colour Week, and invited bloggers to join in with colour-themed posts of their own. As you can see, I've missed the first rainbow, but I get a second go next Sunday, so that's OK. I also missed red but I'm gearing up for a great splash of orange (see below for ideas) later today. The full week will go as follows:

Sunday- rainbow of color
Monday - red
Tuesday - orange
Wednesday - yellow
Thursday - green
Friday - blue
Saturday - violet
Sunday - finish it all off with another rainbow of color.

If you click on the link above you can scroll down to a list of all the other bloggers who are taking part, and have a wonderful colourful week!

I'm looking forward to Friday, personally.