Mrs O'Hare's First Blog!
Date: 31st Mar 2020 @ 6:42pm
Hi Class 8! Welcome to Mrs O’Hare’s first EVER blog! 
This is going to be my way of keeping in touch with you regularly. Although I’m not entirely sure what day it is today (!) I’m aiming to write to you at least once a week with news from O’Hare Towers and some recommendations of things you can be doing to occupy yourselves, keep out of trouble and generally give your brain a little workout to stop it from turning to mush while we’re away from the classroom. 
First of all, can we talk about Joe Wicks? I mean, is he trying to kill us?!? 
Last Monday, Clemie (5) and I watched his first PE Lesson to the world. I was a bit gutted because I was hoping to be the Nation’s PE teacher but I was busy having my breakfast with Clemie at the time. We promised each other we’d do Tuesday’s as it looked fairly straight-forward and dare I say it, easy. I was wrong. Clemie and I were up and ready in the living room at 9am Tuesday. By 9.05 I was alone in my quest to keep fit, with an audience of one (too much effort so she sat on the sofa laughing at me instead). Having said that, I did enjoy it and vowed to make it a daily thing, with or without Clem. HOWEVER! By evening I was a bit achy and the following morning I could barely get out of bed. I had to dig into my emergency Coronavirus painkillers and it was Friday before I could sit down or stand up without making proper old lady noises. So of course I did it again on Saturday (Friday’s lesson) and again on Monday morning. Once again I’m on the painkillers, this time because my hand is all sore and swollen from those Bear Crawls! I thought I was fairly fit with all my swimming and running but Joe has other ideas with his squats and lunges. How many of you are doing them? I bet you’re proving to be much fitter than me!
Also last week we spent a lot of time in the garden because the weather was so nice. It’s not a massive garden but it’s a nice little space with a slide and a swing for Clemie. Her favourite lockdown activity is standing on the top of the slide talking to Next-Door Noah who’s 6 months older than her and stands on the top of his slide to talk back. My favourite thing to do is play SWINGBALL! I’m not sure if our neighbours in the other houses like either of these things because Clemie’s quite a loudmouth and the constant ‘thud, thud, thud, thud’ of me batting a ball to and fro must be quite annoying. We planted our seeds in our veggie garden too. Last year Mr Lafferty very kindly came to ours and took up our rotten old decking and used the good planks to build a raised bed for us to grow things in. We had a good crop of tomatoes, peas and carrots last year, even though Clemie had wanted to grow chocolate! If only, eh?! 
So I’m wondering what you’ve all been up to, whether you’ve been working through your packs of activities or accessing the online things we’ve suggested. You probably think poor Clemie has to stick to a timetable and is getting all her work done like she’s supposed to. Well I must say she’s not a very good home school pupil at all! I hope she works harder for her real teacher in school than she does for me, I can barely get her to sit for 5 minutes each day without throwing a tantrum about it (her not me!) She’s reading every day though, and doing some basic maths skills (sums) that her teacher has set her, I hope you’re managing to do at least that. 
I hope you’re all getting on ok with the others in your house. Being kind is probably the most important thing I can say to you right now. That and staying home and staying safe. Did you all clap for the NHS last Thursday night? We all did round here, the front line workers are so brave. We’ve got a lot of rainbows in windows by ours. Clemie has created a World of Lego in the front window to entertain passers-by. One of her friends who came by has chalked her name on the pavement outside ours so we went out this afternoon (for emergency chocolate rations) and took our chalk for Clemie to sign the pavement outside her friends’ houses too. Her boyfriend (William, also 5) got a heart on his, and her previous boyfriend Finn will likely be confused when he sees ‘eimelC’ chalked on the pavement outside his. How are you all keeping in touch with each other? 
So, onto recommendations: frank_cottrell_boyce on Instagram! 
He’s reading The Astounding Broccoli Boy in parts AND doing creative writing sessions. All you need to join in with his creative writing is a pen and some paper. I know a lot of authors and celebs are doing similar things but I know he’s a favourite of Class 8. Well, you didn’t think I was going to recommend Joe ‘The Teacher-Killer’ Wicks, did you?!?
Sending you all love and strength,
Mrs O’Hare 