Maker Class is Now in Session

New Awesomeness in Arts & Crafts

A couple of years ago, William and me used to watch a show called Mister Maker. It was basically just this one guy creating all types of different things, but for two boys so keen on arts and crafts it was super inspiring.

And even as we've got older, we still love creating things. So it's no surprise that in my first year at intermediate school, the class I loved the most was the technical one - and especially when we did DML (Design, Make, Learn). I spent loads of lunchtimes working on woodcut and laser printed creations that I'd designed on computer and then painstakingly made. Most of these were presents for Mum, Dad and William. And it's because of all the time I spent working on these that I was selected by the teachers to be in the special Maker Class this year.

William's also kind of following in my footsteps, though the things he's been creating are a little bit different.

With so many cool creations under our belt, Dad decided it was time to showcase them. So here's the story behind some of the cool things we've made in the last few months.

But doing this got me thinking: Dad's always behind the camera (or phone) in these videos, never in front of them. And he's actually created something pretty cool himself. So now the presenter becomes the director, as I turn the camera (well, phone) on Dad to tell us the story behind the book he wrote.

I'm tempted to ask which ones you thought were best, but I already know the answer: mine. The other guys' efforts were pretty good too, but in this house, there's only room for one Mister Maker - and that's Ollie.

Dr Ollie the Vet

Presenting a Day in the Life (x8)

Our focus this term at school was on careers. Ever since I was little I wanted to be a paleontologist - digging up dinosaur bones and discovering a new species that I could name the Olliesaurus.

But something else I've always loved are animals and now I'm starting to wonder whether being a vet might be a better career for me. It would mean I get to spend all day with some furry friends, plus I wouldn't have to go to the other side of the world for dino digs half the year.

So when our teacher gave us the project to create and deliver a presentation on a career, I decided I'd choose being a vet.

With a little help from Dad and Mum, I came up with a great presentation which I delivered in front of the class. In fact, so good was it that the teacher said it was the best presentation he'd seen and I ended up having to present it 8 times! Once to the class, once to the deputy principal, once to the principal, four times to parents at a class careers expo day, and once to Dad, which you can watch below. It even got me a special, super rare badge, which you might be able to see on my sleeve.

So, Dr Ollie proudly presents: A day in the life of a vet.

Ice-capades & Cat-astrophes

Spending time in wintertime

The months are flying past so quickly this year, it's hard to keep this blog up to date. Of course, it'd be easier to come up with stuff to write about if we'd been doing lots of super cool things, like jetting off on overseas holidays, but that's a story for next year...

I've been busy this year at intermediate school, learnings lots of fun new subjects (more on this later...), but one thing I've still not learned is balance. Some people have such great balance they're made to be skaters. Other people are like me...

Ouch! Well, that ended badly. And of course, Mum was there to capture it all on video so we can watch it over and over again, forever. Nooooo! But soon we were at the emergency clinic having a doctor check my teeth and jaw. Everything was fine, but I might stay away from skating for a while.

One of the best things about intermediate school are the different tech subjects we learn. Every month we do a new one, like cooking, photography and drama, but my favourite so far has to be DML: Design, Make, Learn. We had to design and then 3D-print something over the course of a few weeks, and being a big cat fan, I decided to make a cat. And here it is...

Unfortunately during the making of it, the cat's tail broke off, but I was able to cunningly fix it so no-one would ever know. Now that deserves a round of a-paws!

Getting crafty with new tech is fun, but sometimes the old ones are the best. So every school holidays, William and me unpack the masses of Lego pieces we have and get creative. Most times hours go by while we're building, and it's only when my tummy tells me it's food time that we take a break.

Next month it'll be October, and that means even more fun with a long weekend away and trick-or-treating at Halloween. Can't wait!

End of an Era

School’s out!

Waaaay back in the middle of 2018, I had my daycare graduation from Learning Tree and had my first day at primary school. Skip ahead five and a half years and here I am now, a ten year-old about to graduate from school.

It’s strange thinking back to when I started, I can hardly remember it. That was before anyone knew what a coronavirus was, and Mum and dad were working in offices every day, so I’d be at school about 7 every morning and not picked up until 5. Not much time for after-school gaming or iPad-watching in those long days!

One thing that stayed the same throughout my time at primary school was my love of the library. Just about every long break, after I’d scoffed down the last of my lunch, I’d go to the library to read, look for new books and just hang out.

Eventually I was there so often that I became a reliever librarian, helping to check books out for other kids and returning books to the shelves. It also meant I could get into the library at times other kids couldn’t, which was a dream.

One of the things I’m most proud of from my time at school was in Year Five, when I was the only one in the whole school to complete the Science Club. Sure, Mum and Dad had to nudge me (okay, tell me) to do the work on the weekends sometimes, but I proudly received my badge at assembly and wore it every day after.

Near the end of Year Six we had to come up with what we thought our ideal job would be. This was an easy one for me. I’ve always been interested in dinosaurs and know lots about the prehistoric world. I fantasize about discovering a new species and being able to name it the Olliesaurus Rex. So my sign on the wall read: “Future paleontologist”.

In my time at school, I’ve had some nice teachers and made some good friends. Some have moved away, some are still around, and some will be going with me to intermediate next year, where the next era for me begins.

Game on!

 Join the Space Race

We started 2021 with high hopes of holidays, school and getting out and about, without having more lockdowns and needing to stay trapped inside. And that's almost completely happened... except for two separate weeks at the end of last month.

Then it was back to online learning and trying to find ways to be creative when we couldn't go out. One of the challenges my teacher set was to create a new board game. This was one for me - I love board games! My favourite is the Dogman game, but I also love Connect 4, Guess Who and lots of others.

Another thing I love is space - so why not combine space and gaming to create a cool new board game called: Space Race! Watch my video to find out how it works.

I shared it with my class online and the teacher thought it was great. We've played it a couple of times at home too, so now when we want to play something after dinner we can grab the dice and play the game I made!

Dino Tails and Scary Tales

More coronavirus creativity

It's been over a month now since we started our lockdown at home because of the coronavirus. The first week wasn't very fun - Mum and Dad were busy working, I was missing my friends from school and I was bored just being stuck in the house.

But since then it's actually become pretty fun. William and me get to play with our toys in the dining room where the table used to be (and which is now in William's room for Mum and Dad to work on), there's a great school app that I love doing maths puzzles on with my iPad, and being at home gives me lots of time to get creative.

Dad challenged me to come up with some different drawings, and the first one I did was this picture of some dinosaurs next to a volcano. There's an Ankylosaurus being eaten by a Velociraptor, and a T-Rex snarling at the top.

One of the things I love as much as dinosaurs is space, so I drew a picture of the International Space Station. We even got to see the real International Space Station up in the sky one night - it was flying past so fast and I was the first one to find it.

Plus of course I still love drawing transformers, and this is one which turns into a fier (fire) truck.

As well as drawing, I'm also still writing stories. This is a short one but a scary one, about a vampire spider...

The coronavirus is still out there in the world, so it looks like we're going to be stuck at home for a few more weeks yet. If it goes on too long I'm going to run out of things to draw and write about!

The Lockdown Lowdown

Sharing rooms and space

It's been three weeks now since we started the lockdown at home because of the coronavirus. Guess they didn't find a cure for it overnight then. So there's still no school for me, no daycare for William, no driving to work for Mum and Dad...

And no separate bedrooms for William and me. We've been sharing our room for weeks now, but most of the time it's going well. It's nice to be able to have a chat as soon as we wake up, and sometimes I get to read to William before we go to bed at night (if we haven't been naughty and told off the night before).

More days at home means more time for getting creative. Today I asked Dad what he wanted me to draw and he said "pirates", so here's my drawing of a pirate on a desert island with his pirate ship floating in the sea nearby (ignore the pencil marks by the mast, I made a bit of a mistake there).

I also did this drawing of a house in the rain, and of course just about every day I draw a picture of a transformer. This is a bad guy transformer I drew for Dad (you can tell because it says "to mikeile" at the top), which transforms from a robot into a somearing (submarine).

Some people said they liked the last stories I wrote but that they were a bit scary, so this time I wrote a story about another of my favourite things: space. Here's me reading my space story about the end of the world.

What's going to happen next? When will schools go back? Will the lockdown finish before William's birthday so we can have a proper party for him? Nobody knows, but as long as I have my colouring pens, pads and paper (plus plenty of food) I'll be just fine.

Keeping Creative During Coronavirus

Scary tales of isolation

Just when I was having a nice time at school, going out places in the sunshine and planning a family holiday later in the year... the coronavirus happened.

I don't really know what a coronavirus is - William think it's something big, like a bear, which will chase us if it sees us. Whatever it is, it can make people really sick, so while the coronavirus is outside we have to stay inside. That means I'm now sharing my room with William since Mum and Dad are using his bedroom as an office to do their work.

Because nobody is allowed to go out anywhere, that means school is shut. But the teachers say I still need to keep up with school work, so I've been doing some creative things while I've been stuck at home - like drawing pictures.

That one above is of a permerd (pyramid) in egept (Egypt). You can see all the steps up the sides of the pyramids and the spings (sphinx) which is guarding them. It's very hot in Egypt, as you can see because the temperature is 1000 degres.

I've done some other great drawings too, like this space book I made for Dad, including planet Earth, rockets, the sun and even the international space station. The drawing next to it is of a transformer robot, which turns into... well, just read the description I wrote.

But it's not just art I've been working on. I've also been writing stories, just like I normally do in class. These are two of the scary stories I've written - one about a skeleton and one about a vampire. Hope they're not too frightening for you!

So those are some of the creative things I've done during our first week of being stuck at home during the coronavirus. I'll share some more with you next time.

Watch and Learn

Starting School

Oh this school stuff is easy! I don't know what Mum and Dad were worried about. Mummy even took two whole days off work to drop me off, make sure I was okay, then pick me up later. She may as well have gone to work and got more money for me.

It's already been a whole month of school. A month ago I was still racing around at daycare, and now here I am at school. Well actually, I'm now in school holidays - two weeks holiday after only four weeks at school! Oh this school stuff is easy...

There's a lot of things school has different from daycare. Clothing for a start - I now have to wear a uniform every day, like on my very first day in the pic above.

Everything goes by the bell too - we only start class, go for breaks, eat snacks and finish class when the bell goes. Luckily going toilet isn't quite as strict or by the time the bell went they might have to send a cleaner in to mop the floor.

I guess we do have proper lessons now too; a little bit like at daycare, but with a lot more listening to the teacher and working in our workbooks. I've got a cool soundbook where we find photos, draw pictures and write words beginning with a different letter each week; it's also the homework I'm supposed to do, but which I often seem to forget when I'm racing to go on my iPad.

But there are a lot of things the same as daycare too - bringing books home to read every day, activities and art in class, even the long days since I go to before and after school care. That's actually helped my education too - on one of my first days I learned about Nutella on toast, my new favourite breakfast!

One of the activities I got to do was a cross-country run with all the other kids, around the edge of our sports field. Small snag though: I didn't quite understand what the deal was with the spare clothes I was supposed to get changed into for running, so put these on over the top of my uniform, then went running wearing everything! Lucky there weren't spare shoes to put on too, or that would have got uncomfortable.

Our school's been going through a lot of construction for ages now. But luckily not long after I started the new library opened - so I got to visit on the first day and take a book out. How cool having my very own library so handy.

The last day of term we had a special visitor at school: an air force helicopter. It flew in and landed on our field; it made so much noise I had to block my ears. We all got to crowd around and have a look inside; that's me on the bottom right just behind my teacher with the white puffer jacket.

I think school is starting to change me a little bit though, either from being in a new class, having a special teacher, or having bigger kids around. Mum and Dad say I'm becoming more authoritative, or exerting my authority more. Like when I use "no" when I'm explaining a difference of opinion, rather than just refusing to do something like I used to.

But that's only to be expected - I am a big boy of five now, after all. A big boy with two weeks of holidays stretching ahead. Yay, this school stuff is easy!