The benfits of having a mum who was a teacher...
...were that I always good good marks for school projects as she came up with all the ideas for them and I cobbled them together. Highlights included:

- A project to make a boat involving an empty Sterident tube some candles, a sardine tin to make a little steam boat (the other kids were jealous I got to play with fire!). There was also another back up boat made using a wedge shaped block of wood with a lump of soap at the back (something to do with breaking the surface tension forcing it forwards). My boats came last and second last behind the ones whose dad's had strapped a battery and small electric motor to a lump of 2x4 and I was gutted and ungrateful.

- A project to think up an invention and draw it. My mum came up with the spider scooper which was a sort of version of the ho-de-de-de machine your nan's used to have, expressly designed for hoovering up spiders. The best bit was the teacher liked it so much I got to skip classes for a couple of days while I made a prototype with the caretaker.

- A project on owls which I swear the teacher only loved as I selotaped a plastic bag with an owl pellet in the back along with more tape with examples of shrew jawbones from the aformentioned pellet. Shrews must be tiny.

I'm not sure I appreciated it all at the time as she set me working in my room but in retrospect it was all great so thanks mum!
(bigjonnydynamite, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 15:06, 1 reply)

You get a click for the Eddie Izzard...
But sympathy for having a parent as your teacher!
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 15:10, closed)