Construction progress continues

While students, teachers, and cleaners enjoy their Winter Break, progress on the construction site between the two buildings has continued. The hallways are filthy and the cleaners are going to have a big job to do to get them clean before school resumes, however at least work is progressing, albeit slowly (or that's how it appears). Here are a few photos to bring you up to date.

First is shot of our new PE area, taken on 22nd December 2015. Framing for the roof was going up.

The roof is on the new PE area. Looking north west.

Looking South East at the PE area.
The roof has some sections of green poly-sheeting to let additional light in.
They are green, rather than clear, so hence the green cast on these photos.

Looking up at the roof of the PE area.
Definitely room for balls to go high in Volleyball and Basketball games.

Some of the area outside my classroom with with framing removed - 20th December 2015.
There had actually been some effort made to tidy things up.

Looking out the window from the "walkway" area towards my classroom - 26th December 2015
The white rendering definitely makes things lighter and brighter in the classroom.

This is what's going on at my end of the building. 26th December 2015.

And this is taken from my classroom looking the other way.
They're working on both ends at the same time.
26th December 2015.

I'm not sure, but from the noise going on outside my room this afternoon, they are probably also working on railings along each end of the building at the moment. I keep on shutting the doors that lead to the work area to remind the children that these areas are off limits. As you can see, cleanliness of the work site is not a priority, and we can't wait for construction to be completed, since all that cement dust gets routinely tramped inside the building all day every day. Poor cleaners. It has to be discouraging for them that 5 minutes after they mop the hallways there are dirty, dusty footprints all down them. Life's like that.

The last three photos were taken back on 22nd November, 2015 and show the progress that has been made with the new hall. We're hanging out for this space to be finished so we can be more comfortable for assemblies and other whole school events.

That's it for now. I wonder how much more will get done between now and when we resume school. I'll try and remember to take some more photos on the first day back!

Quick updates

Several weeks ago, I posted about the puppet theatre I'd created out of poly pipe, along with some photos. At the time I didn't have any of the finished product, so here's one taken during our assembly rehearsal.

The assembly went well, and the audience seemed to enjoy our presentation.

The next photo is one of nature's little gifts to me. I spotted this beauty on the way upstairs one morning. I love the symmetry in these creatures, and what was particularly amazing to me was the way the colour in this moth's wings was a perfect match for the wall it had landed on.

The last couple of days at school have been somewhat painful, as construction workers set about dismantling the scaffolding outside my classroom. Here's what it looked like by Friday afternoon. They're not finished yet, but hopefully it won't be too much longer, and I'll be able to open the blinds and windows and let some daylight and fresh air into the room.

Finally, my students have been busy on their culminating project for our Map Skills unit. In the past I've had them complete a poster about their country as well as the map, but this year I've chosen just to have them complete the map. Here's what they've come up with.

Next week each group will have to present their country to their classmates, and try to convince them why it would be good to move to their country. Later I'll display them in the hallway, with a written piece for each group, and the option for students from the grade 3 to 5 classes to vote which country they would like most.

Construction Progress

Since I last wrote things have been moving along with the centre building. There are now going to be five floors, with PE on the top (5th) floor. Hooray! I have to admit that I wasn't that excited about the thought of PE classes happening right outside my classroom. The 3rd and 4th floors will be vacant at the moment for potential expansion. The lower floors will be our eating area and a play area for the younger children (up to 2nd grade). There's going to be some shuffling of rooms in the elementary building as well, but at this stage I don't have to move! Hoping and praying that continues to be the case.

Meanwhile here are a few photos of what's being happening outside my windows.

Top left and right - almost ready to pour the 4th floor
Bottom left and right - and the pouring is done, just in time for the rain!

Anyone notice any problems here, apart from the poor quality of the photograph?
I should add that it just started raining as I took this.

Top left: This guy is obviously very important, but he certainly doesn't look excited about his work.
Top right: It's a bit hard to see, but the guy in blue is actually tapping on the framing, I suspect to make sure there are no air bubbles in the post, meanwhile the guys in the background are cleaning up a spill!
Bottom left: Cement pouring pipe in-coming.
Bottom right: Some major safety issues here. Note one of these workers is wearing rubber boots, a hard hat, and a harness which is secured to one of the rebar uprights inside the post that is being poured. The other worker is wearing flip flops, has no hard had, or safety harness, even though he's higher. A sad reflection on the value of life here.

Bottom left framing for the uprights.
Top and bottom right: Uprights set, framing removed ready for the next stage.

The forest of steel outside my classroom as they get ready to pour the next floor.

It's all very quiet outside my windows this week as the country observes Pchum Ben. Public holidays are officially from Sunday to Tuesday, but we're off until Friday, when we work one day and then get another weekend. No doubt there will be lots of action on the construction site once the holidays are over.

Little things cause a big smile

A couple of weeks ago I posted about how finding Gravox in one of the local supermarkets made me happy. Well this morning when I walked into my classroom to get my planning and prep done for the coming week I immediately spotted two things which made me smile.

After 23 days (5 weeks) of school, I finally have a power outlet behind my desk! Yay, that means I now only need one powerboard instead of a 10m extension lead plus a 4.5m powerboard plus a 3m powerboard all connected together to run the computer, data projector and speakers! Hooray!

On the same wall above that were two screws! Hooray. Now I can hang my small magnetic whiteboard and my small corkboard up. I tried other types of hooks for these items, but they just didn't work, so I've been waiting about 3 weeks for these to be installed. Unfortunately at the same time as I got sick, so did our maintenance man. Yep, little things bring a smile.

So this is what the wall behind my desk now looks like.

That white track down the corner hides the wiring for the power outlet. Very neat and tidy, thank you very much. I'm not sure it would be legal in Australia to have powerpoints on the same circuit as the air-conditioner, but I'm pretty sure that's what they've done. Hey, electricity is electricity, and I'm not going to be complaining.

While I had the camera out, I thought I'd take a couple more photos. The first is inside the classroom, showing an updated view of my English Language Arts wall, now we've started adding strategies to the CAFE board, and there are more posters up.

Finally, I've included a couple of photos of the view out of one of my classroom windows.

I now have to keep the blinds closed all the time, as there is a lot of welding going on out there. I need to protect my students' eyes (as well as those of the adults in the room). I also know that if I left the blinds open I would have several boys (and maybe some girls) who would find it very hard to concentrate on school work. The cement floor you can see is level with the third floor (the one below my classroom). There's at least one more floor still to be poured.

Well, that's it for this week. Time to finish off a few jobs, do some laundry and get some sleep.

Feeling stressed

August is here, and school starts on Wednesday 12th August. My classroom is still packed up in the old building, and my new classroom is not finished. It was almost finished when I had a look on Friday lunchtime, but absolutely nothing has happened since then. I was hoping to get stuff moved across tomorrow afternoon so I could start getting things set up on Tuesday, but that's not going to happen.

There is one wall that it not yet finished. It looks a bit like the one above, with a little big more patching over joins in the sheeting. It needs two coats of paint (primer & top coat) to finish it. I suspect it's only going to get one, but hopefully I'm wrong.

There's also a window grill (like the one in the photo above) that needs to be put back in, blinds need to be installed, and all the stuff that it is in it (construction workers living there) has to be moved out.

Once all that is done, the room has to be cleaned (it's disgusting at the moment).

After that's done all my stuff will need to be moved from the 4th floor in the old building, down to the first floor of the old building, out a window, across the first floor of the connecting building, and up to the fourth floor of the new building. This photo from two years ago will give you a bit of an idea of just how much stuff that is!

I've also got to work out how I'm going to deal with the fact that there is only one powerpoint in the whole room, and that is beside the door in the light switch! All the furniture has to be put into position, and all the boxes unpacked and everything set up ready for school to start. Please pray for me. Pray for patience. Pray for endurance. Pray for serenity. I think I need to print a big copy of the serenity prayer and post it where I can see it often:

God grant me 

the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the Courage to change the things I can,

and the Wisdom to know the difference.

A look inside the new building

Just before I headed down under I took some photos of the inside of the new building. It's looking good, but there's still quite a long way to go in some areas. We're hoping and some of us are praying that it will be ready for the start of the school year.

Clockwise from bottom left: Main staircase from the ground to first floor,
Open area on the first floor for indoor/outdoor play x 2, Internal staircase and hallway.

Some of the rooms in the new building in varying stages of progress. 

Clockwise from bottom right. Our new hall, one of the two access staircases to the new hall, another view of the new hall, one of the walkways leading from the new building to the old building.

Going, going, gone!

Halfway through May, life at East-West became a little more challenging for a while. The nursery class was moved into half of the grade 1 classroom, the two pre-school classes moved into one of the kindergarten classrooms, and the two kindergarten classes shared a room for the morning sessions. Just as well they only had to do it for 17 days. At the same time the ICT room was dismantled and there was no more ICT for the rest of the year, and some music classes had to be combined as well. Wow, I think that made me appreciate being on the 4th floor in a smaller classroom!

12 days later we also lost the swimming pool (due to major maintenance being needed), lunch eating area and the PE area. Alas, that meant that lunch had to be eaten in the classrooms (smelly and a bit messy but we survived) and recess play space was even more restricted than ever before, especially if there was a PE class going on at the same time. Thankfully it was only for 12 days. We survived, and so did the kids.

Why did all that happen? Well, they need to build another building which will contain 3 classrooms and covered play area on the ground floor, a new lunch area, and new PE spaces. It will also connect the old building with the new building, reducing some of the stair climbing to get between different classrooms. However, in order to do that, our old office building, which contained the nursery, preschool, and ICT classrooms, and the weights room, needed to be demolished. Fortunately the office was able to move into the new building, and the weights room was also moved there temporarily.

Here's a picture story of the demolition process.

19 May 2015 - First the roof came off!

22 May 2015 - Then the roof frame came down.

23 May 2015 - Then the rest of the frame came down and the roof came off other areas.

28 May 2015 - All the railings are gone (you can see them on the ground in the bottom right of the photo),
 and you can see a hole where they've started knocking out the floor.

28 May 2015 - Demolition the old fashioned way, with manual labour and sledge hammers.

1 June 2015 - Slowly but surely the building is disappearing. Farewell floors, and balcony.

2 June 2015 - Continuing the slow process. This work was mostly done by hand with occasional use of a jack hammer.

0735 hrs 8 June 2015 - Time to bring in the big guns - 

1235 hrs 8 June 2015 - This was a very noisy, dusty day. Thankful to be on the fourth floor as it was loud enough up there,

1625 hrs 8 June 2015 - Going ...

1640 hrs 8 June 2015 - going ...

1310 hrs 11 June 2015 - almost gone

I was very thankful that we took all the grade 4 students to Kids City on Tuesday 9th June. Wednesday 10th June was the last day of school, and incredibly crazy so that's why there are no photos on those days.

Gone - 12.30pm 15th June 2015.

I might add that all that was separating the demolition work from the area where our children play and do PE was a very high shade cloth "fence" (you can see it in the bottom photo).
I don't think I was the only one to breathe a sigh of relief when school finished yesterday with no major accidents to any of the children.

Alas, there will be no summer school this year! There's nowhere safe to hold it.