Blue peter, sticky backed plastic and brown paper covers

yoyo123 · Post by **yoyo123** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 7:41 pm

pheasantchick wrote:I hated covering books as I always ended up getting bubbles on the covers from peeling back the backing from the sticky plastic. However, it was always satisfying when you did a book perfectly without any bubbles.

I was so chuffed with the advent of laminators, I have horrible memories of being a newly qualified teacher and trying to make game boards , covering them with sticky backed plastic, there were lumps and bumps all over and lots of unteacherly language...

young folk today don;t know how lucky they are.....

(mind you at least I had photocopiers, my 'other half' in the job share had had to use a banda machine

Sally-Anne · Post by **Sally-Anne** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 7:56 pm

yoyo123 wrote:my 'other half' in the job share had had to use a banda machine

I used to love those - the smell of the chemicals was absolutely glorious. My Mum was a teacher and I always volunteered to help with the school newsletters. I just looked it up on Wikipedia:

The aroma of pages fresh off the Ditto machine combined with the cool touch from the evaporating alcohol was a memorable feature of school life for those who attended in the ditto machine era. A pop culture reference to this is to be found in the film Fast Times At Ridgemont High. At one point a teacher hands out a dittoed exam paper and every student in the class immediately lifts it to his or her nose and inhales.

Amber · Post by **Amber** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:11 pm

I have horrible memories of being a newly qualified teacher and trying to make game boards , covering them with sticky backed plastic, there were lumps and bumps all over and lots of unteacherly language...

Yes, me too! I remember making 'pig dominoes' - I bought some nice wrapping paper with little pigs on and painstakingly cut them out, then made dominoes with them and covered them all in sticky-backed plastic. And people say teachers don't deserve their long holidays.

And, oh for the banda machine! I had to use one at the first school I taught at in London, and always had purple fingers because I couldn't get the hang of priming it. The secretary developed a hatred of me which I think was solely based on my incompetence with the banda machine. Oddly enough, I was longing for its blurry paleness just a couple of weeks ago when I was designing a pencil control sheet for a pupil - on the banda you could knock one up really quickly and tailor it to the topic or season (this was an Easter egg) - and because it was quite feint, you could see exactly which lines the child had made. Photocopiers make everything so bold and sharp that you can't see what a child has done unless they use a felt tip, and the effect is not nearly so aesthetic.

Not everything was rosy though - anyone remember Roger Red Hat?

yoyo123 · Post by **yoyo123** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:40 pm

no, but I have a soft spot for fuzzbuzz

Ed's mum · Post by **Ed's mum** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:08 pm

Just for you Amber:

Amber · Post by **Amber** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:15 pm

Aagh...you will give me nightmares!

When I first started teaching, way back in the late 80s, all the staff of the school I was working at used to go to the pub on Friday lunchtimes. Most of them used to have a couple of drinks, too (imagine the scandal now!). For the first few weeks, I had a glass of wine too, but as every primary teacher knows, Friday afternoons are the time to whistle through your readers so they can have a new book for the weekend. This was in the days before TAs and even parents in the classroom (they might have smelt our breath!). I had a reception class - and after a unit or 2 of alcohol, listening to about 25 kids stumbling through 'here is Roger Red Hat...here is Billy Blue hat...Here is Jennifer Yellow Hat..' one was jolly nearly asleep.

I soon stopped the lunchtime wine and have never managed it since. But I still have bad memories of Roger, Billy, Sita and Gopal!

neurotic kent mum · Post by **neurotic kent mum** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:33 pm

Roger Red Hat, Jennifer Yellow Hat and oh that picture Ed's mum. I taught children to read with those books. And I loved the colours I could make with the banda machine - enlivened my RE lessons. Worries me this thread. Are all the inhabitants of Hotel California ( 11 + Forum) teachers???!!

Ed's mum · Post by **Ed's mum** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:43 pm

It's currently looking that way NKM!

Post by **hermanmunster** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:49 pm

I'd forgotten Banda machines... pages and pages of purple handwriting !

neurotic kent mum · Post by **neurotic kent mum** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:02 pm

Purple RE pictures - sadly can only remember the RE ones. And I began teaching children with Roger Red Hat in the early 1980s! I still remember the smell of the banda machine. And the fight to get to it on a monday morning. Miss it really. But do think interactive whiteboards have revolutionised teaching.