A second day in a Monmouthshire school. This time, Green Lane Junior School, Newport

I often marvel that I ask children to immediately accept the weird bald bloke with the musical walking stick, and, even more than that, to rise to the challenges of creativity and expressive language. The first group arrived looking a little apprehensive. Understandable maybe!

By the end of a creative and dramatic session, they were really flying with their ideas though. Well done to Craig, for taking on the role of Atrus, the owner of the mysterious, yet peaceful, greenhouse we found ourselves in. His answers truly involved his classmates in what appeared to be a fully evolved “backstory” containing some tragedy and loss. I am sure that, as one of his table-mates said, “when he becomes famous, he will be great at answering questions in an interview!”

Many times, I find that the second group in a day arrive a little more up for a challenge the moment they enter the room. Someone once said that it might be because the word gets round, on the playground, that “He doesn’t bite! If he does bite, he always gives the bits back!”

In the second lesson, they became SO involved that we didn’t even “turn round” or “move”. Some truly remarkable writing “sprang forth”. When reading her writing out, one child even put her hand up to stop my interruptions (of encouragement I might add ) so that she could complete her recital, in style.

Well done to Amelia for taking on the role of Yeesha in our trip into Myst IV:Revelation. She transported us all into “her world” and intrigued us with the strange mysteries revealed by her magical necklace.

Well done too, and thankyou, to Cheryl Barker, and her colleagues for some wonderful wanderings in the world of words.

Thank you, also, to those who responded to yesterday’s blast from the past reference to cassettes.

Here is another, really clever, design idea based on those nifty little music boxes: Swingin’ cassette-tape style a great bag design.

Even better, how about introducing your children to the old lo-fi technology by using this page at Says-IT.com to design your own virtual cassettes.