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Saturday, 7 November 2015

Five for Friday!




I am linking up with Kasey at Doodlebugs Teaching for a Five for Friday!  
What a busy week it has been!


Technically this is from last week but it certainly needs to be shared and anyway, sometimes we just gotta break the rules.


We had a Halloween dress up last week at school to raise money for Brain Cancer.  Of course I had to go as the Wicked Witch, it was so much fun!




We have been investigating mixing in our Chemical Science unit and I couldn't resist a little bit of Sci-Art, heehee.  Our students chose two primary colours to mix to make a new colour.  We then cut out circles to create a Kandinsky inspired class collage.




This is my amateur effort to create an x-box one cake.  We celebrated my son's 11th birthday this weekend, time has gone too quickly!  One more year at Primary school and then he is off to high school. I. Just. Can't.







I am so in love with Jamberry Nail Wraps! It just suits my lifestyle, no dry time, durable and easy to apply.  I love them so much I have become a consultant and I am excited to see where this journey will take me!




Sometimes you just have to let loose and be  a kid  with your kids :) 

Hope you all have a great week!







Sunday, 11 October 2015

Term 4, No Chore!




Hi friends!

We are heading in to Term 4 here in Australia, the end of the year is in sight and that means a busy, time coming up!  Even though this last term can be filled with fun activities it seems like there is always so much to do besides teaching as another year wraps up, cleaning, sorting, passing on information to new teachers, end of year concerts and performances...the list could go on and on.

To help keep you on the right track I have teamed up with some of my favourite blogging buddies with some simple tips and tricks to get you and your students through to the end :)

After you have read through this make sure you head over to my bloggy friends to see more tips!

I have 2 easy and simple things to share with you to help ease the transition from one year to the next for your students.

1.  If your school has a transition time for kiddos going up a grade then that is great!  This is such a wonderful time for them to get a feel for their new classroom or area of the school and lets face it some of our kiddos need lots of time to get used to a new setting.  In addition to the mandated transition visit, I like to take my class to the new area of the school at different times of the day, for example my Year 2 kiddos will be eating lunch with the primary students next year in a different area, so I will take them to eat lunch a few times before the end of the year.  I also take them on a "new playground tour" so they are aware of the boundaries and area they will be playing in.  We often detour through the new area on our way to library or PE, it only takes a few minutes more and is very reassuring for some of my kiddos to be able to familiarise themselves.  I have found this particularly useful for my special needs students.



2.  Have your current class write a letter to the incoming class, this can be done as a whole class or individually.  We leave each letter on desks so the incoming students are able to read them on their transition day, the smiles on their faces shows how much it helps them.  We then display them on the bulletin board for the first few days back at school the next year.  This is a great way for them to gain an understanding of classroom routines and expectations as well as letting them know a little bit about your through the eyes of your students. New parents may also find this information useful when visiting your classroom for the first time.  Words written by children can be very powerful!



Just to help ease the pain of the end of year busy, I am giving away a $10 TpT Voucher, just enter the Rafflecopter to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Now make sure you check out the other fab bloggers who have some end of year tips and tricks for you


 You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, TpT or Pinterest for more great ideas!



Wednesday, 30 September 2015

Yikes!

Yikes, yikes and yikes!  I cannot believe it has been a whole month since I last blogged!  I wouldn't blame you for thinking I had fallen off the face of the earth, the truth is I have just plain been busy! But now I am on holidays and enjoying the finer things in life :)

So I could do a huge dump on you about all of the things I have been doing over the last month but I won't bombard you with it.  Instead I am going to share just a couple of things.

Fractions have been our big focus in both my Grade 2 and 3 class and we have been doing loads of different activities.  This was how we could show the fraction of an amount, it was super easy to do and helped those kiddos move from just showing the fraction of a shape to showing a fraction of a collection.



We have been using lots of different strategies to help with reading.  This one was my very own idea (although I am sure it is not original!)  So I noticed my kiddos were really bombing in comprehension but were considered to be 'good readers.' Truly they could decode some really tricky words but had no idea what the word meant, this then lead on to not understanding what they had just read and no or little comprehension.  So we started off by writing down words we weren't sure of as we were reading, then finding out what it meant and re reading.  This was a bit cumbersome and kids would lose where the words had been written in their books, so I gave each group a stack of sticky notes and they stuck them write on the page where the words were, found our what they meant, discussed with the group and then re read.  I cannot tell you how much their comprehension has sky rocketed with the added bonus of increasing vocabulary.  Peeps this has been a gamechanger in my room.



We have also been using sticky notes in our spelling books to record ways we can remember to spell words, what we notice about words and sharing these with others. I have been getting students to work in pairs to write a "noticing' about a word and then their partner to write a word/s that would also fit with the criteria ( I didn't say criteria to them, I said noticing which I know isn't strictly correct but that's the way we roll)




My gorgeous team mate Louise got our kids to make these adorable portraits of their Dad's for Fathers Day.  This Dad always wears sunglasses on his head, isn't funny the things kids notice!  On the back they wrote 10 Things About My Dad!  I just loved them and they were a big hit for Fathers Day.




Well I promise to be back with more later in the week, I have been busy, busy making some new multiplication games to put in my store,so keep your eyes peeled for them :)

If you are still on holidays I hope you are relaxing and not thinking about school.....but then you might not read this, so just think about school for the 5 minutes it will take you to read this and then don't think about it again!

See you again sooner than a month :)


Monday, 31 August 2015

RIC surprise!

A couple of weeks ago I received these books in the mail from RIC Publications





The exciting thing about these books is that they are all related to the Australian Curriculum, which really makes them easy to fit in with your planning.

So if you are not an Aussie teacher I will apologise in advance as some of this may not apply to you, I will also forgive you for not reading any further :)

If you are a long time reader then you will know I teach Grade 2 and Grade 3 this year so I was so excited to see both Grade levels in this little surprise.

Let me say that I have been struggling with teaching an area of Geography in Grade 3, the standard that talks about the feelings people have about places and this book just rescued me.  Seriously it has everything I will need including web links, blackline masters, background information and extension activities or further studies.  Last week we looked at the poem by Dorothea MacKellar, "My Country" and I was able to use so many ideas from the book, even better so many of my kids were able to dig quite deeply in to the poem and understand how she felt about Australia.  I really loved it and we will definitely be using this book for the rest of this term and going into next term.

I actually used some of the Poems for Grade 3-4 with my Grade 2's last week as well.  I did have to adjust the activity a little but they were still able to complete the task without any problems.  We looked at Onomatopeia in poems and they created one for themselves.

I haven't had an opportunity to use the Grade 2 History book yet but my teaching partners were oohing and aahing and already making plans for next year.

Let me show you just a quick peek inside so you can see what I mean.


You can see that these books are more than just BLM's, I love that there are links and further information.

If you want to check out some of their other Australian Curriculum resources just head over to their website here


Disclosure: These books were provided for an unbiased review.

Sunday, 23 August 2015

Bright Ideas- Student Timelines

Welcome back for another Bright Idea for the classroom!  Today I am going to share how I use timelines in the classroom.



We have come to the time of year when we are looking at time and timelines, this is something we cover both in Mats and History.  

I really think it is important to get kiddos up and moving during learning activities to help them.  For our first timeline I got the kiddos to write their birthdays on a card and then I taped it onto their shirts.  They had to then get in order from youngest to oldest without any assistance from me.  It was great to see how they worked together to make sure everyone was in the correct place.  This was when we were working on calendars in Maths and on our personal histories.
There was so much discussion about how many days, weeks and months were between people's birthdays and how long between our oldest student and our youngest.  So much Maths!!!!




Our next timeline adventure was using clocks!  Students were given an analogue clock and they had to write an o'clock, half past, quarter past or quarter to.  They then had to get in order from earliest to latest time, again I didn't intervene but just listened to the discussions about time.  We then had to make sure we didn't have any double ups and the students decided who would change times and what that would be.  

We then followed that up with a discussion about AM and PM and how we would need to write that on the time to ensure it was in correct order.

This is just 2 ways I have used student timelines in the classroom in just the last couple of weeks, there are so many other ways you could use this!  The hardest part is standing back and letting them put themselves in order but you need to remember that right there is your teaching moment and instead of correcting THEM, ask them to justify why it is correct/incorrect.

I hope this has given you a couple of ideas to use student timelines in your classroom, to make sure you don't miss any other Bright Ideas make sure you follow me on Instagram or Facebook.

Now just click on the links below to see what some other fab teacher bloggers have to share with you!



Monday, 10 August 2015

Healthy Eats for Teachers linky


I took last week off from all technology as it was my birthday and I spent time with my family.  I am back though with another week of meal prep and recipes for the busy working week :) Make sure you download the prep and recipes for this week via the link below.

This weeks recipes and meal prep can all be down loaded by clicking here.  

Hi All! Welcome for another delicious recipe!  Today's recipe will make you feel like you are eating something naughty but it is certainly a lot healthier than take away chicken that is deep fried. This meal is a regular in our household and there is rarely left overs, our plates often look like a chicken graveyard at the end of the meal.  If you don't like chicken wings you can make this with drumsticks or other cuts of the chicken, you may have to adjust the cooking time.

Crispy Baked Chicken Wings (serves 4)

Ingredients

1.5 kg of chicken wings
1 cup plain flour
1 Tbspn of smoked paprika
1 tspn of garlic powder
1 tspn of onion powder
1 Tbspn of dried oregano
(If you live in Australia you can buy Smoky Barbecue Seasoning and substitute this for the paprika, garlic and onion powder)

Preheat oven to 180 C

Combine the flour and spices in a plastic freezer bag or in a large mixing bowl.  Shake the chicken wings in the flour and then place on to a lined baking tray (for easy cleaning), discard the flour mixture.  Spread the wings out so they have some space between them, you may need two trays.  Bake for 25 minutes, turn and bake for another 15 minutes.  Turn the oven up to 200 C and blast those wings for about 10 minutes to get super crispy.

Serve with a salad or mixed steamed vegetables. 


Now it is your turn to link up with any quick, healthy recipes you have.  Use the button above and ink up a blog post, Pinterest pin or Instagram post.





Sunday, 9 August 2015

Five for Frunday

Yay for Five for Friday!  Well I am a bit late this week as I have had a busy week. Head over to Doodlebugs to link up as well!








I had a birthday last week and I took the weekend off the computer and spent some quality time with my family :) We had a lovely lunch at one of our local restaurants and I was surprised with this delicious chocolate cake for dessert.  I also went out for a High Tea with some friends the next day, so lovely.  Overall it was a great birthday and although I didn't get the palm tree that I asked for :) I did get a lovely gold necklace and I was blessed with my gorgeous family around me.





It snowed down to sea level in our city this week!  We regularly get snow on the mountain here (sometimes even in Summer!) but the last time it snowed down to sea level was in 1986 so this is a pretty rare occurrence.  Our dogs weren't really too sure about it, but the kids were excited.




I spent up BIG during the Back to School Sale on TpT this week and used this Picture of the Day inferring packet from Hello Literacy with my Year 3's.  I loved it, they loved it, we all loved it.  I think it is really going to get them using more descriptive language in their writing and dig deeper when they are observing and inferring



 We went out for a yummy Italian meal this week and I swear it was the BEST gnocchi I have ever tasted, just melt in your mouth.  Oh and that is not a weird smile I am doing I was actually eating when my husband too that pic, although it does make me look a bit smug, hmmm.



I am getting ready for my next Healthy Eats for Teachers linky so make sure you check back tomorrow to link up with your yummy, healthy recipes!  Click on the pic to see the previous post and linky






Thursday, 6 August 2015

Amazing First and Second Grade Educents Deal!



Many of us are in back to school mode already!

So some friends and I have teamed up to load you up with resources to make teaching a bit easier!  

You will get 72% off First and Second Grade Curriculum. 16 instant downloads with 682 pages of materials including interactive notebooks, craftivities, centers, printables, and more!  




Stock up on curriculum that you need! This download includes 682 pages of materials covering everything from reading to math and even some great science too!

Full retail value of $71.98 and only available for a limited time.  $19.99 which is 72% off!  

Extreme value alert!

Includes 19 instant downloads and materials including printables, lap book, reading curriculum, easy to play games, and much, much more.

Academic Concepts Covered
nouns
decoding
addition with regrouping
geometry
adjectives
comprehension
spelling
and more!


You get 16 great products in this bundle and two of those are from me!  From me you will receive: 
   
2D Shapes
* Posters for display
* Trace, cut and paste sheets (no prep)
* Find and Color work sheets (no prep)
* Clip and Flip- self correcting cards that help students identify the attributes of a 2D shape.


Blends No Prep Pack
This pack includes sooo many fun activities for teaching blends and digraphs!
* Posters for digraph and l, s and r controlled blends
* Fold and Flip interactive activity using both sounds and pictures
* Sort blends and add to your list
* Read it, Highlight it, Write it- students read the words, highlight the blend and write a sentence for each word
* Fill in the blanks to identify the correct blend
* Spin it, Say it, Write it- interactive individual or partner game
* Flip Flaps interactive activity using both sounds and pictures.



But that's not all!  Check out what else you get:
















72% off and only for a limited time!  
Head on over to Educents to stock up for your first or second grade year!