Shadow Art

If you have been following me on Instagram or Facebook you would know my Year 3 class has been investigating the Earth, Sun and Moon.  As part of this investigation we made these absolutely cool shadow statues, I got the idea from Farley over at Oh Boy Fourth Grade, you can see the post here

First we had to try to catch a day that gave us a little bit of sunshine to draw shadows.  As you can see it was a bit touch and go.  We had to do this over a couple of days because it rained all over our tracings the first day.  We made observations about where the sun was in relation to their shadow and how the shadow was created.

Then we made these little foil statues and used a torch to make the shadows, this way each person could create a different shadow.

Then we traced around the shadow and painted it black.  I decided that I wanted to throw in a quick lesson on primary and secondary colours.  I put out the 3 primary colours and told the kiddos to choose either a primary colour or to mix them to create a secondary colour.  This resulted in a rainbow of backgrounds for our shadows and really helped with my bulletin board :)

We cut out a yellow circle and the kiddos put the circle where they thought the sun would have been to create the shadow.

The last thing I did was ask the kiddos to write about how creating this art helped with their understanding about night and day.  We had a globe, a tennis ball and a torch, nearly every kiddo was able to write that night is created by the Earth being in the shadow when the Earth rotated around.

I just loved doing this activity and I will definitely be doing it again!

Five for Frunday

I am here linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching for her weekly linky party.  Yup it is Sunday here but some things just can't be rushed ya know.

It was a short week this week due to a long weekend and because of some day swaparounds with both my teaching partners I ended up having my Grade 3's for the entire (short) week.  Peeps I loved it!  It was like having my own class again.  Don't get me wrong, I love my teaching partners and I have loved job sharing but sometimes you just want your own space and not to have to check in with others before you change things.

We have been investigating shadows and how this relates to night and day so the next few pics are all about that!

We went outside to find shadows in the morning, we traced around our shadows and took note of where the sun was.  We took photos of the shadows on our NEW ipads and will be using these photos to create ebooks that will show our understanding of how shadows are created.  We had to do this over a couple of days as the Winter weather here was not as co-operative as we needed it to be.  See that puddle in the first pic, it got bigger later in the day and our tracings were washed away :(

We took our explorations of shadows a little further and I used the art activity that Farley had shared earlier this year.  You can find that post here.  As soon as I had read that post I pinned it because I knew for sure that I would be able to do it this year and I just loved it!  I have to say some of my kids found creating the 'statue' quite challenging, we had to use a torch to create the shadows as once again the weather absolutely knew we were looking at shadows and the sun decided to hide.  

We put our artwork on tables in the corridor outside the classroom as we have very little drying space inside.  There were soooo many comments from passer by's on how amazing they looked and they weren't even finished!  I forgot to take a pic on Friday afternoon of the finished product but trust me they looked fantastic!

First draft of reports were handed in on Friday and I was soooooo happy to have that off my plate.  Writing 2 lots of reports (even though we share the load) is not fun.  Now we just have to fix any typos and errors and that is that!

I recently made it to 500 followers on my little TpT store and I will be celebrating with a little giveaway, so watch this space

Five for Friday

Ok, I was going to post this last week but life got in the way....again.  Time seems to be something I am very short on these day!  This Five for Friday is actually over the last 2 weeks.

I have been such a bad blogger lately, all I seem to have time for is Five for Friday!  Don't think it is going to get better anytime soon with reports needing to be done in the next 3 weeks.

Well I am glad you joined me even if I am a bad blogger at the moment :)

Last week we had our national testing on literacy and numeracy, known as NAPLAN.  I am happy to say that all of my students completed the test with very little anxiety.  I am so glad it is over and as a reward I gave our kiddos an art and craft morning, they were so excited.  It was so quiet in the classroom as they concentrated on their creations, then some quiet social talk, it was a really lovely morning and a beautiful way to start the day.

This was one of the results of our Art morning.  We are calling them Autumn leaves in a Puddle, we love, love, love them :)

We had our cross country run last week, this is my son just as he finished his race.  We were so blessed to have beautiful sunshine even though it was freezing!

We have been using my Doubling Koalas game in Year 2 as we explore using doubles and near doubles as a mental computation strategy.  This game has 3 different levels so it is great for differentiation, oh and the kiddos love it!

I have already put in a solid 4 hours on my reports today and I think I will probably have another 8 hours left till I am finished them, luckily the weather is co-operating and it is cold, wet and miserable so I feel quite happy to snuggle under a blanket with a cup of tea and type, type, type away.  

 Then it's Parent Teacher Interviews in the last week of term, oh the joys!

Head over to Doodlebugs to check out some more 5 for Friday!

Five For Fraturday

I feel like I am getting my maths groups under control finally!

This group is working on some addition games on imaths

This is my small teaching group.

This group is games

This is an independent group working on the Multiplication Station from Shelley Gray.  I purchased this in the TpT sale last week.  It. Is. Awesome!  

It is a self paced practice with the students tracking their progress.  I had to be very specific about how to use it and we still had some kiddos put things back incorrectly.

So Maths groups running smoothly at the moment, of course that will all be screwed up next week with our national testing.  Boo!

We had the first snowfall for the year.  This is what greeted me Tuesday morning walking in to school.  It has been bitterly cold all week and the kiddos had many inside playtimes.  Not good for our sanity people.

This is some art work I have been doing with my Year 2's we call this Autumn leaves in a puddle :)  I am going to do a blog post on how we did this in the week coming  I love how these turned out!  

I have a little who is having trouble with recognising shapes in different formats so I am whipping up a shapes packet for him to work on.  I hope to have it finished this week!

Tomorrow is Mothers Day, we made some gorgeous cards that I forgot to take photos of!!!  I am looking forward to a brunch made by my daughter (pancakes with fresh berries and yoghurt) and son.

Happy Mothers Day to all the Mummies out there for tomorrow.  I hope you get loads of cuddles and love.

Teacher Appreciation Sale!

What better way to show appreciation for teachers than to throw a sale, because we all know how much of our own money goes into our classrooms.

So with that in mind, TpT is hosting a 20% off site wide sale, my store is all 20% off and by using the promo code THANKYOU at the checkout you can get an extra 10% off at the checkout.

Oh and here's an extra little tip, make sure you go back and leave feedback on your previous purchases to gain TpT credits towards your purchase.

Here are a few items you might like :)  Just click on any of the pics to check them out in my store.

Full of templates and suggestions on how to run a Personal Interest Project or Genius hour in your classroom.

This is updated each year and offers calendars, reading comprehension, writing and art and craft activities.  Currently running for the 2014 -2015 you will be able to download all the future calenders for FREE after your first purchase.

Your students will love finding all the letters and words for each letter of the alphabet while finding the way through the maze.

My kiddos love using the activities in this pack, full of posters, cards, printable, number lines and games.

Finally for Mothers Day these are quick activities that will become treasures.

Winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered our Rafflecopter for our awesome Swap, Share, Give linky.  We hope you enjoyed reading more about our products and got yourself a freebie.

The winner has been chosen and is now receiving ALL of the products that were reviewed, that's 12 fabulous prizes!

Congratulations to Miryam and we all hope you enjoy your fabulous prize.