Excuse Me Mrs C!

Reading at Home with your Kids

2012-02-10T14:48:00.000+10:30

This week I guest posted at The Mummy Autobiography, my post here. I wrote about some tips I have picked up along the way that have helped parents feel more confident when reading with their young ones at home.

(note: aimed at beginner readers)

See my post below

"Reading is not only identifying the words correctly"

Before your child is even reading in the true sense of the word, encourage a WORD SENSE within them:

Point out, informally and often, key words in the environment around you (eg: titles of books, names of their favourite cereal, signs at their playgroup, names of family members. You might say something like "I like how they have written the name of your playgroup in red *point to name and read aloud* or "Your cereal is called *name*, look how it's written here on the box).

Talk aloud about the reading and writing you are doing in your day to day activities (ie: reading a recipe, writing and reading the shopping list, looking up a phone number, finding out information in the newspaper).

Encourage an enjoyment of books:
- Be transparent about your own reading for enjoyment.
- Read to your child often and with joy.
- Use fun voices, have a few pop up/'fancy' books and get them to be interactive in the reading process.
- Make sure the time you spend reading together is undistracted and dedicated one-on-one special time.

"Reading" the pictures and retelling a known story is a beginning phase of learning to read so encourage this and try not to correct or be too focussed on reading the actual words. Recognise and praise their attempt at "reading".

Beginning Reading is just that BEGINNING- don't rush the process

There are some important skills that your child needs to develop before they are ready to be independent readers, so try not to push them too hard too soon

Develop an awareness of how books work. Children need to know which is the front cover, what those black squiggles on the page are meant for, which way up you hold the book, where you start reading from, where to go to next when you get to the end of the line, etc.

Try to gradually develop an understanding of the difference between a letter, a number, a word and how letters can be put together to make words. You can this in casual, simple ways by mentioning things like "your name starts with the letter- b-" or when identifying objects around you, say, "duck- d,d, duck" and even some simple, fun alphabet activities, if your child enjoys them, cannot hurt.

When you are reading together, be it a shared picture book, a reader that is sent home from school or anything else, talk about what is going on in the book (even if they don't realise it, adult readers are thinking all sorts of things when they read, so by talking about the book you are teaching your child how to THINK ABOUT READING)Before Reading: Talk about the front cover and title and what that might tell you about what the book is going to say, who the characters are, what might happen to those characters and even if you think you might have read anything similar before.
During Reading: If you come across an interesting point, stop and discuss. You might like to ask questions like;
- What do you think *character* will do next?
- What would you do if you were *character*?
- What do you think *character* meant when they said that?
- Why do you think *character* said that or why do you think the author wrote that?
After Reading: Talk about feelings and favourite parts, what could have been improved, how you each reacted at different moments in the story.

Beginning to read independently

As your child starts school they will probably come home with books to practice their reading. They will usually be simple and repedative to begin with.

Don't over do it- you don't want reading to be a chore. Try to read daily and judge from your individual how much is too much.

Don't over correct! It is very important that your child begins to see themselves as 'a reader' and if you focus too heavily on getting everything exactly right this might discourage their confidence.

Don't be too concerned if they seem to memorise the book or be using the simple pattern and not really 'reading', that is the point of beginner readers. If you want to do more, just focus their attention to some key words at the end of reading.

If your child is trying to read for themselves and they become stuck on a word, give them the opportunity to solve the problem for themselves, count to ten before jumping in to give them the answer.

If your child looks to you or asks for your help keep your focus on the book to try and encourage them to look to the book for solutions, and count to ten before you provide the answer.

Don't over praise your child throughout the reading process, they need to learn to become independent and self-praising. By all means praise them about what they were successful with at the end of the story.

Take opportunities to 'play word games' within the books. For example, I spy the word 'in' can you spy it too, or, point to all the letter 'b's you can see (I bet you can find more than...).

Help your child to be ready to read words by playing oral word blending games, such as "Can you guess what word is? mmmm- aaaaa- t. Say the sound each letter makes rather than the name of the letter and hold each sound longer than you normally would

For more games and ideas see my latest post of ideas

Classroom Organisation Ideas

2012-02-04T17:04:00.001+10:30

I give each student a magazine holder (make sure you don't go for the cheap cardboard ones- they need to be a bit more sturdy for kid-friendly use) They keep their own workbooks books, a plastic envelope for half finished work, and their just-right books borrowed from the library in there.

I assign each table a colour and then provide each table with their own tray for the hats, waterbottles and jumpers that need to be accessed throughout the day. This way they are not spilling out of bags or left lying around the room or thrown into a pile of 20 something hats and jumpers that all look the same.

I seem to keep changing my classroom jobs poster. I like the look of my latest one the best so hopefully I wont be spending week 0 next year making up another one.

Like Resource Ideas? Visit here...

Just Right Books

2012-02-03T20:55:00.001+10:30

Below are some photo's of the bulletin board display I have created to go above our classroom library. It demonstrates the learning we are doing on JUST RIGHT BOOKS and our 'tools' for being a good reader.

The Goldilocks Rule- is it too easy? too hard? or just right?

How to choose a just right book

1. Check the front cover- does it look interesting?

2. Flip through the book and read the blurb- does it sound interesting?

3. Does it fit with the reason why you are reading today?

4. Read the first page and use the five finger rule.

5. As you read check that you can understand it.

The 5 Finger Rule

1 finger- too easy

2 fingers- just right

3 fingers- a little tricky, but you might want to give it a try

4 fingers- a bit too tricky, maybe try it with a parent or friend

5 fingers- too tricky

Free Bookmark

2012-01-29T10:09:00.001+10:30

Today I would like to share with you a bookmark I made to help my students remember how to choose a JUST RIGHT book.
The bookmark matches my classroom display (to be posted in the next couple of days).
Click on the photo before to enlarge and save it for yourself.
Mrs C

'Just Right' books

2012-01-26T16:46:00.000+10:30

I while back I posted that I had read the book 'The Daily 5' (image below). They have a lot of great ideas in their book, but the one that I liked the most was their focuss on teaching students to find thier 'good fit' or 'Just Right' books. It seems so obvious now, how important this is. But I have never really explicitly taught children how to find a good fit book apart from a few clues (like to look at the size of the writing, how many words on a page, in the case of readers, what level it is)

This is my journey in searching for ideas on how to teach children to find their 'Just Right' book.

The Goldilocks Rule
Is it too hard?
Is it too easy?
Is it just right?

Source

Resources
read write think
ourclassweb.com- poster
www.iched.org

The 5 Finger Rule

0-1 Fingers—Too Easy

2-3 Fingers—Just Right
4-5 Fingers—Too Hard

Source

Resources

ndreadon.com teachertools

First Class with Mrs Mac

Portland Library- A note home

I Pick

I choose a book

Purpose- why do I want to read it?

Interest- Does it interest me?

Comprehend- Do I understand what I am reading?

Know- Do I know most of the words?

Source

Resources

623 Teachers Powerpoint

I Pick Rap

Activities to Help Your Beginner Reader at Home

2012-01-24T18:55:00.001+10:30

These are some activity ideas that you can do while/after reading with your child at home to help them get the best start in reading...

Searching Within the Book

TreasureHunt
The child holds thebook in their hands, closed. The adult has something in mind that they mustfind. Says “You must find a…, ready, set, go!” The child must find it as quickas they can. You might choose; words, pictures, letters, punctuation, the partthat says who is in the story.

I spy
Looking at the booktogether. Adult says “I spy a….” and the child must find it as quick as theycan too. You might choose; words, pictures, letters, punctuation, the part thatsays who is in the story.

Flashcard Activities

Write all orsome of the words from the book you are focussing on (this might be one thathas been sent home with your child from school) onto scrap paper or card andplay these fun games.

Tic TacToe
Turn them all overand spread them out on the floor. Take turns to say the below rhyme, touching adifferent card each time, when you finish the rhyme whichever card you aretouching you must flip over and say aloud, if correct you get to keep it.
Tic tac toe, Tic tac toe
Where I stop I do not know

Memory (make doubles of your flashcards)
Turn them all over and spread them out on the floor. Take turns to flip twoover at a time and try to match pairs (you have to be able to identify thewords correctly to keep the pair).

ReconstructingSentences
Have a flashcard for each word in one of the sentences from your book. Mix themup. Have your child put them back together again. They may need to look at thebook to do this successfully.

Bean Bag Toss
Spread the flashcards out right-side-up on the floor. Stand back and toss thebean bag towards the cards. You need to say the word that you land on and canearn a point if you get it correct.

Sounding Out Words
When sounding out words you need to besaying the sound that the letter makes not the name of the letter- for example ‘a’like the beginning sound in apple not A (aigh) You should start with short,regular sounding words like cat, pin, leg…

Robot Talk
Pretend to be a robotand your child has to decode your message. Sound out each letter of your word (justone word at a time) in a robot voice and have your child listen and work outwhat you are saying. When they get more confident with this game, you canswitch roles.

If youthink you know this word sound it out
Sing this rhyme together
If you think you know this word, shout itout!
If you think you know this word, shout it out!
If you think you know this word,
Then tell me what you've heard,
If you think you know this word, shout it out!
Adult: Sound out a word (ie: ddd---oooo-g)
Child: Shouts out their guess at what word you sounded out

Show them
Within the book demonstrate how you sound out a word that you come across that is tricky (at their level) For example, you might come across the word 'duck', have a dialoge with yourself outloud that lends your thinking to your child... something like...
"hmm, I am not sure of this word. In the pictures I see a duck a dog and a cat. I'll take a closer look at the word... it starts with a 'd' (maybe say the sound more than once, let it roll around in your mouth) duck and dog start with 'd'. What does it end with? It ends with a 'k', I think it might be duck, do you think it could be duck?

Teaching Time

2012-01-20T22:33:00.001+10:30

A MUST have in a teaching-the-time unit is the kids very own made clocks.
I ask my students to decorate the below template in a subtle way, they need to cut out each item (clock face and each hand) and I then laminate their items. We then cut all three out and I place a whole (with a nail or stanley knife) in the centre of the clock and at the end of each hand. The students then use a split pin to attach them all together to create movable hands for their clock.
After each student has one of these whenever I need a 5 minute filler I can ask the students to grab their clocks and call out various times for them to make and hold up proud on their very own clocks.

Pinterest Finds

2012-01-16T13:09:00.002+10:30

I am currently sitting here wondering what I ever did with my time before Pinterest came into my life only a short time ago. I am absolutely in love with the site. It has inspired me and given me lots of great ideas.
I thought I would share some of the pins that have inspired me the most lately...

Source: christmas.organizedhome.com via Alissa on Pinterest

Source: 1.bp.blogspot.com via Alissa on Pinterest

Source: panickedteacher.typepad.com via Alissa on Pinterest

Source: wendyjanelle.blogspot.com via Alissa on Pinterest

Source: babblingabby.blogspot.com via Alissa on Pinterest

Do you also have some great Pinterest finds to share?... link up below if you do.
Note: If you are linking up your pinterest board (rather than a blog post). It will have trouble finding an image so either grab an image from your computer or just use the GENERIC LINKY IMAGE

Celebrate

2012-01-08T08:54:00.002+10:30

WOW!!!!!!!!!! I was so excited to realise that I now have...

followers.

Thank you, to all you beautiful teachers out there following my blog.

Writer's Workshop

2012-01-06T15:17:00.000+10:30

I am trying to bring a bit more structure and order to my writing lessons. But almost contradictory, a bit more student freedom and differentiation too.
I am going to try a workshop style method, where everyone will be working at different stages of the writing process. And they will complete their stories at their own pace (with a bit of encouragement I am sure) and we will have a greater focus on 'the first time isn't the final time' concept in story writing. To encourage students to understand that they need to edit, review and improve their stories before they do a final copy I am going to find some author studies, where the authors are talking about how long it took them to write some of their books and the process that they went through to try and make their story the best it could be.
ANY ONE KNOW ANY GOOD RESOURCES?
I will be setting up a writing station...
I found great inspiration in this one

Source: google.com.au via Alissa on Pinterest

from Beth Newingham's classroom via The Clutter Free Classroom

We are going to have Writers Workshop folders and loose leaf paper, rather than trying to use an exercise book because I wouldn't want the students to be trying to flip back and forth pages when trying to edit.

This image below is the process that we are going to use. I added the text in a great photo editing tool, free to the web, called Picnik.

If anyone has any great links or ideas for Writers Workshops, PLEASE share!!!!

Planning for the New Year

2012-01-03T14:48:00.001+10:30

For those of you who are not an Aussie teacher like me I believe its a little different for you , but we are currently on our long summer break (insert yipee here) but I am already thinking about the things I need to do to get myself organised for the new school year.
I thought I would share with you some of my planning tools that have been working for me so far.
Firstly I do a rough yearly overview of main topics and learnings (an this might-and probably will change as the year progresses- especially with the topics I do like to guage student interests)

This is how I do my weekly planner. I do it in 15 minute blocks to try and get more flexibility out of my time tabling. I take this as a rough guide (except for if it indicates that we have to be somewhere) and try to stick to the timetabling, but understand that I never will entirely.

I then have a daily planner that I keep in a folder with me, that is labelled with the times and activities from this and is followed by blank spaces that I can write a bit more detail about the activity that we will be doing. Or cross something out and record what we actually did.

Another thing that I always get organised at the beginning of each term is a basic, double-sided newsletter that I send home to parents with all the most important timetabling, reminders, and general classroom info.

I hope this post might inspire you to get organised and start planning, if the need be :)
From Mrs C

2012-01-02T17:02:00.001+10:30

Hi,
I have just just joined the Pinterest community. On this site you can pin any image from the web, or browse a whole range of inspirational images categorised on pinterest and add the photo's to your pinboard to go back to later.
I thought that this would be great for me. I am often seeing inspirational things on blogs and sites but cannot find the time to do them right then and there and almost always forget where I saw it if I want to go back.... It seems to be a great tool for teachers to keep track of their ideas.
And if you do pin something from someones blog, the site automatically recognises where you got that image from and credits the owner.
I have a button in my side bar if you would like to follow me-as I start to find and add more images.
Mrs C
Some images I've already added...

The Daily 5

2011-12-21T11:10:00.000+10:30

I have been getting some inspiration from 'the sisters' in USA and reading their book about the daily 5 reading tasks for classroom literacy.

The daily 5 is....
1) Read to Self
2) Read to Someone else
3) Listen to Reading
4) Spelling and Word Work
5) Work on Writing

Gail and Joan talk about the importance of setting the students up for success and ensuring that they are going to be able to complete what is asked of them by explicitly teaching each and every step involved and giving students ample time to practice. And they really do mean each and every step, including things like where to sit when reading, how to sit when sharing a book, building stamina for reading (ie: starting with a few minutes and gradually reading for longer durations).

This book is worth reading :)

Sorting!!!!!

2011-12-05T20:54:00.001+10:30

Have you forgotten about sorting?
This is your reminder!!!
A basic.. but oh so important skill.
Sorting and classifying objects helps children begin to notice how items are alike and different, and creates an awareness that is vital for math learning.
At home, you can provide sorting activities as part of your daily routine. Your child can sort the silverware as it is placed into the drawer. He can put matching socks together while helping with laundry or help with sorting and arranging the canned foods in the pantry. Look for opportunities to make the activity more challenging and to help your child sort by two or more attributes. For example, sorting and folding blue and white bath towels, hand towels and wash cloths (sorting by size and color) is another useful sorting activity at home. Or outside, your child can help pick and sort items from the vegetable garden (big red peppers, small green peppers, big red tomatoes, small yellow tomatoes, etc.) These real life experiences are most memorable to a child as they engage many senses in the learning process.
brighthorizons

Comic Strip Centre

2011-11-30T22:20:00.001+10:30

For one of my literacy centres I have my students make up comic book strips...
Interested? Want free templates?
Check out these (there's heaps to choose from)
Comic Strip Templates

Naughty Mrs C

2011-11-26T16:20:00.001+10:30

I have been very naughty lately. I really haven't visited the blog world very much at all for a long, long time. I will endevour to post more from now on, although we are coming up to our long break (a much needed one I might add) Australia is bringing in the new AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM (as opposed to before where each state had their own curriculum) I have been doing lots of extra work trying to get my head around this... and have you Mrs C? Well, no not really, but here's to trying!
Anyway...
This term we have been learning about different environments/habitats/regions whatever you like to call them and the students have absolutely LOVED this topic and been ultra engaged. Every fortnight we introduce a new environment. We begin by gathering information on the environment (my students are little fact munchers- they love facts- it doesn't matter what the fact is- if they feel that it is a fact they love it). And then we create a mini-environment of our classroom. Photo's below. So if you are trying to think of a new topic to focus on for next term. This could be the one for you.

This is our rainforest and desert, we've also done coral reef and polar so far.

Make 10 Card Game

2011-09-05T13:34:00.000+09:30

This is a card game that is designed to give the students practice in putting two or more numbers together to make the total of ten. This is important with mental computation, one of the strategies in adding numbers together is to round to the nearest ten and add on from there. If students can do this quickly and confidently the their adding becomes much faster and they develop the confidence to trust their knowledge of 'equals ten' facts.
This is how you play
(2-4 players)
(Grade 1-2)
You have one deck of cards, from which you remove the picture cards
You place three rows of three cards face up on the ground between the players and deal each player 5 cards.
The rest of the cards are placed in a 'top up' pile between players
YOU MUST USE AT LEAST ONE CARD FROM THE SET OF 3X3 ON THE FLOOR but the aim is to get rid of all the cards in your hand.
The first player has a turn to make ten (for example: the player might have a 7 in their hand and there is a 3 on the floor).
Once ten is made the cards that were used to make it are put into a discard pile and a new one is put in the empty spot on the floor from the 'top up' pile.
The next player has their turn and you continue until someone gets rid of all the cards in their hand.
Note: you may use more than one card from either your hand or the floor as long as at least one card is used from the floor.
You may say pass if you cannot make 10

Rainbow Poems

2011-08-15T08:00:00.001+09:30

We wrote some beautiful RAINBOW POEMS in our class last week. We had to think of descriptive sentences that made us picture a rainbow in our minds. This is what we came up with...

A rainbow is like colours in the clouds.
A rainbow is like shooting stars.
A rainbow is like colours in the sky.
A rainbow reminds me in the Grug book at home, rainbow in the Grug book.
A rainbow reminds me of a colourful flower.
The rainbow reminds me of a colourful butterfly.
The rainbow reminds me of a colourful flower.
A rainbow reminds me of a nice day.
A rainbow reminds me of a good time.
Rainbows are a beautiful thing.
The rainbow reminds me of the Antarctic colours.
The rainbow reminds me of as bright as the sun.
A rainbow is a beautiful is a beautiful thing, it reminds me of a flowers.
A rainbow reminds me of colourful fruit loops and a colourful headband.
A rainbow reminds me of a colourful hill.
A rainbow makes me feel happy.
A rainbow reminds me of a butterfly and a dress is colourful.
A rainbow reminds me of beautiful colours.
Rainbows are as pretty as a flower.
A rainbow reminds me of fascinating colours in the sky.
A rainbow makes me think of beautiful colours.
A rainbow is like a rocket flying under the rainbow.
A rainbow is like Autumn.
A rainbow is like a mountain.
A rainbow is like water.
A rainbow reminds me of a beautiful sunny day.
A rainbow appears when the rain falls.
A rainbow looks like a colourful ribbon.
A rainbow is like a hat.
A rainbow reminds me of a big lollipop.
A rainbow makes me fell warm and cozy inside. It reminds me of mummy’s hugs. It makes me feel like it’s the best and most beautiful thing in the world.
A rainbow can be before the rain or after.
The rainbow reminds me of my sisters bedroom.
A rainbow can be lots of colours.
A rainbow is like when my dad washes the car.
A rainbow is like the sign that says in this classroom we are peaceful.

Positive Thinking!!!

2011-08-14T08:00:00.000+09:30

No Mistakes, Just Lumpy Pancakes

This is a saying that I like to use in my classroom.

It means that there is no such thing as a mistake (a problem that wont go away) and little boo boo's are just lumps in the pancake that will eventually go away if you keep working at it.

At the beginning of the year I make pancakes with the students and I particularly make sure that we have plenty of lumps in the mixture. We take a look at it and decide that it definitely needs to be stirred, so every kid in the class takes turns to stir the mixture. We look several times along the way and decide that it still needs more work. It really demonstrates to the students that things don't get the way you want them unless you work at it, and by everyone in the class having a go it also demonstrates that sometimes you need to work as a team to get things done well.

So whenever a student doesn't get an answer right, or is finding something difficult, we identify this as a lumpy pancake and something that they need to work on.

Self Assessment in Number

2011-08-13T15:09:00.000+09:30

I have started doing a self assessment book for number work with my group of 8 year two's within my R/1/2 class. It is working really well. It is helping me to assess students as I go on what they are struggling with, it is enabeling students to work on skills that are specific to thier needs and it is giving the students a sense of ownership over their learning.
Each student has a book like this.

And inside we paste a particular skill that we are working on and they rule up thier books with; date and comment. Each time we get together and practice a particular skill (it might be in the small group of eight, we might get into pairs or threes with other kids who need more practice on a particular skill or it might be individual practice) at the end of the practice session they record how they are feeling with the skill they have been practicing.

We have three levels of confidence with our maths learning:
Beginner Learner (BL)- I am not confident at all, just starting out.
Learner (L)- I am developing some confidence, I just need more practice.
Confident Learner (CL)- I'm confident, I've got it, I could teach it to another.

Once a student feels that they are a confident learner (CL) with a particular skill, they need to demonstrate their competence to me and if I agree I will put a sticker on their page to indicate move on from this skill.

Published Narratives

2011-07-21T08:00:00.002+09:30

Having students publish thier storys on the computer is great because....
- it gives students the understanding that thier stories can be published too, like the books and novels they read.
- it creates a pride in thier work, to see it typed up neatly and put on display.
- it gives them the opportunity to edit their work without the fear of messing up thier books.
- it allows for practice of typing and word processing skills.
- it can more easily be shared with the school or home (on blogs, on a powerpoint presentation to another class, emailled to friends and family, etc).
- students can use spell check to edit thier spelling.
- students can add extra parts to thier story for more detail.
- it can be illustrated and made into a representation of a book.

Expolring Numbers in Powerful Ways

2011-07-20T08:00:00.001+09:30

I have a class of reception (first year of school), grade 1 and grade 2 students. On this particular day I got my grade two's together and we talked about how the number 10 was an important number to know lots of things about because it was easy to work with, because we have 10 fingers, because we know how to count by tens, because it has a zero on the end and we can add any single digit onto it easily and so on.. we brainstormed all the reasons why we liked the number 10.

Then I asked the students some sums, like so... 1 + what? is 10... they worked it out and I put down the answer, next, 2+ what? is 10... they worked it out and I put down the answer and after a few goes of doing it together they began to see the pattern. I asked them to work with a pair and create a poster about what they think they knew about numbers that add up to 10. Most of the students just did the addition that we had been talking about (and were very successful with it *beams proudly*), but I had a pair of little cleaver buttons who transferred this understanding into subtraction (in the poster below) And to top it all off, they asked if they could illustrate their picture, I said "only if the pictures match the maths you have just been doing" and I think they showed a great understanding of the pattern that was represented.

After the posters were finished we got back together and I demonstrated some ways that understanding this pattern of numbers that add up to 10 can be useful when adding up. For example; for 6 + 8 (I know that 4 more onto 6 makes 10, so if I take that from the 8 I am left with 4, add that to 10 and it is 14).

A novel a day keeps the wriggles away...

2011-07-19T13:23:00.000+09:30

Lots of teachers have thier different strategies for calming children down after they come back into class from lunch time play.
My strategy is... The students have two minutes to grab their water bottle and a comfy position (whether it be lying down, sitting under a table, leaning against each other, whatever they want) and then I read a chapter from our ongoing novel. The students are so persistant about reading Roald Dahl, I have tried to read a few other books and there has been an uproar, good ol' Roald Dahl. This time doubles as relaxation and an opportunity for teachable moments, quite often some really interesting discussion points or learnings about narrative writing comes out of our novels.
Roald Dahl we've read this year...

Measuring with three different tools

2011-07-19T09:45:00.000+09:30

I just thought I'd share a little measuring task that I did with my class to get them thinking about the idea that: the same thing can be measured using a different tool and depending on what unit of measurement you use the result might change (but that doesn't change the size of the object).
So I set them off in groups to find 5 different things around the room and measure them using the three tools I had asked them to use (a ruler, centi-cubes and popsticks) they then had to record their results.

'Knowing a number'

2011-06-09T18:33:00.000+09:30

This is a maths idea that has developed from several sources that I'm really excited to share, because it has worked so well, and my students really enjoyed it.
I would consider it to be more for the 6 yrs and over, but with support and using smaller numbers I am sure that 5 year olds could come up with some interesting ideas.

Here's what it looks like...

I call it a 'number think sheet' in the centre the student chooses a number (I usually give perameters, ie: more than 20 but less than 100)
The page is divided into sections, and you can play around with the different sections and ask the students to do whatever you want as a focus.
My three sections are
- How many ways can you 'GET' this number (obviously I had to explain what I meant and I demonstrated what I would do) in this section you make up the number in different ways ie: for 20 you could write 2 tens and zero ones, 10+10, 4X5, 20 ones, and so on.
- Show the number in a diagram (drawing) the students have been finding this one difficult, mostly I just get twenty of something drawn, I have been demonstrating different things like drawing the ones and tens chart that we use in class, drawing groups of with circles and dots inside, etc.
- Write about this number, ultimitely I would like something like if I had twenty lollies and five friends how many lollies would each friend get if I shared the lollies between my friends. But for the first couple of tries with this sheet I have just requested that the number be used somehow in the sentence (while demonstrating a few interesting ideas for the little math wizzes). So i ended up with sentences more like twenty aliens went for a walk.

Origami Duck Artwork

2011-06-07T19:43:00.000+09:30

For this project you need to do two things....
Attempt to origami several ducks and make the background.

To make the background, you draw several wave shapes on an A3 paper in light blue crayon and water colour over the top in a darker blue. When it is dry cut some slits along some of the crayon wave shapes (depending on how many ducks you have made)

Here are some basic instructions for an origami duck from a website I found, although in parts I simplified it even further.

Once you have created 2 to 5 ducks you can then insert the bottom of them slightly into the slits you made on your background and sticky tape them into place on the back of your A3 background paper.

Finally, mount them beautifully and display... I just stapled mine to the pin up board :( oooohhhhh to have more hours in the day.... sigh!!!

Tesselations

2011-06-07T19:15:00.000+09:30

Just for fun I thought I'd put up some more photo's of the great tesselating patterns that have been made in my classroom....

Sight Word Chain

2011-06-02T17:30:00.000+09:30

One of the activities that the students can do in spelling is to add to the word chain...

On small strips of paper the students write out their spelling words for practice and join them together in a chain. The chain now goes the whole way around the classroom.

Tangrams

2011-05-29T14:33:00.000+09:30

We also love to experiement with TANGRAM puzzles to explore FLIP, SLIDE and TURN

You cut along the lines of the above puzzle and use the pieces to make all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes. There are so many different animals and images that you can create from this ancient puzzle game.

link

This is one of my students making a bird.

I always put a few ideas up that I have printed off as examples to get the students started, but then I encourage them to come up with their own. This one is a variation of the crane that was on our board.

Tesselations

2011-05-28T20:57:00.000+09:30

Look at the tesselating patterns we can create...

Tesselation Block

2011-05-26T18:23:00.000+09:30

Do you have tesselation blocks in your classroom?

The students LOVE this fantastastic, mathematical tool.

Even my youngest students (5 yrs) can tell me when a pattern is tesselating and use the language.

We have these fabulous cards to support the kids in thier exploration of making patterns and pictures that tesselate, which they really love. On one side they have the picture with the colours that correspond with the blocks, on the other side they have just the black outlines. And to further extend I ask the students to make the picture just by looking at the card and doing it on the carpet.

But they don't only do the pictures, they come up with all sorts of fantastic designs and creations, which I should post... :)

Word of the Week

2011-04-19T12:22:00.002+09:30

Here is an idea that I have been trying out this year...
It is called word of the week and the aim is to introduce young children to new vocabulary.
I choose a word that is one that the children may not have heard before, or certainly that is not usual for them to be using, but it is a word that will make sense for them and that could be slipped into conversation if the right encouragement was there.
The word in the photo I used is dainty, some others I have used have been humorous, extraordinary and superb.
On my poster in the classroom I have one sheet for recording some fantastic sentences that the children might say using the word of the week and the other is a grid and everytime a child uses that word then they can colour in a square and at the end of the week we add up the squares and that entitles the whole class to that particular number of minutes free time on the playground.
The way I work it in ensuring that the students don't just pretend they've used the word is that they have to have another student with them to confirm the use of the word and they both need to come to me and tell me the sentence they used the word in, I will often ask for more information, and if they have used the word incorrectly, I will tell them so and they do not colour a square, might sound harsh, but I don't want any any bad habits or missunderstandings to be formed.

Classroom Post Box

2011-04-06T19:46:00.000+09:30

Do you have a post box in your classroom?

You should, I LOVE ours.

It inspires even the most reluctant of writers to have a go at writing and you can anyone can be successful no matter their age.

I have a 'writing box' that is near by with lots of different items

- fancy note paper

-metallic gel pens

- calligraphy pens

- alphabet stencils

- spelling word cards (with words such as dear, from, friend)

- stickers

-stamps (not postage stamps, although, I am in the process of trying to collect ones of mail, it is a bit difficult when no body writes to each other anymore)

-envelopes

(any other ideas for our writing box???)

Every afternoon we have a postman/woman for the week deliver the mail. Please note: I had a talk with my class about not being dissapointed if you don't get any mail for that day, how you dont always get some every day and that doesn't mean people don't like you... etc.. etc. I do also keep a bit of an eye on who might be missing out regularly and have a quiet word to someone in the class to do them a special letter, because unfortunately there usually are some less popular kids, and you might not notice that they aren't getting many letters, but they will be.

Buddy class ideas

2011-04-03T16:18:00.001+09:30

This year my junior primary class have buddied up with a year 6/7 class to get to know some older kids and share experiences. So far we have made secret handshakes, celebrated harmony day with a painted handprint mural and made shared books about belonging.
Has any body got any great activity ideas? Do you do something similar? What do you do?

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Classroom Management

2011-03-20T11:23:00.001+10:30

Here I thought I would share a few classroom management things I do...
Firstly routine is fabulous to keep the classroom calm and manageable, if the students know what is coming for the day and they are roughly aware of how long they have to spend on an activity then I have found that they are so much more willing to put their full concentration into what they are doing and they are far less distracted. So I use a visual timetable (which is certainly not a new concept I bet lots of you have one similar)

For my behaviour management I have a happy cloud and a stormy cloud. The happy cloud is the one I use the most, the stormy cloud is more there for a deterrent and a common understanding when discussing behaviour, eg: 'your behaviour at the moment looks a lot like stormy cloud behaviour, because it is disrupting the class'. In our class if your picture goes on the happy cloud then they get to put a raffle ticket into the draw for a weekly treasure chest pick.

MY NEW CLASSROOM

2011-03-19T15:12:00.002+10:30

This is my lovely new classroom, the building was only built at the end of last year. There are 5 classrooms and an activity room as well as a storage room and a little room for School Service Officers to work one on one with kids. It is so fabulous. I just love how everything is all new and clean looking. Most of our furniture is from IKEA and very funky and fresh.

This is my beautifully organised and lablelled storage. Does enyone else get excited by the sight of organisation?

The tubs and folders on top of the cupboards here are what I use in my reading/ maths rotations. In each rotation one of the groups will be doing 'games', which are a whole variety of various laminated games working towards skills they need to practice in their different ability groups. And the folders are for what I call 'independent study', one group will be working quietly on a photocopied worksheet from the folder which is aimed at practicing some of the skills we have been learning about.

Thank you for taking the time to explore my classroom.

I would love to see some of your classrooms.

If you have posted similar photo's of your room could you leave your link in my comments so I can pop on over and have a look.

I'm Back...

2011-03-15T17:56:00.000+10:30

To everyone who reads my blog, I am soooooooooo sorry that I have not posted for soooooooooo long. It has been a combination of factors really. We had our 6 week break, I moved house, I didn't have internet, now I do have temporary internet but it is oh so slow and frusterating. But none the less I am going to try my best to be patient and do some posting.

My site was chosen for a list of the top 50 education websites on e-college-finder, which was rather exciting. I reccommend popping over and checking out that list when you have time there are some great sites on there (I will be waiting for faster internet before I attempt to visit them all).

Accredited Online Colleges

Be back soon with photo's of my NEW classroom :)

Changes for Mrs C

2011-01-13T12:05:00.000+10:30

Please excuse the lack of posting lately. It is the long summer holidays for us in Australia (yay, for 6 weeks holidays!!)

Over the new year I have been busy packing, cleaning, unpacking and more cleaning. But finally, I have successfully relocated and moved into a brand new house that we built, I am just loving it.

But that is not the only change. When the new school term begins on the 31st of January I will be teaching at a new school.

Over the past five years I have been teaching in disadvantaged schools where majority of the students are Aboriginal Australian and all are from low-socio-economic areas. This has brought along with it a lot of challenges for both me as their teacher, and the students themselves, but it has been extremely rewarding.

However, things are changing. I will be teaching in an Adelaide Hills school, where families are all middle to upper class and I am looking forward to the different challenges that my new school will bring.

So as I continue to holiday throughout January, don't expect too many posts, but come February I imagine there will be lots of excitement and posts over the setting up of a nice new classroom :)

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T00:05:00.001+10:30

Dear blog readers,
Thank you for reading my blog over the past year. I hope that it has brought you some inspiration and continues to do so in the year to come. I love and appreciate all your comments. Have a....

Merry Christmas

and a

Happy New Year!

Loving Letters!

2010-12-18T09:00:00.002+10:30

This is something really simple I thought I would share, not because it is a new idea, but because my students loved it so much, and the learning that came out of it was great!

The students all worked at their tables in groups, on which I spread out lots and lots of letters (that I bought from a cheap shop, which are colourful and cut into squares and in lots of different fonts)

First they had to find the letters of their names (for my new receptions this is more difficult and I could spend time helping them and focussing on learning these letters, for the others this was simply so we knew who's paper was whose)

Once they finished thier names I gave them a word that I was confident they would be familiar with (or at least could have a go at sounding it out) and they went ahead and made that word and came to me for another one when finshed.

For my new receptions who had finished their names I wrote a new word on thier piece of paper and they had to find the letters to match it up.

Painting with Balls

2010-12-14T09:00:00.001+10:30

This is a unique painting idea that the SSO (school services officer) who works in my class had, and she did with small groups.

You need

some sort of box that will fit an A4 paper (we used the lids from the boxes that our school buys the reems of paper in)

some small balls (we used marbles and golf balls)

paint in paint pots

Disposable spoons

Paper

What you do

The balls are put into a paint pot (they don't get mixed up, that ball stays with that paint colour)

The children spoon the ball out and put it into their box and then roll it around for a bit (not too much or you start to loose the effect)

Then they choose a different colour or two and do the same.

The result looks a little like this

The pictures look really good framed with black cardboard.

Art Eater

2010-12-11T15:36:00.000+10:30

I was browsing blogs today and came across this great idea at

childhood101

I suggest you pop on over there and have a look, the site that they talk about

www.arteater.com.au

is such a great idea! Perfect for Christmas gifts or just for Mum's who are pulling their hair out wondering what to do with a huge pile of kids art work.

Feely Sock's

2010-12-11T09:50:00.000+10:30

This is a resource that I created during a science topic this term on 'What things are made of'
It is a feely sock, so I bought a few sets of nice thick, soft socks (which have a unique texture to discuss without even having things inside) and i put about 6-8 different things inside (such as: a rock, a bracelet, the finger of a rubber glove, a feather, etc... anything you have lying around)
The idea is that the students work in small groups, or as a whole class, and the put their hand inside the sock, without looking, they choose one item to put in their hand, and they describe it to the class. The class can then have questions (such as is it heavy?) and guesses at what it might be.
This was great to fit in with my science topic, but can definitely be used anytime, as oral langauge and the ability to describe things using a variety of different criteria and interesting langauge is so important in the early years especially.

X-mas resources

2010-11-24T17:55:00.000+10:30

Well it is that time of year again...

I just love it when I can begin filling the classroom with Christmas craft that the kids have made.

I just thought I would share some websites with you that I have found really useful for Christmas craft

www.dltk-holidays.com/

Volume & Capacity- Making Jelly

2010-11-15T16:44:00.000+10:30

A couple of weeks ago we made Jelly in our class for two reasons
1) To celebrate the October birthdays
2) To expose students to the language of volume & capacity

I had a lovely assistant work at my desk taking a group of 3 or 4 kids at a time to help her make the jelly, while the rest of the class worked on a cut & paste measurement activity at their tables.

My assistant did a great job at talking about full and empty and showing the kids how the measurements on the bowl tell us how much of the liquid we need to put in.

It was fun and educational!

A recipe to share

2010-11-14T10:58:00.000+10:30

This is kind of a wintery recipe and here in Australia the weather is really WARMING UP! But over the past few days we've had a cold spell so I did my FAVOURITE wintery dish again last night, thinking that I may not feel like it again for a while through summer.

I LOVE this recipe because...
- Its a delicious risotto that is so easy and you don't have to stand around stirring it
- It tastes great
- It is cooked in one pot
This is mine from last night (doesn't look that appealing, but trust me it tastes GREAT!)

Sausage & Spinach Baked Risotto

You need:
250g sausage (choose one with some sort of flavouring like spicy itallian sausage, or I use garlic and herb)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 cup risotto rice
2 cups chicken stock
425g can diced tomatoes
100g baby spinach leaves

You do:
1. Preheat oven to 180 deg celcius
2. Remove sausages from their casings and roughly chop.
3. Heat oil in casserole dish (oven proof) on the stove and cook onion and garlic until lightly golden, add sausage and cook slightly until browned.
4. Add rice and cook for 1 minute.
5. Stir in stock and tomatoes.
6. Cover with lid (or foil) and bake for 25-30 minutes, until rice is tender.
7. Take out and stir through spinach until wilted.

8. Serve with parmesan if desired, goes well with a nice fancy bread.

Some Great Websites

2010-11-13T15:54:00.000+10:30

I am a bit slow to fully get my head around the story behind sparkle box. It never really hit the news in my country corner of South Australia, so I hadn't heard anything about it. A few months ago one of my readers drew my attention to the fact that something was not right with the creator of the site, but it has really taken until now before I have done some research on the guy and realised what a yucky man this sparklebox creator is. So sadly, because I did enjoy the resources on the site, sparklebox is no-more for me (although I haven't used it for sometime- knowing that something was off and I needed to find out what).
So I've been on the hunt for some more deliciously crisp and cute pdf printables for my classroom resources.
Here are a few I have come up with...
Twinkl

Early Learning HQ

Teacher's Pet

Number Line

2010-11-07T15:08:00.000+10:30

This is a number line that I have made,

the students can practice ordering numbers 1-20 in their activity time.

I printed the numbers off on coloured paper approximately 7x17cm.

Laminated.

Then attached the rough side of a piece of velcro on the top left of each number and the soft side of velcro on the bottom right of each number. This enables them to attach the numbers firmly together.

A Number Matching Game

2010-11-03T17:17:00.000+10:30

Number Matching 1-10

This is a simple number matching game that I have made for my students to use in thier free time, or for early finishers or in the maths rotations.

They have to match the numeral to the picture card with that same number of items on it.

Its simple and easy to make in word, I've made another set with different pictures from clipart also.

The students could even make their own, by writing the numbers and drawing the pictures (which could then be laminated) *I just thought that, totally gonna do that brain wave this week*

HERE is the word document that you can print and laminate if you like the game.

10 frame ideas

2010-10-28T18:47:00.000+10:30

I have been doing a few things with 10 frames in my class.
To begin with I just got them used to using the 10 frame. So I'd roll a 10 sided dice and the number that it landed on the students had to make on their 10 frame by placing on counters.
Then we started to bring in a bit more discussion about how the numbers can be represented differently in different boxes and also started to talk about the empty spaces.
Talking about the empty spaces is important because that is what builds the concpept of 10 (ie: if I put on 7 counters, there are 3 extra spaces, there are 10 spaces all together, so 7+3 must be 10).
We are going to need to continue to do a lot more work on this yet :)
I have found a great interactive tool for all those lucky people who have an interactive whiteboard and can do class games on the big screen, or for playing in free time on individual computers.

http://illuminations.nctm.org/activitydetail.aspx?id=75

looks like....

And
Here are a couple of pair games that I am hoping to get the students ready to be able to play independently. But I think we will do a lot more work on the concepts as a whole class first.
With a deck of '10 frame' playing cards (2 cards of 0-10 value each)

WHO HAS MORE
Pairs
Deal the deck out evenly. Each player turn over the top card of their decks at the same time and says the number on the card. The player with the greatest value wins and takes both cards. If its the same value each player keeps their own card. Once all cards have been played, each player counts the number of cards they have.

MAKE A TEN
Pairs
This game is played like “Go Fish”. Deal each player 5 cards. Each player needs to make pairs that add to 10 (0+10, 1+9, 2+8, etc.). When a pair is made it is layed down in front of them. On your turn she asks another player for a card. For example, if you have a 3 ask for a 7. If the player has the card, it must be handed over. If not, draws a card from the deck. Next player’s turn, do the same until the cards run out. The object is to make as many pair as possible.

Categorising Classmates Names

2010-10-27T19:24:00.000+10:30

I just wanted to share with you all what one of my little darlings was doing during free time (which we have in the morning as students arrive at school) NB: student has just started school.

Student was going around the room categorising and recording her classmates names based on what letter their name begins with. (I'm not sure which student is called Jelly, I guess this word must have been spied somewhere around the room as the task was being carried out).

I loved the language that was being used, like 'we have lots of kids that start with J'

Some Simple Graphing

2010-10-26T17:27:00.001+10:30

I am just introducing my students to graphing.

So I am starting with picture graphs.

I posed three yes or no answerable questions.

Do you like spiders?

Do you like to help with the dishes?

Do you like mushrooms?

I then gave each student a picture of a spider, a mushroom and a person doing the dishes to go and quickly colour in and then cut out.

Back as a group I showed them the two columned graph I had made, we identified which column was yes and which was no.

Then one by one the students came up and put their picture in the column they wanted to answer.

It became a bit interesting when everyone wanted to choose the same column

Of course we had lots of discussion about the graphs as we were going along (ie: more, less, most, least)

Here are some images

Simple Patterning Activity

2010-10-25T18:16:00.000+10:30

We did a really simple patterning activity today. Some of my girls are REALLY into making patters.

I had some strips of black card left over from something else I had done and we have about a million little coloured match sticks.

So I put out some paint-on glue, the match sticks and strips of card onto a table and as the students finished their other maths work they came to complete a pattern picture.

They really enjoyed it, because they got to paint with the glue, which they love and it looks really colourful and effective on the black card.

Are you my follower?

2010-10-20T21:03:00.001+10:30

Hi Everyone,
I have a favour to ask you.
I am feeling rather unmotivated with the blog world at the moment and feel that I would love some new blogs to look at. Each week I see one or two new followers of my blog but most of the time I am not able to see where you have come from.
I would love for you to leave me a comment and let me know how I can get to your blogs. So I can start to visit some of the people who visit me.
Thanks :)
Hope to start posting a bit more regularly soon

Sight Word Idea

2010-10-12T17:54:00.001+10:30

Here's an idea for practicing sight words
You need a big picture of a bus, laminated, and a pile of sight words written on cards to practice.

Either with velcro or blue tack, stick up one sight word at a time that you are working on and sing this rhyme to the tune of 'the wheels on the bus'
The word on the bus is
the, the, the; the, the, the; the, the, the;
the word on the bus is
the, the, the
all the way through town.

Hot Potatoes- A game making program

2010-10-10T17:18:00.000+10:30

I have come across this fantastic tool that I think everyone should know about

it is called

Hot Potatoes

It is a program that you download

from this site

Once you have downloaded the program onto your computer it allows you to make a variety of games

quizes, cloze exercises, crosswords, scrambled words and matching games

It is fairly easy to use, although you do have to have a fairly good understanding of computers to work it out on your own

My first attempt I made a multiple choice quiz on CVC words, where I inserted a picture and wrote the correct spelling for one choice and incorrect for the remaining three choices.

Making it

When you have finished it turns it into a web page that you can access from your computer which looks good and is easy to use.

And this is what one of my questions looked like,

the image I inserted followed by the multiple choice answers I had made

I am so glad I came across this website. I think it is a great resource for the modern teacher to have at their fingertips. I hope others might find it useful too.

Go to

Hot Potatoes

Peer/Buddy Learning

2010-10-06T21:47:00.000+10:30

Isn't peer learning the best thing!

The other week we had a couple of grade four students come in to our class and take small groups of my grade reception (kindergarten) children and show them a science experiment that they knew how to do.
Now, the concepts behind the experiments actually went right over most of the students heads but man did they love watching the older students play around with science.
They were engaged, listening, communicating and respecting thier fellow peers.

Making Simple Sentences

2010-09-23T16:58:00.002+09:30

I have made these cards to use with some of my students who are beginning to write for themselves. The aim is to build on their ideas for writing simple descriptive sentences about animals.

First, they sort out the different groups of the words.

I call the green words 'glue' words because they are the important little words that stick the sentence together, the yellow words are the animals that they all can at least sound out and work out what it says if not just read it immediately and the white words I call 'wow' words because they are the descriptive words that make the sentence interesting.

Next they make their sentence up using some green, yellow and white words, hopefully correctly, but if not that makes for good teaching points.

And finally I sometimes ask them to write out the sentence they've just made in their writing books.

You can download the cards to make yourself here

Life Size Measuring

2010-09-18T11:06:00.000+09:30

Task
Measure your partner to see how many popsticks long they are
You need
Pop sticks
Children
Photos

Trying to make sure all the popsticks are lined up without any gaps or overlapping

Counting up the popsticks

Notes

The students really enjoyed measuring each other with popsticks and it gave them a good idea about how the kids in the class are all a similar height, because they all measured 9 or 10 popsticks and it was a good opportunity to check who understood the importance of starting and finishing in line with thier subject and that there can't be any gaps or overlapping for an accurate result.

Teddy Bear's Picnic

2010-09-16T18:59:00.001+09:30

One of our favourite stories is...

Today's the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic.
On this beautiful sunny day we went on our very own Teddy Bears Picnic, singing our favourite song all the way!

(some of the kids lined their teddy bears up for a group photo- fearing that they would feel left out after the class had a group photo)

We had so much fun today!

We took our teddy bears out on the school oval for a picnic.

Before going we wrote a list of all the things that we would need to take, and after we got back we described what we did. (This writing was done as a class).

We took photos and put them in a class book, so the children could continue to talk about the event and develop their oral recount skills.

A Quick Tip

2010-09-13T19:12:00.000+09:30

The Ice Cream shape can be used for a whole variety of sequencing activities. Here I have used the numbers 1-10 which they have to putin order. But you can use this idea with all sorts of things, like sentences (The cat sat on the mat and simple sentences can be sequenced until they make sense). Stories can be typed onto the scoops (the beginning, middle and end of a story)

Sneek Peek 2

2010-09-01T21:45:00.000+09:30

Our space theme birthday chart

Our number line 0-30 for beginning to learn numbers

Our feelings wall, to help us learn to talk about the way we feel

Our reading corner- every classroom must have one!

Sneek Peek 1

2010-08-30T17:04:00.000+09:30

I thought I would do a couple of posts giving you guys a sneek peek into my classroom.
I always love seeing what others have done with thier room.

Our rewards chart and classroom jobs

Our word wall

Our learning ladders

(as the students learn their letters, words, numbers their name moves up the ladder and when they get to the top they get to choose from the prize box)

our class rules

Genre Studies: Description

2010-08-16T18:16:00.000+09:30

Last week I showed you some resources that I have developed myself for working with narratives in an explicit and fairly scaffolded (modelled by the teacher and highly supported) way.

I do a similar thing for many different genres. Today I will show you some of the things I have for descriptions. The resources I have used in this post are appropriate for descriptions of objects (rather than animals)

The poster below I print of size A3 and laminate for classroom use. This can then be referred to while explaining the structure of descriptions to the students and for the students to refer to while they are telling and oral description.

Download document here

Below is a template that I use for individual student work. Sometimes I get students to draw out their ideas of what they are going to say when describing a particular object, they would then present their description to the class or into a microphone for recording. Other times I will get them to draw out their ideas in this template and I scribe what they describe to me.

Download document here

Genre Studies: Narratives

2010-08-03T19:40:00.000+09:30

Whenever I am teaching students about how to tell a good narrative I always set out the structure in a poster to refer back to. Mine looks like this

http://sites.google.com/site/mrscresources/writing-resources-1/narratives

I also use their familiarity with this poster (after having talked about it a lot and had them practice telling narratives using these guidelines) to begin to record their narratives.

I print out this sheet for each student and they draw their ideas, to be scribed by an adult

http://sites.google.com/site/mrscresources/writing-resources-1/narratives

Tapping Patterns

2010-08-02T16:17:00.000+09:30

This is a song/activity to help recognise patterns

This song is sung to the tune 'pat a cake'

Bim bam bam, Bim bam bam, play the drum,

Bim bam bam, Bim bam bam, we have fun,

Choosing a pattern that we like to play,

Bim bam bam, Bim bam bam, tapping all day.

As you are singing you do a clap, tap (right), tap (left) pattern. So on the first word you clap your hands on the second word your right hand taps your right knee and on the third word your left hand taps your left knee and repeated until the end of the tune.

When the tune ends you look to a student (already chosen before you start the chant) and they do a pattern for the class to copy. So they might to something like; clap, clap, stomp which you would all keep repeating until the teacher says stop: clap, clap, stomp, clap, clap, stomp, clap, clap, stomp,

'A Sound Way'

2010-08-01T17:23:00.001+09:30

I like this book

A Sound Way (Second Edition)

by Elizabeth Love and Sue Reilly

It provides teacher information along with fun, practical activities for students to help strengthen their phonological awareness. It starts with simple sound-awareness activities and progresses to activities that help to develop an understanding of the way letters are are used to make sounds and those sounds are used to make words.

There is teacher information to strengthen our understanding of phonological awareness, there is some assessment tools, some activity ideas and some black line masters.

You can also get an Interactive Whiteboard CD to go with the book that has heaps of fun, colourful games to help practice the phonological awareness skills they cover in the book. The games are broken into different levels of phonological ability and they are just great.

Website Recommendation

2010-07-31T16:48:00.000+09:30

Have you been to the website

http://www.kizclub.com/

The PDF files that you can print out (usually in a black and white or colour version) are so cute and appealing, the kids love them.

You can make games, flashcards, worksheets, story props, craft and more from this site.

I love the printables they have to accompany a huge range of well known picture books.

Titch by Pat Hutchins

2010-07-28T21:30:00.000+09:30

Titch is a great book

Pat Hutchins has used the character for various other things, but the original book is the best.

I use this book in my classroom to explore the idea of size and also to tackle some common issues that young kids have with their older siblings.

The opening sentences summarise the idea of the book 'Titch was little. His sister Mary was a bit bigger. And his brother Pete was a lot bigger.'

Sparkle Box has some Titch resources

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/cll/story/titch.html

In my classroom I made a clothesline of different size words in different shapes and sizes of clothing (all just printed on paper not actually sewn by the way- I'm not that good)

And the kids played with them, hanging them in order of smallest to biggest, etc.

I don't have a photo unfortunately because I didn't think to take one and they are all packed up now.

We also learned this song (because at the end of the story Titch is given the seed to plant, when his brother gets the big spade and his sister the fat flowerpot, but it is Titch's seed that turns out to grow bigger and bigger and in the end be bigger than all of them.

Sung to the tune of 'I'm a Little Teapot'

I'm a little bean sprout,

green and small.

Soon I'll be growing,

nice and tall.

My roots are in the soil,

the sun shines on me.

I can feel the raindrops,

and I have air to breathe.

If your kids love Sesame Street, they have a size book too...

Also in the book,

Pete had a kite that flew high above the trees.

Mary had a kite that flew high above the houses.

And Titch had a pinwheel that he held in his hand.

This is a great activity to do with children. It works well.

1. You just print out and decorate the template.

2. Cut-out the pinwheel on the solid lines only.

3. Cut the dotted lines from the four corners to the center circle. Try not to cut into the center circle.

4. Use the sharpened pencil to poke a hole through the four tiny dark circles. The pencil point also works well to poke a hole into the straw. Carefully push the pencil point through the straw about 1/2 inch from the top.
5. Make the tiny holes on the four points meet at the center circle.
6. Push the ends of the paper fastener through the holes on the pinwheel. then push the fastener through the center circle.
7. Place the straw on the back side of your pinwheel and push the ends of the fastener through the hole in the straw. Open-up the fastener by flattening the ends in opposite directions.

Collecting Cans & Bottles

2010-07-25T10:26:00.000+09:30

In our class we collect cans and bottles from our lunches and from around the school.

I even have a troupe that go around at lunch time collecting from around the school WITHOUT BEING ASKED TO!

This is a great way to get children thinking about money, and also counting.

We count the cans/bottles/fruitboxes/milk cartons as we go along and then keep a tally of how much it is worth. In South Australia we get 10c for each piece.

As we go along I talk about the types of things a particular amount might be able to get you. For example if we have collected $10 worth I might say that $10 could get you a book or one meal or a birthday present for a friend.

But in actual fact we already know what we are aiming for.

In our class meeting we make a descision together on what special treat we would like to earn with the cans & bottles money.

Most recently the children chose a 'rainbow party' (they were right into rainbows as we had been learning about them in class and they love the look of them). So I estimate how much I think their choice would cost ($100 for the party, which included lots of food, prizes, party hats and noisy blowers, etc) and I place this amount on the board, when we reach this amount then the reward can be had. It took us 5-6 months to reach this total.

Our next choice is a trip to the cinema.

The learning that goes on in collecting cans & bottles

- Responisbility (looking after our school- keeping it clean)

- Responsibility (earning special rewards, rather than just being given a reward)

- Counting (counting how many cans & bottles were collected)

- Money (developing an idea of the value of money)

- Money (seeing the totals written down on our classroom board develops an idea of what money amounts look like written down)

- Operations (if I have 'this much' and i need 'this much' how much more until I reach my goal)

A couple of pics from our rainbow party...

Calendar Maths

2010-07-24T16:57:00.000+09:30

I have talked previously about my calendar maths lessons on the Interactive Whiteboard, before I had this special tool I used to do it on the wall. Recently I have decided that it is actually better to do it the 'old school' way on the wall because then it can be left there to view all day, whereas on the interactive whiteboard, once the lesson is over the calendar goes off.
Here is what I have done in the past....

Our Calendar Wall

This is the actual calendar part. Those numbers are placed on with velcro, so can be moved around to change it to whatever month you are in.

This is the part where I chose students to come up and put in the correct information for today. For example if we are trying to work out what day it is, we will have a discussion about it before hand talking about what we know and how we know it. Then I flip through all the days of the week cards and the class will clap when they see the correct one. Then I choose one student to stick it onto the wall.

Then the students go off individually and record the information we have discussed in their own calendar folders.

Do you do a calendar wall type thing at home or in your classroom?

Do you know any great calendar related websites?

Leave a comment and let me know if you do.

For more maths ideas go here...

Feel Good Friday

2010-07-23T17:20:00.001+09:30

My feel good Friday is about a lovely blogger called The Activity Mom. What a wonderful lady to send me an Amazon gift card when things didn't go according to plan when I won

this book

on her giveaway blog. I so didn't mind waiting a little while, but she was just too kind to let me wait.
So now I have this book too

Thank you

More feel good friday's at...

Glitter Rainbow Pictures

2010-07-20T17:35:00.000+09:30

A bit of glue, a bit of glitter and a few cotton balls... and a fair bit of mess!

What I've been up to...

2010-07-17T18:02:00.001+09:30

Wow, so I've just got back from a town called Murray Bridge. It's a little closer to our capital city here in South Australia (Adelaide) and that is where I will be moving to next year.

My husband and I are now the proud owners of a block of land there!
So we've just about got our house plan all organised, getting more and more elaborate as time goes by so I think it is time to sign the contract and leave it at that :s

The main thing that is going to be left for us to do is the landscaping. I am soooo not a green thumb AT ALL, and really keen on EXTREMELY low maintenance gardens.

Has anyone got any brilliant sites for garden tips, ideas, design inspiration????

School Holidays 4 me :)

2010-07-02T15:27:00.000+09:30

Well!

I'm on school holidays for two weeks. *breathes a sigh of relief*

I'm heading off for a week, so no posting for a little while.

Enjoy :)

PS: This is definitely a FEEL GOOD FRIDAY.

This 11 week term has really taken it out of me. I'm exhausted and am dying for a few sleep ins and days of doing not much at all.

Gimme 5- Number Recognition

2010-06-30T18:15:00.000+09:30

Download this document HERE

This is an activity that I do with my whole class.

It practices the numbers 1-10 and helps the children to become automatic in their recognition of these numbers.

You simply download the document and print as many times as you need for the number of children you will be working with (minimum of 2 works best).

Cut out the hand and each number separately. Laminate and cut again.

Attach a popstick to the bottom of the hand for holding.

Put a velcro dot in the centre of the hand (rough side) and a small piece of velcro on the back of each number (fluffy side).

Then, to play... the teacher calls out a number from 1-10 and the students have to rush to find that said number from their pile of individual numbers, attach it to their hand and hold their hand up in the air to be checked and congratulated.

The Rainbow Lorikeet

2010-06-28T21:41:00.000+09:30

The Rainbow Lorikeet is a local bird around our part of Australia. It is a type of parrot and we see it often. So while learning about rainbows this term, we digressed and did a mini study of the Rainbow Lorikeet, which the students enjoyed. Here are two projects that we made to share our learning about the concept that the Rainbow Lorikeet has feathers of many colours.

I printed a black and white master of a parrot and the kids decorated it with feathers of many colours.

Using the technique we learned in our previous rainbow project we worked in small groups to create a large paper mosaic Rainbow Lorikeet.

The other Lorikeets you see scattered around the mosaic projects are colouring in that the students did in their free time from the colouring draw. They became obsessed with Rainbow Lorikeets and even found some bush for them to live in.

Rainbows

2010-06-26T08:59:00.003+09:30

This term my dear class have been a little excited by rainbows.
We LOVE this rainbow book

It is so specail because as you turn each page a new colour of the rainbow appears (as a ribbon). It's very tricky and the kids are so excited by it.

I've got 2 of their rainbow art projects here to share with you (and perhaps even a couple more to share over the coming week).

First we have a giant rainbow hand print poster...

On the piece of butchers paper I drew the outline for where to put the hand prints. They are only five after all, and I know from experience that a painted hand is just too tempting to be placed anywhere and everywhere.

I put out trays of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple paint (it was just easier to do one type of purple).

For my class, I chose two to three kids to do each colour and they took it in turns to go outside and put their colours hand prints on. They were so proud of their big rainbow picture that they wanted to show it at our school assembly.

Paper Mosaic Rainbow

I roughly cut up squares of paper and put them each in a different container (this time I did have two types of purple- obviously the last one couldn't fit on Sarah's picture)

I did a picture of my own so the students could see what it looked like when it was all done.

Then I let them go to come up with their own interpretations of a rainbow. I must admit that they did not all look quite as rainbow-like as Sarah's does.

For other story + art projects visit here

Healthy Eating Unit Plan

2010-06-23T20:03:00.003+09:30

I'm going to do a unit of work on healthy eating next term and I am beginning the planning process. Below are the ideas that I have so far. I would love your input, ANY IDEAS???. I don't have many art ideas yet, anyone got some brilliant ideas?

Goals

- To develop a wide vocabulary of different healthy foods
- To be able to read and write some healthy food names
- To distinguish between healthy and non-healthy foods
- To develop an understanding of the importance of eating healthy
- Communicate the importance of eating healthy is to others

Classroom Display
- Find a large scrap piece of material, staple it to the wall as a picnic rug, attach our ‘picnic of healthy food words’
- Food pyramid
- Student-made posters that identify healthy/non-healthy foods
- Picture/word posters introducing and labelling different fruits & veg

Literacy Activities
- Brainstorm a list of healthy & non– healthy foods. Display in a poster
- Go through magazines and cut out foods, categorise them into healthy & non– healthy
- Discuss where different foods come from and where they are available in our community
- Create a healthy food related word wall (display on picnic blanket)
- Discuss the difference between needs & wants (in relation to eating), provide information (food pyramid) about what types of foods you need a little of and what you need a lot of
- Create an information poster about the types of foods we need encouraging peers to eat healthy
- Put a sticker on the word wall when a student brings that healthy food for recess/lunch

Art Activities
- Make 3D healthy foods to place around the room
- Draw all the healthy foods you can think of in your Busy Book, have the teacher help you, or use the word wall, to label your pictures

Other Activities (math, music, movement)
- Use healthy foods as manipulative material in mathematics lessons
- Survey peers on their favourite healthy food, graph it as a class and discuss the results.
- Learn and sing healthy food related songs: www.songsforteaching.com/foodnutrition
- Compare the sizes of different healthy foods
- Use healthy foods in shop play, price the fruit and vegetables, etc
- Cooking healthy foods– sending recipes home with families
- Turn our recipes into our own book using step by step photo’s
- In small groups spell out food names, from the word wall, with your bodies
- Learn some sign language for different foods
- Using a ‘feely bag’ with different foods inside, students describe how they feel

Useful Links
http://www.mypyramid.gov/preschoolers/index.html
http://stepbystepcc.com/nutrition.html
http://www.nourishinteractive.com/
http://www.nutritionexplorations.org/kids/main.asp
http://www.freshforkids.com.au/games/games.htm

Individual Whiteboards

2010-06-22T20:04:00.000+09:30

Do you know what resource I LOVE? Individual whiteboards for each student.

They just love using them, because there is no fear of making mistakes, they're fun, you get to use special textas and you can take them with you all around the room and write down anything you see.

With my students who are just starting school, a lot of the time they haven't developed the confidence in their own writing abilities yet and worry that they wont be successful putting pen to paper.

So with the whiteboards they know they can rub it out straight away and they are more likely to have a try.

Also for those just starting out in their writing you can form your letters on a bigger scale on the whiteboards and it puts less pressure on their fine motor skills. It allows the teacher the chance to help them work on their directionality of letter formation, rather than trying to write neatly on a line.

Do you all have whiteboards in your classrooms? Or at your home?

Ball Games

2010-06-22T17:17:00.001+09:30

I always love posts more if they have pics... but sorry no pics today. I've got a simple ball game to share with you that can be played inside or out.

Sticky Feet

rules

Don't drop the ball

Don't move your feet

Each person only touches the ball once

What you need
One soft, largeish ball
Children
Space

What to do
The students all spread out randomly (but not with very large gaps between them for young ones).
They must stick their feet to the floor (metaphorically speaking of course- we literally act this part out). One student starts with the ball and throws it to another, once they have had thier turn throwing, they sit down. Once all the children are sitting the game is over (can be timed to add a sense of competition). And if the ball is dropped or someone moves their feet, they must start all over again.

The point of the game
To think about how to work together to complete the game, without having to start all over again (and if you are timing, to do it as quickly as possible). The children need to work out that they should throw it carefully to the person they choose to throw it to, and to get their attention first, because if they do a throw that is difficult to catch, and is dropped, the whole group has to start again. Also, they need to think about strategy a bit, because it is much easier to throw to someone who is closer to you, so this should be the choice they make. And they need to think about not leaving someone left standing over to one side so the last throw has to be a big one because the two remaining are not near each other.

If you want to see more PLAY opportunities head on over to Childhood101

DIY Magnetic Letters

2010-06-21T17:50:00.001+09:30

Have you ever thought of this before? I hadn't until I read the wonderful blog of Stacey at Stillestund
She posted HERE about turning the letters of an old scrabble game into magnetic letters (for spelling and phonics games) simply by sticking some magnetic tape onto the back of the scrabble letters.
Sheer genius! Why didn't I think of that?
Thank you Sandra!

Word Walls

2010-06-20T15:17:00.003+09:30

Word walls can be fantastic things in a classroom. As long as they are used and referred to often, otherwise they just become part of the furniture.

Some activities from here that you can do with word walls

•Point, Clap, Chant. The teacher states the word, one student points to the word on the word wall and then all students chant the letters of the word and clap for each letter.

•Rhymes. The teacher states a word from the word wall, one student finds that word, then all the students try to think of some rhyming words for that word.
•Alphabetical Order. Depending on the number of word wall words, students can alphabetize all of them or they can alphabetize the first 20 or last 20 words. Tricky ;)
•Sign Language This works best when the sign language pictures are also available. The children use sign language to spell the word the teacher says.
•Add an ending (s, ed, ing) The students see if they can add endings to each of the words, works best if you have topic word wall (ie: adjectives, things at school) rather than a wall of sight words.
•Vowel Play The students can write the words and underline all the vowels, or decide if the vowels.
•Peer test. Students take turns testing each other on the spelling of each of the words
•Scavenger Hunt. Use old magazines or newspapers. Students try to locate as many of the word wall words as they can, they can cut them out and paste them into their books.
•Change a letter. Students try to make new words by changing just one letter. This can be a fun, challenging activity that can also be played in teams (for older students).
•Word wall stories Students use as many of the word wall words as they can tell a story.
•Guess the word wall word. Students work with partners and draw the word with their finger on their partner's back. When the student guesses the word, they trade places. (Great for tactile learners)
•Letters or syllables. The teacher states the word and the student then hold up the right number of fingers to show the number of letters or the number of syllables.
•Missing word. This one can be really fun. The teacher gives a sentence that is missing a word wall word and the students have to guess what the word is. For instance, if the word wall word is 'at', the teacher could say, "Who was _____ the park yesterday?" The teacher could have students state the word orally by turn, or have them do the activity in their notebooks. The activity could then be taken up after the dictation.
•Guess my word wall word. The teacher (or capable students) give clues for instance: "The word I'm thinking about rhymes with _____ and has 1 syllable and 4 letters." The students then try to guess the word from the word wall.
•Word wall Bingo Students always love a good game of bingo. In this activity, the students write down a stated number of word wall words, 10, 15 or 20. The teacher then randomly states the names of some of the word wall words. As he/she says the words, the students underline the word or put a chip over the word. The first one to have their words read out by the teacher first is the winner.
•Word wall snap. The class forms 2 lines. The teacher is in front of the 2 lines. The teacher points to a word wall (or uses the word wall cards), the first student to say the word remains in front of the line. The other student goes to the back of the line and the 2 students in front continue on.
•Sounds like.... The teacher says a word that sounds like the word wall word, for instance in the case of 'are' the teacher would say "sounds like far" and the students write down what they think the word wall is. This one can also be played orally.

More word wall activities
teachingfirst.net
theschoolbell.com
calicocookie.com

This is the word wall set up in my classroom

(these students are in their first year of school)

This is the special little pointer we use to read out the words on the word wall.

I bought some finger puppets from the $2 shop and hot-glue-gunned them onto the ends of a length of dowel, so I have lots of different characters.

Below I have put together a collection of photo's from Google Images of what people have been doing for word walls in their classrooms around the world. I hope nobody minds that I have borrowed their images, I have tried to link up. Please let me know if anyone understands the rules better on borrowing images and believes I should not re-post from google images.

here

For lots more photo's of different types of word walls look HERE

Wonna see even more about Word Walls (including details of what they are all about) click on over HERE to Pre-K pages

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

2010-06-20T10:54:00.002+09:30

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

by Michael Rosen,

London, Walker Books, 1989

This one is a fabulous book for exposing children to the language of position and location.

It uses words such as through, over, under, etc.

So, after reading this book to the students I followed it up with a little activity.

I printed off the location cards specially formulated for this book from KIZCLUB
(PS: Check out the Kizclub site, its got some great pdf's on there!)

And I printed off small photo's of each students face, laminated them and stuck them to a pop stick. Then the students worked in small groups retelling the story and moving their personalised puppets under and over and through all the locations that come up in the book.

Feel Good Friday

2010-06-18T16:17:00.000+09:30

An inspirational quote for Feel Good Friday...

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

G. K. Chesterson

Quote found here

Do you know about this great website?

2010-06-16T18:30:00.000+09:30

Do you know about Sparkle Box?

It has got such GREAT downloadable resources.

Trust me, you wont be dissapointed if you click on over and have a look.

We Play- Symmetrical Butterfly Art

2010-06-15T17:11:00.000+09:30

You provide a variety of paints in primary colours in pots with plastic spoons.

The students are instructed to:

1) Fold their paper in half.

2) Open it back up.

3) Dob a few colours of paint in the centre.

4) Fold it back over.

5) Smoosh it down.

6) Open it up and see the butterfly creation.

Show & Tell- Letter Search & Count

2010-06-15T17:03:00.002+09:30

Here is an activity that practices the letters in your name and counting.

They are given a page with a grid with their name in it. The task is to find all the letters of your name, as many times as you can in an old magazine, cut it out and stick it on thier page. After a time (howver long it takes before they get sick of cutting out letters), they then have to count up how many of each letter they were able to find and put the number in the box below the letter.

Book Share

2010-06-12T08:31:00.000+09:30

Surely everyone knows this book well????

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

This is great for teaching maths concepts:

It shows the passing of time and demonstrates that with this there is change. It documents the days of the week really well and includes them all from Sunday right through the week and back to Sunday again. There are different numbers of fruits to count and a bit group of other foods for counting higher numbers. It demonstrates a concept of opposites big/small, fat/thin, day night.

The Big 6

2010-06-11T17:57:00.000+09:30

My class would not let me get away with having them missing out on thier 'reading' time. They love it, even though they are all pre-readers. I love that they love it!!!!

I thought I would share with you a recent experience that I had with my learning around teaching reading. Recently I listened to a lecture on Reading and it talked about The Big 6 skills that a child needs to conquer to be able to read. I don't feel like this information is anything new, however it is rather concise and it never hurts to refocus your thinking on a skill that we are teaching all every day (as teachers and as parents).

The Big 6 were listed as:

1) Oral Langauge & Linguistic Knowledge- Children need to have exposure to langauge and how language opperates in order to begin to understand how the language of books works.

2) Phonological Awareness- This includes an awareness of words, syllables, onset & rime, phonemes and sound blends. All of these things should be taught in an explicit and systematic way.

3) Letter-Sound Knowledge- Children need to be able to look at a letter, or group of letters, and associate it with a sound so that they can decode words (although, as we know, with English this is not always possible with all words).

4) Vocabulary- It is important that children understand the meaning of a wide variety of words, it is more difficult to read a word, and especially get meaning from that word, if you have never heard it before. This is also where the importance of the immediate recognition of sight words and high frequency words comes in.

5) Fluency- Children need to be able to read reasonably fluently to assist with meaning and comprehension. If they are spending all of their time trying to decode the words they loose the meaning of the text and are using up all their 'brain power' on decoding rather than comprehension.

6 Comprehension- This involves understanding the purpose of reading, actively engaging with the text, using availiable reading strategies and connecting with prior knowledge and context to understand the information that is being read.

There are lots of ideas out there in the big wide world of reading, anyone have any great tips & ideas?

Starfall is a great website for reading resources.

Feel Good Friday

2010-06-11T16:52:00.001+09:30

About a month ago my dear Nana passed away and yesterday my Pop came to visit me with a gift of a recent photo of her and one of the rings that she used to wear every day for me to keep. I am so glad to have something special of hers to remember her by.

PS: To all those who visited last week and were 'outraged' that I would put a photo of such a delicious looking self-saucing chocolate putting and no recipe. My deepest apologies :) I have amended my post to now include my fail safe recipe. Happy cooking!!!

We Play- Community Helper Dress Ups

2010-06-08T20:45:00.000+09:30

While doing a unit of work on Community Helpers with grades R-4 (K-4) in a remote community, which has limited access to the common community workers in most towns and cities, we really got into it by dressing up as some of our favourite workers. This was their favourite part of the unit because it meant they could play at a job that they might want to be when they grew up.

Police

FireFighters
Cooks

Farmers

Builders

Take a look at our gorgeous photos....

For more great play ideas pop on over here

Ladybug Number Match

2010-06-08T20:28:00.001+09:30

To download go to

Excuse Me Mrs C! Resources

This is a simple game for practicing the numbers 0 to 10

Download the word document, print and laminate

Give it to your kids to read the numbers in each number box and collect the corresponding number of ladybugs to attach.

For other great ideas go and take a look at

Feel Good Friday

2010-06-04T16:14:00.001+09:30

Chocolate Self Saucing Pudding...

To all the Feel Good Friday Readers sorry for not putting my recipe ;)

Cake:

1 cup self raising flour

2 tablespoon cocoa powder

1/2 cup brown sugar

80g melted butter

1/2 cup milk

1 egg lightly beaten

Sauce:

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoon cocoa powder

1 1/4 cup boiling water

1. Preheat ofen to 180 degrees celcius, Grease an 8cup capacity baking dish. Sift flour and cocoa into large bowl. Stir in sugar.

2. Combine butter, milk and egg in a jug. Slowly add to flour mixture, whisking until smooth. Spoon into baking dish and smooth top.

3. Sauce: Sprinkle combined sugar and cocoa over pudding.

4. Slowly pour boiling water over the back of a spoon to cover pudding. Bake for about half an hour, or until it bounces back in the middle.

5. Serve with ice cream or cream or berries or all of the above.

Oh no!

2010-06-02T19:07:00.002+09:30

Retelling 'The Jolly Postman'

2010-06-01T20:23:00.000+09:30

Do you know the story 'The Jolly Postman'? It is a great book about a postman who rides his pushbike delivering letters to all sorts of wonderful nursery rhyme characters. And you even get to read the letters that are delivered.

We studied this book in our classroom as a basis of many literacy lessons, including letter writing.

One lesson we did involved recreating the story.

First we painted the sky and the ground onto a long piece of butchers paper.

Then we made the various houses that the postman visits using a variety of different materials (pop sticks, felt, paper, shiny spcial paper).

Finally we stuck them on our paper in order of how the postman visits and made the Jolly Postman himself.

We made him out of pipe cleaners, fashioning a bike and a man (with a lot of teacher help- very tricky).

The last step was to retell the story (which we knew so well because we had been using it in our lessons so much all term, and reading it constantly because they all loved it so much). They each got their postmen on their bikes and travelled him along our story picture telling me the house he visited, who lived there and a little about them.

It was a great experience and we got a lot out of 'The Jolly Postman'

If you want to read about more great ideas

see ABC 123

Multiple Intelligences

2010-05-30T10:40:00.002+09:30

I am sure that all you teachers have heard of

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory

Gardner argues that intelligence can be displayed in a range of ways and that they should all be equally catered for and encouraged to blossom in the classroom.

I consider this theory a lot in my planning of themes and units, so I though I would share a bit with you today.

Here are a few of the activities that we did during our unit on

'The Way Things Move'

Word Smart- Read/Explore/Share Information books about different transport and discuss the different ways that cars, trucks, helicopters, hot air balloons, boats, scooters, bikes, etc, etc can move.

Logic Smart- Make various types of things that move (ie: paper aeroplane, paper helicopter, parachute, etc) and measure how far you can get them to move.

Picture Smart- Draw all the things that you can think of that can move (have a time limit there are a lot, one of my students even came up with a clock, because the hands move around it).

Body Smart- Demonstrate a variety of different ways (ie: silly walks) of moving to the music.

Music Smart- Sing and learn transport/movement themed songs to perform to parents at the end of the term.

People Smart- Work in groups to design the ultimate 'moving' machine. First decide if it goes on land, sea or air.

Self Smart- Chose one thing that can move and ask the librarian to help you find a book about it to sit down and 'read' for yourself.

(this one was an add on later) Nature Smart- Go outside and watch the birds flying, the clouds moving slowly, the trees moving in the wind, etc.

Excuse Me Mrs C! Resources

Here I have uploaded some things I have made and use

There is some planning templates and some Types of Intelligences posters that I print of and put around the room, to discuss and demonstrate that I value all types of interests and abilities

Rainbow Alphabet Match

2010-05-29T08:54:00.001+09:30

Here is a game that I prepared for practicing the letters

s,a,t,p,i,n

It involves looking at the pictures, recognising what letter they start with and attaching to the correct rainbow.

Pop on over to

Excuse Me Mrs C! Resources to download

Feel Good Friday- New Opportunities

2010-05-28T19:14:00.001+09:30

Hubby has won a promotion in another country town about four hours from where we currently live. Yay, for him. And today I found out that I too have won a teaching position at a neighbouring town!!!!! Woo hooo, so glad it is all working out!!!

Excitement for starting at a new school January next year.

http://thegirlnextdoorgrowsup.com/

Show & Tell- Floor sized Graphing

2010-05-26T18:43:00.000+09:30

I have new receptions (which for non- South Australian's is the first year of school).

And graphing is a tricky concept.

I find that it helps develop a greater understanding of the way things can be sorted out into bars and columns if it is done on a large scale.

So what I do, is I put an x and a y axis (although I don't actually call it that) on the floor in masking tape for each student and give them a variety of resources that they can sort out.

Of course I show them some examples of what a graph looks like first and develop a concept of putting all the same things together into rows, nice and neatly, with out huge gaps or being on top of each other.

Here are a few examples of what we came up with

Using coloured squares of paper...

Using different coloured shapes...

He sorted by colour...

She sorted by size...

I'm sure someone sorted by shape too...

If its more tips and ideas you are craving pop on over to abcand123learning for