2D Shapes

2D Shapes!!!

It is the long weekend over here in Western Australia and when I look at my Dog I think she pretty much sums up everyone’s feelings at the moment!

                                

It already feels like Week 9 of a 10 week term but reality is we only just finished Week 6 of an 11week term!

My students were definitely feeling the mid-term slumps this week. They were very tired and finding it hard to get motivated during learning time.

We needed some GLITZ and GLAM!!!!

This week we started looking at 2D shapes! I always find shapes so much fun to teach because there are so many interactive ways to get the kids learning!

We started with identifying the names of shapes. Using some adorable shape clip art I bought from Ashely Hughes I created a powerpoint for my students!!!

You can access her shape products and other gems by clicking  here

Now I am not going to lie I really tossed and turned on the idea of using these adorable pictures because at my school we have been looking at taking the ‘fluff’ away from our lessons…..

After much deliberation I decided to use the pictures and I am completely glad I did! (I did also make sure to include the shapes without the faces so they were exposed to both - just to cover all bases!)

As soon as my students saw the shape faces they squealed with delight and the MAGIC was back in their eyes!!! It was the best they worked all week!!!!!

After we learnt to name the shapes we were seeing, we began looking at the features of 2D shapes! We discussed how many faces, lines and corners each shaped had and even had a crack at drawing some of the shapes using our knowledge of their features!

Finally we created our own shapes using construction paper! I let the students’ creativity just flow on this and it was really wonderful to see what they came up with!

          

          

I used the base shapes from The Clutter Free Classrooms 2D Geometry Pack you can access her pack by clicking here. The rest the students created themselves!!!

I created a simple worksheet to go with the shapes to further assess their understanding!

Check out some of the final products!!

          

UPDATE: You can grab some free shape worksheets by visiting my store on Teachers Pay Teachers or by clicking here shape worksheets

Well I am off to follow the lead of my dog and just SLEEP away the exhaustion!!

I thought though I would leave you with some wise words from one of the coolest children on Earth ....Kid President!

Procedure Writing

This photo pretty much sums it up for me tonight! Haha

Between report comments and our class assembly it has been a crazy week! 

To sum up the assembly in one of my students words we "NAILED IT!!!"

So tonight I am sitting with my feet up on the couch, wrapped in my blanket watching a movie one of the students in my class lent me because I NEED to watch this movie apparently!
Ahhh the things we do for the kids in our class! ;)

This term we have been learning about procedures!
We talked a lot about how a procedural text gives us instructions on how to do something or how to make something.

Procedures are one of my favourite writing genres because they can be really HANDS ON!!!!

This year we have made cold Milos, fairy bread, lemon body scrub (for mother’s day) and my personal favourite making oobleck!!!!

Making oobleck is super easy! All you need is some:
Corn flour
Food dye
Water

Together as a class we wrote a procedure to describe how to make Oobleck. We made sure to include all of the structural elements of a procedure which include a title, goal, ingredients, materials and a method. 

We also discussed how often procedures are accompanied by labelled diagrams and had a go at drawing some of our own diagrams to match our method.

Finally we followed our procedure to create our own Oobleck!

It was really interesting to touch! When you apply pressure it appears hard and solid but when you pick it up, it turns into a liquid! 

Our next writing genre is my favourite information reports!!!! I love to base it around animals which is always a hit with the kids. Expect to see some reports about sharks in the next few weeks!

For now ...

Harry Potter Theme 1

Howdy :)

I have been a little inactive at the moment…… mainly due to report season. As soon as Term 1 holidays start I automatically feel like below!

Now I am just waiting for week 8 so I can be very much like Kenzi from Lost Girl!

So to take a break ....otherwise known as
                                                    
I thought I would tell you about one of my favourite things in the world….

One thing most people who know me know is that I LOVE HARRY POTTER!!!

As a teacher I have noticed when you love something your class begins to love that thing as much as you! Despite Harry Potter having not graced our book stores or cinemas over the past few years it hasn't stopped the magic for old or new readers alike!
I don't know what it is about Harry Potter but it always manages to engage a class straight away - the series really is magical!

Last July I went to go visit my family in England. While I was there I took a trip to the Warner Bros Harry Potter Studio (how could I not have!!??!!) It was amazing and it inspired me to take some of this magic back with me!!! Safe to say my debit card got a little work out in that gift shop! ;)

I decided I would have a Harry Potter Theme for the next term! I was so excited I began planning at the studio while waiting for the return bus!
I came back to Australia and instantly began working on creating a magical Harry Potter theme! (Pinterest is working right???)

After hours of finding different ideas on Pinterest I was ready to begin creating and OH was I so excited!!!

My mother is very creative so helped me to make many of the props in my classroom! Mums are just amazing!


We started with my classroom door to set the mood from the moment they walked in! I found some brown present wrapping paper and we painted square bricks on top to create a brick wall! Then we printed off a sign that said platform 9 and ¾. The finishing touch was printing off a trolley!!!

Next we made floating candles with yellow and orange card and fishing line.

We then displayed acceptance letters to Hogwarts addressed to the well-known characters - props to my sister for her lovely handwriting!

When in England I went to a lot of markets! While walking around the general second hand stalls I found 11 little owls made of different materials for $5!!!

They were perfect for our Owlery! I found the white mini house at Kmart and painted to backdrop a dark purple. The Owls went in like they had been made for it!!! I also printed off some photos of Owls in cages just to finish this area!

I found various harry potter inspired artwork online and used them as ‘moving paintings’ although the characters could not move every now and then the paintings would be in a different order!

I didn’t have a lot of room in my classroom so I merged my herbology and potions areas into one! I found pictures on line of plant diagrams and various mythical plant beings.

I bought glass jars of various shapes and colours. I had so much fun finding things to put in the jars and creating my potions!


We stuck some toy spiders to the wall heading out our classroom door…

Students are not permitted into our store room so this was the perfect place to stick both the restricted library sign and Fluffy!!!!

My classroom joins right next to another year two classroom with a door connecting us both. I placed the fat lady painting here!

I was a silly nilly and did not take photos of everything last year …..BUT it worked out well because Halloween was after and I was able to pick up some new exciting pieces including a giant spider, some brooms and an old tea set for divination class!


Just blogging about all of this is giving me Harry Potter fever! I am feeling the theme might be coming back out in class VERY soon! This year I will take lots of photos of EVERYTHING!!

I am also in the process of putting towards a Harry Potter Theme pack with lots of Harry Potter Ideas for your classroom so stay tuned! 

For now I am off to do things but don't worry .....

Miss Thresher

Hi :)

My name is Teagan and I am a primary school teacher!

I absoultly love my job! :) I currently teach Year Two and have done so for the past two years.


At school I go by 'Miss Thresher' but my current class have nicknamed me 'Thresher Shark' after they discovered there is a shark called the Thresher Shark!

Without any bias it is a pretty spectacular animal!

Having the same name as a shark is definetly one way to win over the boys in a year two class!


Over the next few months I hope to share what I am doing in my classroom with you but I will probaly be sharing personal bits and bobs too!


It has been a goal of mine to start my own blog so I am very excited to be ticking one thing off my list for once!

Now I'm off to tick some jobs off my current to do list of about 100 jobs or what feels like 100 jobs!