Jingling all the way to CHRISTMAS

Hello!!!

I have missed you all very much the past few weeks!!! :) But I AM BACK and here to stay!!! :)

So much has been going on!!!!

 I go to meet my new students and school in Bridgetown on Wednesday!!! IT was all very exiting for both the students AND ME!!!!!

Whilst in Bridgetown I stayed in a lovely cottage!!! :) My lovely aunt came down with me as I had been pulling a few late nights combined with very early mornings and my family were worried about the amount of driving. It was really good having some company!! :)

We did some Christmas shopping in the AMAZING Christmas shop, ate lunch at a local pub and I even managed to find an adorable owl scarf!!! My two loves in one - cartoon owls and scarves!!! I can tell I am going to love it here!!

The town is beautiful!!! As are the people I have met in it!!! :)



But alas  I do love my current class VERY VERY much and am savouring EVERY last minute I have with them!!!

We are right in Christmas mode atm!!!

We are playing Christmas carols while we work, reading Christmas stories, learning about advent and yesterday we started some Christmas art!! :)

We used the directed drawing from Amy Lemons and Katie King's Rooted in Reading December Pack (if you have not checked these out yet - GET ON IT!!!) to create our own amazing polar bear art!!! I love how each background is different and they each added their own little flair!

Some drew caves, others the northern lights, some in class have icicles - the creativity of a child never ceases to AMAZE me!!!

 

After we read the non fiction reading passage from the unit about polar bears and decided if we would like a polar bear as a pet. They had to use evidence from the read allowed to justify their position!

Some of them are very funny!!! :)

This time of year is always fun but the behaviour can start to get a little crazy as they get tired and forget to think before acting.

To keep up the motivation I do a couple of things in my classroom!

1. A treat a day keeps the gremlins at bay ....

Over the years I began collecting Christmas books and this year I ordered a heap of them!!! What I like to do is read one each day to the class. This is in ADDITION to our big book for the week.

To make it all that  more special I wrap the books up so it is like a present!!! I am not the hugest fan of wrapping presents in wrapping paper just because I am unsure of how I feel about using the paper once (we have always used Christmas sacks at our house) so I compromised and reused old newspapers instead - still not the best but better than nothing I think! :)

The kids are LOVING it and they remind me very quickly if they have missed out on reading one for the day!!!

I pick one student to head over and select a book .... my kids are HILARIOUS because they have convinced themselves that red ribbon means bad and green ribbon means good! They cheer is someone picks a green and act scared when someone picks a red!!!

Kids ;)

2. Unlock a magic moment each day!!!

This is one of my core behaviour management techniques at the moment.

I got 5 old photocopy boxes (you will only see 4 in the photo but there are 5) and covered them in wrapping paper to 'Christmas' them up (I intend to keep these boxes hence I was willing to use the wrapping paper).

In each box goes a different activity. The class need to reach a target each day. If they reach the target at the end of the day I choose two people to pick a box and we get to do that activity as a class. Once a box has been chosen it can not be picked again.

Some of the activities include and may I stress the SOME:

• Decorating a Christmas tree to have in the classroom
• Christmas photo booth
• Reindeer races (I found the reindeer at Big W)
• Snowball toss (I found these are Kmart!!)
• Designing a trap to catch a gingerbread man
• Making reindeer food 
• Pin the nose on Rudolph 
• Build a human snowman
• Build a human Christmas tree
• Waddle like a penguin races
• Candy cane hunt
• Puffy paint snowmen
• Snowman ten pin bowling

The idea is pretty versatile and you could use any activity you like :)

3. Jingle all the way!!!

Kids love Christmas carols and playing them while settled in our work is always a treat!! :)

I hope you got some ideas from those!! :) The main idea is JUST HAVE SOME FUN!!!!!!

Remember make the most of the time with your kids ..... not long left!!! :(

Have a lovely weekend everyone!!!! :)

Bits and Bobs

Hey Y’all!!!

Sorry for the silence of late - I have been thinking about blogging the whole time but it’s been a crazy few weeks of late!!!

I have so many exciting things happening or about to happen in the classroom at the moment!

So I apologise that this post may be a little bit of everything rather than once focus! Just too much to talk about!! J

Maths Capacity

Last week we learnt all about the capacity of items.

We talked about that capacity is important to understand because if we don’t we may over fill a drink or bath but also because bridges tell us their capacity in terms of weight.

We also discussed how we could describe the capacity of objects and compare them using this same language - justifying our positions!

In small group we examined three different containers estimating their capacity and comparing them from our initial estimation. Then we drew the three containers read to take our learning to the next level by going out into the great outdoors!!!

We put our learning into action in the sandpit by measuring how many cups each container took and comparing it to our other containers.

Dramatic Play

This term our dramatic play has been set up as a Café as per the students input!!

We made some of the pretend food to go into the area including: Spaghetti, Milkshakes, frappes, noodles and Sushi!

Awards Day

As the end of the school year approaches (officially only 18 days left with my little fish!!! L L) I am going to be holding an ‘awards’ afternoon for the class where we will look through photos of the year and each child will be presented with a certificate from me about something they have improved on this year.

Today I sent out invites to the students families!!! They look so cool!!!!

I will keep you posted of all the learning and fun happening - there is a lot coming!!! ;)

oh on a cute note we had a fun night at school with lots of little stalls and activities one of my students ran up to me showing me what they got painted on their arm

it was a Thresher Shark!!!! Love my kids 

#teachermoments #oneofthebestpartsofmyjob

Enjoy the last few days you have left with all your lovely children!!!

Cranking it up Halloween style with Crankenstein!!!!

Hey Y’all!!! J

It’s Friday!!!!

I can honestly say I was saying TGIF A LOT today!!!!!

Halloween AND a full moon is not a good mix for little kiddos!!!!!

Pretty funny it is world teacher day today as well - defiantly used my teacher patience today of all days!!! 

BUT like always I LOVE my job very much and wouldn't trade it for any other!!! :)

Onto this week ..... 

Although Halloween is not as big over here in Australia, and working at a catholic school does make it a lot trickier I still wanted my class to join in a little fun of the event so this week we did some activities from Amy Lemon’s and Katie King’s ‘Rooted In Reading’ unit.

We read the story Frankenstein Crankenstein which I just LOVED!!!!! It was also a hit with the kids for sure!!!

Then we made some inferences about what made him happy and what made him cranky.

Afterwards we started our Crankenstein guided drawings which the class really enjoyed - I am usually a just draw your own type of teacher but they really enjoyed being shown how to draw this and I think it showed some of them they have the potential to draw well if they focused on what they are doing!!!

After this we described Crankenstein’s character traits and searched for evidence in the text to back up what we thought. 

Well I am off to watch god old Harry Potter!!! ;)

Have a 'spooktacular' weekend!!! :)

More Data and Chance stuff!!!

The past week and a half has all been about chance and data in the Dugong classroom an OH BOY have we been busy!!!

After creating our class life sized picture graph of how we travel back from school we created picture graphs using the information we had gathered in a tally. We answered different questions about our graphs using both the information we could easily see and using our other skills like addition and subtraction!

By the time Friday came along we were in need of some extra motivation so the good old m n m’s came out! You could hear a pin drop when I handed the packets out!

We made our expectations very clear so m n m’s did not go ‘missing’ during the lesson!

First we compared how many m n m’s we each had in our packet. On average we had 13/14  m n m’s. I have done this previously where the numbers range from 12 - 17!!!!

Then we divided the m n m’s into colours and tallied this information. Next we used our tally to create our own bar graph!

After this we looked at pie charts! We used our m n m’s to help us create our own bar graph. We did this by placing the m n m’s around a circle cut out and then placing a dot in the middle to help guide our lines!

Check out the final product!!!! - Sorry it is upside down but you get the idea ;)

This week we moved onto chance! We talk about the likelihood of events both in the students’ personal lives and of our world!

Finally today we looked at the probability of chance outcomes!!! We looked at bags of marbles and discussed the likelihood of pulling out particular colours.

I made some mystery bags up filled with 3 colours of marbles. Each bag contained 6 marbles however they were mixed in terms of the number of each coloured.

Students worked in pairs to pull out one marble at a time, record its colour and then place it back in the back. THEY WERE NOT ALOUD TO PEEK IN THE BAG!!!!

 We did this 20 times to obtain a decent amount of data to work with.

From here we made predictions about the colours and ratio or colours in our mystery bags!!! It was a lot of fun!!!!

Well I am off to enjoy one of my favourite things - Harry Potter!!!! I am loving the fact Go! Is playing the series each Friday!!!

To top it off it is my favourite one tonight!!! J J J

Big News :)

Heya!

 

So anyone who knows me I am terrible with happy surprises and good news! I can keep a secret but keeping good news to myself is SOOOOOOO hard so I have been quite lately to stop myself from spilling the beans…… but no more!!! I can tell you all my news!!!!

 

I am moving to the country next year to teach in Bridgetown!!!! J J J

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!!!

It is a very big change but one that I am ready for and I am sure is going to help me grow into an even better teacher!!

 

The ONLY sad part is leaving behind all the beautiful people in my life at my current school . . . . especially ALL the kids but hopefully they will still let me come to their special events like Holy Communion and Graduation so I can see them still!!!

 

This change has led to me cleaning a lot of things out that I no longer need or use and redoing up old worksheets etc. I am working on a mix of 3 different TPT units at the moment because I keep having different ideas for each and then get bored with a unit so hopefully at least ONE of those will be out soon!!!

 

In other exciting news on the weekend I had the privilege of attending the first ever TPT seller conference in Sydney! It was lots of fun and I got to meet many amazing sellers and even some TPT royalty with people like Dancing Crayon Designs (one of the most down to earth and amazing ladies you will meet!!!!) , Graphics from the Pond and Clever Classroom (She is so lovely and sweet!).

 

There is talk of holding another one next year and I for one cannot wait!!! Hopefully eventually one day I will even be able to attend the TPT conference in Vegas!! That’s the dream anyway!! ;)

Graphing

Howdy Y’all J

I hope you are all having a spectacular week!!!

I had my first week back at school today and BOY was I so excited to be back with all my kiddos!!!

I am not going to lie although I didn’t want my holidays to end (who would really!) because I was getting so much done, I REALLY wanted to see my kids! J

We jumped straight into our learning today with expositions, looking at the ir, er and ur sound, beginning an amazing craft grammar activity from Katie King and Amy Lemons Stelluna unit (I am LOVING their product series ‘rooted in reading’ although I don’t say it aloud here in Australia much with the word rooted having a VERY different meaning over here! hee hee )

We also began looking at data and graphing!

I used these adorable transport cards from Reagan Tunstall’s guided math bundle unit 1 and began taking about how we got home after school!

Our options were walk, ride a bike, catch a bus, go to after school care or drive in a car.

We used the cards and our classroom mat to create a life sized picture graph!

We talked about why a picture graph was called a picture graph and discussed different ways we could display the same information - tallies/bar graph.

Afterwards we interpreted our graph and answered relating questions orally.

These questions included:

How most students traveled home

What method of transport was used the least

How many people drove a car or rode a a bike

How many more people drove a car then went to after school care

Tomorrow we are going to begin creating our own picture graphs which I am very excited for! :)

Also tomorrow we are having a shoelace incursion where we are going to learn how to tie our shoelaces!!!!!

HOW AWESOME IS THAT!!!!!!

So excited for everything happening this week that I am sure we will be speaking very soon! :)

Getting Organised!

Hey Y'all!

I am just buzzing with excitement at the moment!!!!

I have some big news, life changing news - I can't tell you the news just yet but trust me it is coming soon!


I just got back from camp late Saturday arvo and yesterday was most definitely a day of rest for me!

 

I have been a super busy bee these holidays and it is not going to change anytime soon as I am preparing to visit my sister in England for Christmas! I've made a list of things to do and its just getting longer!!!

 
BUT I have got a lot of things done - one of which was beginning  to organise my math resources!!!

This has been something I have been trying to do for a while now so the first day of holidays I bit the bullet and got started after all there is no rest for the wicked! ;)

 
I began by bagging and resorting all of my math resources. I love the children in my class but they do tend to not put things back the way they were given - often mixing resources etc.


After this I sorted my resources according to their skills. I made some labels  to represent each of these skill.

I chose to categorise my resources under the following topics:

1. Place Value (I used two tubs for this. One tub was for reading, writing and representing . The other for comparing, ordering and adding multiples)

2. Addition (I am thinking this into two boxes and having addition skills in one and  two digit addition in another as I have so many resources on this topic) 

3. Subtraction

4. Money

5. Fractions

6. Multiplication

7. Division 

8. Time

9. Measurement (length, area, volume etc)

 

I'm not going to lie it was a gruelling process but it was worth it. I could clearly see what I have a lot of  and what skills I need to create resources for!  And now whenever I create or buy a resource it can go straight into the topic ensuring ORGANISTION!!!!!! :) :)

Well I am going to be a little busy bee and buzz off to do some chores! :)

Speak soon! :)