Back To School and New Beginings

I feel like I blinked and suddenly the holidays disappeared!!

One blink and I was in England with my uncle and sister.
One blink and I was travelling Europe.
One blink and I was home in Perth.
One blink and I moved to Bridgetown.
One blink and I start work in 1 day.

It has been a whirlwind to say in the slightest!!!

Below are some snaps of the amazing people I met (minus some other amazing people!), my favourite place BERLIN!!! an my sister and I doing Harry Potter stuff because let's face it when it comes to me Harry Potter things will rule my holiday a little!!!

 

But now it is back to reality - well a different version of reality as you may know I decided on a big change this year and have moved down south to Bridgetown to teach for a year!! (at this stage anyway!)

 

My amazing parents and adorable dog Molly made the trip down with me to unpack for my new adventure!!

 

Molly slept most of the 4hr drive to which I was most surprised!

 

 

Today my mum and I took Molly down to check out the Blackwood River - it was jut beautiful! Australia truly is an incredible place!!!

 

The river's water was a little high and had overflown some of the local park roads!!

 

It didn't bother Molly one bit, she just jumped straight on in ;)

 

Just in case you  didn't know which would be near damn impossible from all the advertising in the shops and TV it is back to school time!

 

I have been pretty busy trying to prep lots of exciting things for this new year!! :)

 

 

 

I have also been very lucky and was sent some materials from R.I.C. publications to look over and see how I may use them in my classroom!!

 

As I find Maths easier to plan I went straight to the Maths resources! :)

 

Going to a brand new school I feel I know very little about my new kids, I have met them and they are adorable but academically I feel a little like I am stumbling around in the dark which is where this GEM comes in!

 

It is called Starting Point Mathematics by Paul Swan and Linda Marshall (coincidently they were my uni lecturers and tutor - I am a big fan!)

 

It is a small booklet that you can give to your students to assess their general numeracy ability in a short test. PERFECT for diagnostic assessment! :)

 

The questions are short, clear and represented very well visually!

 

But my favourite would have to be this resource!!! I am not usually a workbook/worksheet type of teacher but I do love this resource!!!

The pages are so simple and clear! They are perfect for a 5 minute check on understanding of topics or homework review sheets!!! :)

I just love the visuals on the pages - not overpowering yet engaging!

Best of all it is short, sharp and clear. I feel I could give this to a year two student and NOT have 101 questions about what to do because the page is  to ambiguous

 

 

Speaking of new beginnings - the start of the year is such an exciting time!! There are so many possibilities!!! :)

 

My favourite thing to do is give students a pair of my sunnies and take a photo of them!!! IT makes a great display for your bulletin board!! :)

 

I then have students pick something they want to achieve in year 2 this year whether it be improve on something they do not feel confident in or learn something new some answers I have had before include:

 

-skip count by my 5's

-read a level 20 book

-learn my times tables

-solve a subtraction word problem

 

 

They write down their goals and then I collect them! At the end of the year I pull them back out ad we evaluate how that student has done and of course they have ALL accomplished their goals!!! :)

 

I love this activity so much I created a freebie you can use!!!

 

Grab it from my TPT store here :)

 

 

What is your favourite way to start off the new school year? I would love to hear about it! :)

 

Holidays!!!!! :)

Hello All :)

I promise I am not hating on you all or disappeared in social oblivion!

 No not at all!!!

I have been traveling sine school finished ad I still have another week left but my fingers were itching to get some blogging done!! :)

Unfortunately being on holiday does make it hard to get school work down but I am slowly chipping away at my long ai/ay TPT packet - I just need to stop thinking of extra stuff to add!!!

I have been a very busy bee on my trip!!!

I spent Christmas in Sommerset with family which I loved! But I also got to check out Totnes and spent a week in London!!!

FYI - I stayed in the hotel with the HARRY POTTER ROOM!!!!

Then I started my topdeck tour and it has been a whirl wind trip so far!!!

Unfortunately I am so tired and I have another big day ahead tomorrow so I am gong to head to bed sorry for the short post!

BUT to make it up I thought I would leave you with some snaps!!!

Enjoy your holidays if it is that time of year for you!!! :)

 

The End Of An Era

Today marked the end of an era for me...

Today was the last day with students at St Helenas and I must say it is the HARDEST day of my teacher life thus far.

I knew I would be upset but I did not realize just how much it could hurt to say goodbye for what potentially could be forever.

Please don't get me wrong I am EXTREMELY excited to be teaching at my new school next year - I just wish everyone would come with me so I could still see their beautiful faces each day!


Goodbyes are ALWAYS hard but when you know you will see them the following year it makes it feel okay but when you know this is the end - well for me it was almost unbearable!

Everyone was expecting me to cry and I thought I had them all beat with my tough girl act until the bell went and one of my boys came up to me in tears - I instantly fell into a blubbering mess!

After I said many goodbyes I was still a mess. I ended up just sitting on my classroom floor, tears rolling down my eyes. My amazing peer teachers just sat with me which was a big comfort.

As I am writing this I am beginning to be overwhelmed with emotion again so I am going to keep this short.




To all the amazing students, families and staff of St Helenas...

Thank you for 4 amazing years worth of memories that I would not trade for anything in the world!

Thank you for being there through the happy and sad times!

Thank you for putting a smile on my face each day with your smiles, jokes and company!

Thank you for the amazing gifts that I will place in my house and forever remember you by!

Thank you for all the small things that became BIG moments!!!

THANK YOU 

for being a part of my life!

I feel blessed that I have had the chance to meet you and have you in my life -  I hope that never changes!

You all have a special place in my heart and my life has truly been lightened by your presence!

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!!!