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! :)

 

Area! Area! We know what to do!

Unfortunately I have been quite unwell the past week! L I don’t usually get sick but as soon as I do it goes straight to my chest! L L L L

After fighting it for a week I finally went to see the doctor and he told me exactly what I had thought it is viral so there is nothing to be given and we just have to wait for it to run its course….to which he then told me he thinks I have another few days ahead of me!

 

To make things even harder this time - I lost my voice!

Which in the teaching word makes things pretty near impossible!!!!?

Try taking your kids on an excursion with no voice……

I did…. - it’s not a stroll in the park!

However I was and AM very fortunate to work alongside two amazing teachers who helped me out a lot! J I love those girls to the moon and back!

 

BUT on the bright side of all this blogging and TPTing does not require me to speak at all!!! J J however please excuse spelling mistakes as my pain medication does make me drowsy hee hee It has taken me two days to write this as I drop in and out of sleep!

The past week we have been looking at area in our class J

I love teaching area! It can be so much fun and it is a concept where 96% of the class are able to be extended to work at a year three level! It just boosts their confidence up so much to know what they are doing is year three work or for some year four!

I decided to create a unit about area and perimeter because I think there are so many fun things you can do with this!!!!  J

 

We began our unit by looking at what area was and the difference between area and perimeter. We created an anchor journal page that we could refer back to if needed. I think it is important kids try to put things down in words J

 

After this we brought out the cubes and had a go together find the area of shapes using cubes!

We did LOTS of practise with the cubes making sure everyone knew there needed to be no left over space, to start at the edge etc.

After this we moved on to counting squares on a grid to find the area of rectangles and squares!

We practised this understanding by making an area picture and we later created our own area robots! J

Some of my students have very quick math brains and so we had a look at finding the area when they cut through half of a grid.

 This is not included in the pack but I will upload it as a freebie when I go into school next :)

Below is a snapshot of everything in the pack ....You can grab it at my store :)

In case you can't tell I am getting quite drowsy and hitting a lot of random keys so I am going to head to bed quickly!!!

Speak soon!



Pirate Mapping

So we have just finished Week 8 which means there are 2 weeks left of this term.

This means there is only 12 weeks of school left!!!!

 12!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This year has just come and gone so fast!!! 

One minute I was meeting my little fish and working out what they needed and now I am mentally preparing to let them go - which is not an easy thing for me to do!!!!

I am trying my hardest to make every day memorable and meaningful - in terms of our interactions not learning. Our learning is ALWAYS meaningful! ;)

This week we have been looking at our mapping skills in maths!!!

I love teaching mapping because there are so many fun things to do with it!  

Last year my class really loved Harry Potter so we went on a hunt for Voldemort’s horcruxes!!This year my little fish are not into Harry Potter as much so it was time for a change and nothing beats a good old pirate treasure hunt!!!

I found an only cardboard box with a flap lid to use for my treasure chest!

Using spray paint, glitter and a hair dryer I turned a plain brown packing box into a pirate treasure chest!

Inside the treasure chest I put in some pirate loot bags for my little pirates backed with some goodies! J

Big W has a new party section which is AMAZING it has party decorations according the theme! These are just SOME of the great things I found!!! 

I have linked the pictures to their online store. Click on the picture to buy them online! Although I do suggest you go in and have a look to see everything! :)

I also found an adult pirate costume so of course I bought it to make the lesson more exciting! 

The pirate masks above were my favourite buy because it meant the kids could be pirates with me!!! J

Check out my little pirates below!!

During the week we learnt about how to read a map, follow coordinates and interpret a key. I made a map about our school that included all of these skills. 

We began our hunt in our classroom where I read them the first clue and gave them their coordinates. They found the symbol on the map and read the key to find where to go next!

Off we went to our first destination!!!!

At each spot I had a little challenge or activity for students to do. At the first pit stop they needed to run a lap around the AstroTurf. 

 

Once they completed their challenge they received their next set of instructions and coordinates. 

We made our way to the quick sand pit where we walked along and plank and then tried to run through the quick sand without getting stuck!

We followed out next set of coordinates which led us to a walk through the nature play. We walked across a wobbling log and tiptoed across log circles.

The next clue told us to sail across the seven seas so we had to pretend to be a ship and sail over to our next destination!

These two were priceless that whole hunt!

One of them brought along his own map - which they used together to find the next stop!

At each stop they would run around looking for the treasure and call back to each other in a pirate voice!

They also checked around every corner to make sure no one was following them or sneaking up on them!

Got to love them J

At last we received our final clue that our journey would end where it began!

We quickly began to make our way back to class where they found the treasure placed under the palm tree!! J

It was a GREAT day!!!

Thanks for stopping by to read :) I have been working on a perimeter and area unit that will hopefully be ready by next weekend! 

For now I thought I would leave you with a sneak peek!

Have a great weekend or what is left of the weekend! :)