Sentence Correction

So I woke up this morning to the coldest morning I have had in Bridgetown yet!

I felt like I should be dressed like this....

 Sad thing is that it isn't even winter yet and this is NOT as cold as it gets!

Now that I am home I am on the couch resembling something very close to this . . . 

Literally it is a major decision to get up to get food right now with the warmth winning the battle for the time being! 

I thought I might share with you today a little bit of what I do in my literacy block - more to the point my sentence correction.

Sentence correction as the name implies is about correcting sentences.

Personally I focus on capital letters, end marks and spelling choices of particular sounds/rules we have learnt. It is a great revision activity and I believe helps shows that link between spelling a word and transferring it into writing. 

I have been slowly warming my current class to how sentence correction works as we will be doing this daily soon (well that is the plan anyway!) 

At the beginning of each week/lesson we revise over the sounds we are looking at for the week as shown below:

Then I display two sentences a day on the board. 

 Students copy down my sentences EXACTLY as I have written them in lead pencil. Then using a red pencil they correct the spelling mistakes, add capitals and end marks. 

At the bottom of the sentences is the rule we are working on to remind students on what to do and provide that extra support. 
                                      

You can easily support students further by printing the sentences out so people only need to edit rather than write the whole sentence or extend by asking students to find a synonym for a word or adding extra detail to the sentences via adjectives, adverbs or general information!

Well my finger tips are starting to freeze outside of the blanket!

I will love and leave you before I loose them!!!

One thing I know for sure - Winter is coming ;)

Mother's Day Prep!

Whooooo for blogging Wednesday!!!

Thanks for stopping by! J

I am not afraid to say that I am not the most organised person in the world.

Organised chaos is more the word that springs to mind.

BUT I have been working really hard on that area and surprisingly to my pleasure this year I have made a vast improvement!!! *YAY ME!!*

We all have our things to work on.

After all no one or thing is perfect – except for tiramisu that is perfection! ;)

Whether you are an organised Polly, a lost minute Suzy or somewhere in between there are always those times and events that sneak up on us!

For me personally Mother’s day is ALWAYS one of those times! (To be fair May has a lot going on for me – it’s my Mums birthday, mother’s day and my parents wedding anniversary.)

But like I said this year I AM ON IT!!!!

I am so on it that I can finally run an event I have ALWAYS wanted to but never been able to due to the endless list of time, resources, other teachers, dates etc.

This mother’s day I will be holding a Mummy Spa night in my classroom!!

I originally came across the idea last year while reading Little Kinder Warriors blog and then I also found out my fellow teacher friend was doing one with her pre-primary class. My excitement levels were very high!!!

Even though both my friends class and Katie’s class were Kindy and PP I still think doing it in Yr 1 or 2 is great (especially if your Kindy or PP classes don’t do one!!!) because they can do some of the stations a lot better than a PP (or so I hope! Haha) so it is not just cute, it’s also fun and meaningful!

So I have done a little more researching on ideas and these are the stations I will be having!

·         Massages

·         Hair Styling

·         Make Over

·         Facials

·         Manicures

·         Photo booth

·         Chit Chat

Massages

I found back scratches at Big W (and some I already have at home) but you could also find them at $2 stores etc. I just got a few more for some variety J

While the mums are being pampered by their mini masseuse they are going to wear these face masks I picked up from the $2 store.

Hair Styling

The $2 store loved me as I also grabbed a whole bunch of these funky clips for the kids to style their mums hair with.

 I grabbed these funky mirrors from Big W.

Make Over

I found some cute eye shadows, blushes and lipsticks for $2 so bought a selection. I will be using some of those cute mirrors at this station!

Facials

I am going to ATTEMPT to make some homemade facials that I have found via the lovely internet and good old Pinterest however I am NOT beyond running to good old Kmart or big W to just buy the packet stuff if it doesn’t work out! ;)

and of course we will have some cut cucumber for their mums eyes! J

Manicures

Students will paint their mums nails at this station and give them a little hand massage with some hand cream!

Photo Booth

I found some cute photo booth signs at you guessed it the $2 dollar store that will be perfect to go on this area and I am going to chuck in some dress ups for fun!

Chit Chat

When people sit down there will be some prompt cards for the kiddos to ask/tell their mum with prompts like:

·         -What is your favourite colour?

·         -My favourite thing about you is...

·        - I like the way you...

·        - My favourite memory with you is

·        - What is your favourite pizza topping? (the essential questions of course! ;) hee hee)

What are you doing in class for Mother’s day?

Emotion Pop Stick Puppets

Health - it is probably my most favourite subject to teach because I value it tremendously.

In my opinion if a child is not mentally happy not matter how good my academic lesson is – it’s not going in!

I usually teach about bullying in the last term (only as there is so much to cover!!!) but this year I had a go at doing it first term to see the difference.

It has definitely helped doing out on the playground doing it in the first term however the class isn’t as emotionally mature as they are at the end so some concepts went over their head or were not taken as seriously. 

I think next year we will learn a little about what bullying is in term one but leave the whole unit for term 4.

Best of both worlds! ;)

One of my favourite lessons was when we talked about how to respond to social situations using the prompts: think, feel, talk and choose.

- Think about what is going on

_ See how you feel

- Talk about what you want

 -  Choose what to do

After discussing each of these points in details we participated in an activity where they had to decide how they felt.

I gave each student 6 blank circles and faces and asked them to draw the following emotions:

·         Happy

·         Angry

·         Scared

·         Relaxed

·         Worried

·         Sad

The children were encouraged to represent and colour that emotion according to how they perceived it. For some people blue is a happy colour, others it is a sad colour.

Once they finished decorating the faces we got to work one cutting and attaching pop sticks to create emotion puppets!

Finally I read out some scenarios to the class and they had to think about the situation and decide how they would feel if they were in that situation.

It was a great exercise because some scenarios didn’t make some students had mixed reactions. Not all students would feel angry or scared or happy if they were in that situation.

It sparked GREAT conversation and was one of those MAGIC moments!

I love my job.

I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.

Although you know a million dollars on the side would be nice!! ;)

Have a wonderful week!

Speak Soon!

Revised 2D and 3D Unit

Term One is done and dusted!!! 

If I am being honest I can't believe it but I am a little glad!

Term One is NOT my favourite term . . . not in the slightest. 

It is very exciting meeting your new class but between testing, establishing routines, getting to know everyone and trying to teach properly it all becomes a bit of a nightmare! Or that could just be me! ;) 

I also seem to forget EVERY year how little the year two's are when they first start and I always go into a panic!!!

So now that Term one is finished I am a happy camper!

Our routines are in place, testing is over and I feel like as a class we know the rules and boundaries and each other very well!

More importantly MY ROUTINE is in place and I feel like I have more time to do things like create TPT resources and of course BLOG!!!! 

Wednesday is blog night! so tune in Wednesdays or really Thursday by the time it is all up to keep reading about my chaotic but amazing teaching experiences with my class!  


Side note.....

Do you ever have those moments where you look back over something you created or a lesson plan and thought to yourself how was this ever good!!! I have been having many of those WHAT WAS I DOING MOMENTS!?!?!?! this past week - not that the resources were bad just not the way I do things now. 

As this is a new year I have been working hard to revise over some of my old products on TPT before finalising my new ones. 

I just finished and revised over my 2D and 3D shape unit - I am much happier with it now! :)

Here is a sneak peak of what is inside!

If you have already bought it make sure to re-download so you are getting the new improved unit!

If you haven't and are interested head over to my TPT store to see if you like it! :)

Have a great day guys!! :)

RIC Publications: Geography and History Resources

I can’t believe it is already Week 5 of Term One!!

This year is already flying by!!!

As we are well and truly on our way in Term One I thought I would share some helpful materials to help you with your Geography and History units! J

RIC Publications have produced these resources that are linked the Australian Curriculum.

With the switch to the Australian Curriculum it can be hard to find resources for the Geography and History learning areas that connect to the curriculum.

These books are great because they are directly linked to the Australian Curriculum.

At the beginning of the books is a clear breakdown of the curriculum links and an explanation of what each of these curriculum points’ asses.

It also has a pre-made checklist with the assessment criteria! – why reinvent the wheel when it has already been done for you! J

 

 

 

To add to this each activity has an accompanying page of teacher information about the activity.

It has teacher notes, background information, additional activities and even a list of other resources you can use with this activity to enhance your lesson.

 

Although teaching shouldn't be centred around textbooks and worksheets these resources are great to add to your current program or give you a good place to start from if you are completely lost!

 

Speak soon!

 

Creating a 'rock pool' for your beach themed classroom/dramatic play!

Blogging.
Art and Craft.

Two of my favourite things and tonight they get be combined because I am going to share with you how to make your very own fake rock pool!! :)

I absolutely loved making this and I cant wait to finish it off this weekend with animals and have it in the classroom ready for next week!!! :)

To get started you will need:
Brown Paper lunch bags (I used about 30 - 40 bags)
Brown wrapping paper (I used 2 x 3m)
Sticky tape
A bucket/ bowl or whatever you can find to the the base!
I used an old seashell sandpit base that I found on the side of the road!!! (always on the look for a bargain!!! ;) hee hee)

First wrap the brown paper around your base. I did this multiple times until I was happy with it all being covered.

DO NOT STRESS if it doesn't look 'pretty' - its a rock it should be rough!

THE MESSIER THE BETTER!!!!!!

To be honest you could leave the rock pool as it is still looks awesome! I am just a perfectionist!

As you can see Molly approves!!!! ;)

Once you are happy with the base it is times to move onto the rocks!!!
Using the paper bags scrunch, stuff and layer to create your ideal rocks.

Using sticky tape, tape down the paper to the base.

Once you get to this point it is time for the water!

I used two different blue fabrics together.

I used a bright blue fabric as the water base and then added a shimmery darker blue to create that mixed ocean blue colour.

And there you have it - a rock pool!

 Tune in later this week to see how to add the animals and plants!! :)

Measurement!

Life.

It has this uncanny way of sweeping you off your feet from time to time.
Life has flown by this past month - LITERALLY MONTH!!! 

I have felt quite lost without this blog so to make up for 4 weeks of not blogging (it truly is a crime to not blog for so long I am going to share a new blog post for the next few days!!!

Today's topic . . . .Measurement!!! :)

We have been talking all about measurement in our year two classroom!!!

We discussed how we can measure the length of items using informal units like paperclips, cubes or even gummy bears if we really wanted to! We also talked about why we can’t measure items using things like our hands or feet – because we all have different size feet and hands!!!

We measured different items around the classroom using cubes!

Later in the week we began to look at using formal units to measure objects.

We examined how we can measure objects using a standard measurement! We discussed when to use a M ruler to measure items and when to use a CM ruler! We went outside to explore this idea!!

Well that is it for now! :) Speak soon! :)