Five for Friday! (on a Saturday)

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five For Friday!

Numbers 0 to 10

We have been working on recognising, writing and representing numbers 0 to 10. Everyday we have been working with flash cards, counters and other math manipulatives.

Flashcards and a worksheet from my Subitising pack on TPT. Click on the picture to check it out!

I am quite happy with the progress I am seeing already. At the start of the year, if I asked students to give me __ counters, they would count out/give me the whole pile. Now pretty much all of my students know that number I tell them, is the number they have to stop at. 

On Friday, I taught them the Roll & Build game from my Numbers to 10 Math Stations pack. We played whole class, boys VS girls. It was a hit and they are eager to play the game in pairs next week!

Letters A, M, S
We have been working on the letters A, M, S. I do this in small groups while the rest of the students are doing activity rotations. The sessions have been going like this;
1. Introduction to the letter - name and sound. Students repeat after me. eg. A /a/ A /a/ A /a/.
2. Letter hunt - students sort through magnetic letters to find the target letter.
3. Words that start with target letter. Students repeat after me. Focus on listening for the target sound.
4. Alphabet book. Students pick a picture to represent the sound and stick it in their book.
5. Handwriting - correct letter formation.

I am in the process of creating packs for each letter. I will be using these in addition to the small group sessions.

You can find them in my TPT store by clicking here.

Each pack has; two posters, letter hunt, case sort, letter sort, handwriting and bracelets. Ideally I want to send my students home with the bracelets on so that it becomes a talking point with their family.

All About Me
We have been doing lots of talking about ourselves; our name, age, birthday, family and appearance. Next week, we will be looking at our Five Sense senses. I am looking forward to this as it just lends itself to all sorts of fun hands on activities and experiments.

Dressing Up
On Friday we finished off the week with Developmental Play. I changed up the toys a bit and added the dress up box. It was a hit, EVERYONE was playing dress ups. All the other toys were untouched. I think it worked out well with everyone wanting to dress up, as it made everyone take turns! It was lovely seeing the students use phrases like "Can I please have a turn?" and "Here, you can have it now". No tears at all. Who'd have though a dress up box would help teach sharing and patience?

Last day of February
I can't believe we are heading into March already. Feels like we started the school year last week. Have gotten into the spirit of things by making a March themed packet of key concepts we will be focusing on.

That's it for Five for Friday. Enjoy your weekend! Be sure to check out the other blogs in the linky party :)

Week 3!

This was our 2nd full week of school, and my 1st full week on class. Last week, I was on half days so I could complete the literacy and numeracy assessments. It was a pretty good week...until Friday afternoon. My cat passed away and so understandably, I was pretty upset. I'd had him for 7 years. He was a rescue cat, I adopted him from the storm water drain when he was half kitten/cat. So my plans of blogging and sharing what we had gotten up to, went out the window. I spent the weekend grieving and planning for the week ahead.

So here we go, here is a summary of what happened in Term 1, Week 3!

On Monday, I introduced our behaviour system. Here is what my behaviour wall looks like. You can find the rules and tablet posters in my TPT store.

There are 3 apples; Super Students, Think About It and Teacher's Choice (yes, it's basically a simplified version of the clip chart). Students start the day on "Super Students". I will give a verbal warning. After the warning comes the "Think About It" level. At this point, the student's caterpillar is moved down. I remind them to think about their actions, The next level is "Teacher's Choice". At this point it can go different ways; time in the thinking corner, sent to the supervisor or parent contact. Obviously this depends on what has actually happened. Students can move back up the apples if behaviour improves.

In terms of rewards I have student punch cards.

These cards have 6 boxes. They align with the class rules. If I see students following the class rules, they get a tick. At the moment, 3 ticks = reward card, which aligns with the whole school rewards system.

I also use Class Dojo. 10 points = a raffle ticket. At the end of the week, a name is picked and the student gets to pick from the prize box.

So far this system is going well :)

We continued with our activity rotations. Can already see how settled the students are in working in their groups. The only thing that we need to work on is moving to the next table. Transitions can be pretty tricky!

We also had a discussion about playground rules. I whipped up this 'Playground Rules' reader to help teach safe play in the playground.

This week, we learnt about green, blue, purple and brown. I varied the techniques. We did crayon rubbing, paper chipping, painting and sponge painting.

Monday afternoon was our first whole school assembly. So before we went, I read them my 'Assembly Rules' reader.

I probably seem a little bit obsessed with readers, but I feel that students are more likely to listen and understand if the information is presented to them in a book with visuals rather than me just talking at them. With each page, we stop and discuss WHY.

I was quite proud of my students, they sat up nice and straight and did not talk the whole time, even though it was kind of hot in the hall.

This week, we also did nursery rhymes. We looked at Humpty Dumpty and Jack and Jill. We covered where to start reading from, directionality and full stops. Now all my students can tell me the name and purpose of a full stop. Almost all of them can now tell me where to start reading from. Yay! for progress!

We did some sequencing as well as word matching. I used these fabulous resources. Click on the pictures to find them on TPT!

In Math, we started learning about 2D shapes. We sorted shapes using multi-attribute blocks. Sorted shapes on the IWB and played Crocodile Hop (which I absolutely love!).

We also started talking about finding shapes in the environment. I found this amazing song on YouTube to introduce the concept. It was a big hit. I had a squiz at their other videos too. This channel is fabulous. A must subscribe for any teacher!

Next week will be a busy week too! We are starting our numbers, letters and sounds programs as well as our 'Me' unit. Now that we are fully settled, it's time to get down to business! I asked my students what they wanted to learn about and they all named a bunch of wild cats. I am thrilled, not just because I am a cat person, but because animals are really interesting to learn about. Have found a nifty way to link it into the 'Me' unit.

That's about it for now :)

Enjoy the week ahead. Happy teaching!

My first week of Kindergarten!

This week was the start of the 2015 school year in Australia.

I was super excited to start the year with my new class. My room is pretty much finished, the only things I need to add are my tote tray labels. Once I have that set up, I can post some pictures of the different areas in my room :)

There is one particular item that I am quite proud of; my class letters. This was a project that I worked on with my mum over the school holidays. She bought me some plain, white letters and we jazzed them up with some paint, paper, rhinestones and stamps.

They sit on the shelf behind my desk. They have been getting a lot of attention from both the students and colleagues :D

The first day flew by. I started off by introducing them to our morning routine (greeting, song and calendar). I made sure to teach them the quick "Good Morning", not that slow "Gooooooood Moooooorning Miss.....".

Once that was done, I introduced them to the activity rotation. Eventually these will be literacy activities/centers, but for now they are fine motor activities. Each table had a different activitiy;

1. Name and Number tracing with dry erase markers
2. Peg Boards
3. Threading Animals
4. Puzzles

I let them roam around to each table. I wanted to see how they would go with the option of free choice. It went smoothly. Each student completed each activity, there weren't any fights over materials and if an activity was full the students would just move to another free spot. This allowed me to spend time with each student and take their photo for the First Day Certificate.

After that, I read them a story; I Am Too Absolutely Small for School by Lauren Child.

I love Charlie and Lola books. They are always a big hit with the students. I think this book fit in perfectly with the first day of school.

By the time I finished the story, it was time to go for a toilet break and start eating lunch. I couldn't believe how quick the morning session went!

After lunch, we did some singing as a whole grade. I am a little rusty with the hand actions that go along with some of the songs! I'm sure I will get better with them as this will be a regular thing :)

Our "first day take home craft" were these super cool First Day of School Crowns made by My Heart Belongs in Kindergarten. Click here to check them out!

It looked awesome seeing all of Kindergarten walk out of the building to greet their parents with these crowns on. I'm sure the parents loved it too! :D

Before home time, we had developmental play. This was a good opportunity for me to see whether the students were interacting with each other or just playing by themselves. It was nice to see that they were all interacting with each other.

I had a great first day, though I was pretty tired by the time I got home. I need to get back in the swing of things!

Day #2 was just as good.

We started off with the morning routine. Then we had a discussion about classroom rules. I introduced one of the most important rules "We listen to each other". We talked about how we listen (Give Me 5) and then I read my Listening book (I like teaching things through stories).

That became our goal for the day, to work on our listening.

Then we moved onto the activity rotations. I wanted to see how they would go by spending 10 minutes at each activity and then moving on. I had put out their name plates before school, so this also served as a test to see if they could recognise their own name.

I just love how awesome these look!

Overall it was a success. I now know who needs a bit of work on name recognition and will be making up some activities to help with that.

The activities were the same as the day before. I explained the routine of having a timer; when the buzzer rings, it is time to stop and listen. Then we had a go at tucking chairs in and moving to the next activity in a calm manner. The timer I used can be found here. Once again, that took up the whole morning session and it was then time to have a toilet break and start eating.

After lunch it was singing, and then we learnt about the colour red. During the activity rotation, I did a quick assessment of colour knowledge. Most students knew all their colours, but there were a few who only knew a few.

We started off by singing two songs; I can Sing a Rainbow and the Colour Song. Then we made a list of things that are red. After that, I made a drag and drop activity on the IWB where students had to sort the red items from the rest. We then did a "Red Apples" paper piecing activity. They came out pretty good and I cannot wait to hang them up on Monday! That took up the time until recess.

We finished off the day with play. I joined in with the cooking corner :)

I had a fantastic first week with Kindy! Am looking forward to the year ahead!

Technology You Should Try : PDF to JPG Converter

Today I'm sharing with you an awesome tool that can help fix printing issues with .PDF files!

Some printers have issues printing .PDF files made up of different layers. I've never had this problem with my home printer, it's usually the printers at work. It can be quite frustrating, especially if you keep wasting ink by trying to print the file over and over again.

I have found a nifty online tool that can help overcome this problem. It's called 'PDF 2 JPG' and it will convert the file to images for easy printing!

There are many .PDF to .JPG converters online. Here is the one that I will be talking about; PDF2JPG.

It's a fairly straight forward interface. Upload the file and select 'Excellent' for crisp printing quality. Press the 'Convert' button and wait.

It will then take you to the next page where you will be able to view and save your images. You can even download the images as a .zip file.

Then, you can easily print the document as image files. This should eliminate any printing issues as the file is now broken up into parts and no longer has layers :)  Of course, use this tool wisely and refrain from breaking any copyright laws.

Robot Themed Alphabet & Number Centers

You know you're a teacher when you see something super cute and think "I can make a ______ activity out of that!".

I had that moment yesterday when I saw this robot jar!

Those "bang!" style games have always been quite popular in my room. What is a "bang!" game? it's where players take turns picking a card our of a container and say what's on their card. If they pull a "bang!" card, then they must put all their cards back. The game continues until all cards have been won.

As soon as I saw this jar, I knew this would be perfect for a "bang!" game :D

I'm on Kindergarten this year, so one of my big focus areas will be on letters, sounds and numbers.

Last night I created an alphabet & numbers pack to go with this jar. I know it's the holidays, but I am still very excited about having my own class again!

As you can see from the pictures, the pack covers;

* Lower case letters
* Uppercase letters
* Numerals
* Number names
* 10's frames

Simply select the cards you want your students to focus on!

The special card is called "Robot Dance". If a player draws this card, they must move their arms like a robot and then put all their cards back in the jar.

The cards also lend themselves to being used as a match game.

 

As the year goes on, I intend on making more cards to go in the jar. For now I am just sticking to the basics. If you would like your own copy, you can get it here at my TPT store by clicking on the picture below. The pack also includes mats that can be used for a Roll, Say & Keep style game. Don't you just love when one resource can be used in multiple ways?

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Stay tuned for more posts and sneak peaks of my latest resources :)

Comprehension - Part #5. Questioning

Questioning involves students asking and answering questions about a text. I'm not talking about basic questions like "what colour was the house?". I'm talking about deeper questions like "I wonder why the character....".

To get students familiar with asking the deep questions, introduce the thinking stem "I wonder". This automatically lends itself to deeper questioning as it requires students to come up with a question where the answer is not immediately obvious.

When introducing this strategy with my year one class, I used the wordless text, Window by Jeannie Baker. Any wordless text would do, but I love Jeannie Baker books as there is always so much going on in every picture.

As we looked through each page, I gave students a post-it note and asked them to write down their "I wonder..." questions. I got responses such as;

"I wonder why the birds are flying away from the park"

"I wonder why the boy is playing inside and not outside"

We then shared our questions with the class, and used these questions to start a discussion and hopefully find an answer to them. For the question about the birds, one student suggested that the birds were flying away because trees were being chopped down to make room for the houses. Pretty awesome for a year 1 class right?

By providing students with a thinking stem, I helped scaffold their learning, as opposed to just telling them to come up with a question about the text.

Once we had this down, we moved on to other thinking stems that promote deep questions, such as

What would happen if?

Why would...

These stems work best with a rich text, simply use the same procedure as introducing the "I wonder..." questions.

After the introductory lesson/s implement deep questioning as part of your guided reading groups. These questions also link really well with any scientific investigation!

You can even set up an "I wonder..." wall in the classroom that can be used throughout the year.

I have a bunch of Comprehension resources in my store that are very useful for implementing the strategies in your classroom :)

Next up, Summarising!

School's Out (for the summer)

I haven't updated this blog in over a month. I'm a terrible blogger, I know!

The last few weeks of term were pretty busy. I spent a lot of the time in the office finishing off the two school books and designing the presentation day program. I spent so much time in front of the computer, that when I got home from work, all I wanted to do was give my eyes a rest. I do not know how anyone can spend all day staring at a computer screen!

I also got the big new that next year I will be on Kindergarten! I am very excited to be back on class and I have already gone on a bit of a design, print and laminate frenzy. My classroom theme? rainbow. I love having everything bright and colourful and I want my students to look forward to coming to a cheerful looking classroom. Is it wrong that I am already looking forward to when I actually get to start putting everything up? You can check out my rainbow themed resources here.

I haven't had my own Kindy class before, so next year will be a learning curve for me. Overall I am excited, though I am paranoid that on the first day everyone will be crying and I will have no idea what to do or how to make them stop. I'm sure I will be fine though. I am reading through a bunch of awesome Kindergarten blogs to prepare myself :)

It feels weird to already be on holidays. 2014 has felt like a pretty short year for me, I guess because I was on holiday for half the year :P My plans?

* Continue to learn how to swim
* Read up on the new syllabus documents (they changed while I was away)
* Design and make resources
* Do outdoorsy things while avoiding the heat
* Finish the comprehension series blog posts
* Relax

I can pretty much guarantee I will do everything but the last one!

That's about it for now, happy teaching!