New products: Monster Truck Matching!

Two new products in my TpT Store! They are called Monster Truck Matching! with lower case and capital letters and Monster Truck Matching! with numbers, tens frames and dice faces.

You get 52 letter cards, capital and lower case letters, in Victorian Modern Cursive with awesome monster truck clip art on each card. Students need to match the capital letter with the lower case letter, then record the letters on one of the two recording sheets provided.

I used these this week with my students (forgot to take a photo!) and I punched holes in the two sides of the cards, gave the group Counting Links and they had to match the cards and then thread them both onto the links. This added some fine motor skills work to the task as well.

This activity contains 63 cards with monster trucks on them (21 each of number, tens frame and dice faces). This could be used as a quick maths activity or stations activity for matching numbers 0-20. The product is made using Victorian Modern Cursive and fantastic monster truck clip art! It includes one recording sheets that has the numbers on it already.

You could even punch holes into the cards and use Counting Links to join the matching cards. This adds a fine motor skills component.

Five for Friday - End of a busy week!

I've had a pretty nuts week. Extra meetings, first aid training, and a tough time with a couple of my students. As a debrief and unwind, here are my Five for Friday.

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I received my first BellaBox subscription box in the mail today!

I received four lip products and one eye product. I'm really interested to try the eye product because it's a waterproof topcoat for mascara. My most favourite mascara is by Arbonne, but it's not waterproof so it'll be interesting to see how they work together.

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We have been madly GoNoodle-ing in my class the past two weeks, and we have graduated one champ and we are on to our second. My students beg for Let It Go, Everything is Awesome and Happy every chance they get! Let It Go works like magic when I want them to calm down and sit quietly for a minute or two. I'm going to do a proper post about GoNoodle at a later stage.

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My hair is finally long enough to go back into a ponytail!! I've been growing it for a while, so this is very exciting!

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This weekend I'm going to be prepping for our 100th Day celebration. Due to timetabling and other events we are having our party on our 102nd day of school. But I'm going to make it extra special! I might even squeeze a bit of celebrating into the days leading up to it given that we are celebrating on Thursday. I've read some awesome posts today from Books, Bugs & Boxes and Rainbow Lily Designs about their 100th Day celebrations and I'm very inspired by all the fun ideas!

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I've joined the Outlander by Diana Gabaldon band-wagon. I'm reading Cross Stitch (which is the first book in the series on the Australian iBooks store) and I'm really enjoying it!! I'm terrible at accents but I sometimes find myself reading the dialogue of the Scots in my head with a Scottish accent (or as close as I can manage). I'm late to join in, but I'm already excited about the new TV show that is coming!

After a doozy of a week, I'm very glad it's Friday!!

Back to school

Term 3 starts tomorrow. I have had 20 days off! The extra four days were the ones I took off to have my wisdom teeth removed. It's a big chunk of time, and if I'm totally honest, I've got those 'first day of term' butterflies in my tummy. I'm organised and planned for the day, I've been into my classroom to make sure it's tidy, but that first day back when you have to get back into the swing of it is always a bit strange.

This term I've got quite a bit planned already. My class has two excursions (one for a gymnastics session and one about science), we have two party days (ABC Party Day for finishing the alphabet and 100th Day Party), my school is celebrating both Science Week and Book Week on the same week in August, and we are also having an Art Exhibition. It's going to be full on! I'm excited about it all.

Curriculum-wise we're knuckling down on reading strategies (I'm going to start using the CAFE Menu strategies as a way to focus my guided reading instruction), try to get my kiddies to write more (even my 'best' writers are only writing 2 sentences and we're now in the second half of the year) and we're going to go nuts on all things measurement this term (think mass, length, capacity, duration). Our science unit (which I'm super excited about) is called Weather in my World and looks to be lots of fun (I haven't taught it before).

This means lots of potential blog posts. I need want to blog more because it's fun. This term I will try to keep it going throughout the term.

I'm also starting a new 'health' goal. I got super slack last term with exercise. So this term my goal (though small and simple) is to go for 4x 30min walks each week. I've decided that if I manage to do it for the entire 10 week term then next school holidays I can go on a holiday that requires an airplane - thinking Western Australia or Tasmania. I've even made a 'Walking Log' to track myself.

So, here we go! Term 3...

Two Freebies at my TpT store!

My blogging frequency is getting better. And so is my product-making! I've uploaded three new things in the past couple of days. Today's two new ones are FREE!!

The first is a pack for the digraph /ng/ but only focusing on words with 'ing at the end (not as a suffix). For example, it includes the words sing, swing, wing, ring and king. There is a worksheet, a set of five puzzles and a Clip It style set of cards, where you clip the picture the has 'ing at the end.

I will be using this pack this term, coupled with my Sh Ch Th Digraph Pack. We have finished learning the letters of the alphabet and next we learn these common digraphs.


The second is a product called Alphabet Monsters Spin the Wheel Spelling or Phonics Task. You print two pages, laminate them, and then attached them together with a split pin. This means you can spin the front wheel around and only show one picture at a time through a chunk cut out of the front wheel. Students could use it to practice initial sounds, final sounds or spelling tricky words. The two sheets are different because one covers the letters A-P and the other is K-Z.

I have a set of cards similar to this that I inherited from the previous teacher who taught prep at my school. I have absolutely no idea where she got them from! If you have seen something similar please let me know, I'd love to give credit where it's due. I use this as a reading group task later in the year when my kids are ready for a challenge in their spelling and thinking about phonics.

These are free, so check them out! I'd love to hear any feedback about these.

Two for Tuesday - Prep/Kindergarten

My first time linking up with Two for Tuesday. These two products are on SALE!!

My brand new Sh Th Ch Digraph Pack - Victorian Modern Cursive is 50% off, so it's only $1.50. Here are a few pics of the product.

 

There are six different worksheets to use to practice the three digraphs. Each sheet has a section for adding the digraph, a section for looking for and colouring the digraph, and a section for handwriting.

 

There are a set of 12 puzzles that focus on putting the picture back together, then reading the word that contains the digraph.

There are thirty Clip It style cards, one set in colour the other in black and white, for students to practice listening for the different digraphs in words.

The pack is entirely in Victorian Modern Cursive. The pack also includes picture cards to be used for sorting and Memory.

The other product I have for sale is my 100th Day of School Party Pack. This pack is also 50% off so it is $1.50. The pack is 23 pages with several different activities suitable for the 100th Day of school. Here are some pics from the product.

The pack includes 6 different types of 100s charts, each missing different types of numbers.

I wrote an original poem for the pack.

It includes a simple crown craft activity to make.

The pack also includes four pages of maths activities, three writing prompt pages, some handwriting pages, a colouring in page and a placemat that I use to count out the 100 piece of food we will eat for our snack on the day.

I hope one of these products might be what you are looking for, or is something you can use!!

Meet Me - The Teaching Tribune Linky

I know I'm super late joining in with this linky, but I've so enjoyed reading other bloggers responses that I decided better late than never.

1. I have always loved reading. My mum is a trained art teacher and she loved to do crafty things with us when my sister and I were little. We often had friends over to have craft parties.

2. Well, I wouldn't necessarily want to change my name to this, but I found it so hard to think of anything else that I thought I'd share this - my mum had been tossing up between Jemima and Pleasance for my name when I was born, and it's always fascinated me that I might have been Pleasance instead.

3. I've had a few doozies. I teach prep (5 and 6 year olds) and they are not normally very quick at getting to a bin before they vomit, so I've had quite a few instances of vomit on tables, in laps and on the floor. One of my students in my first year of teaching decided to spin around in circles, then stop right near our bag lockers and whack his head into them. There was quite a lot of blood, and I was very glad there were a few parents around to help. On an excursion last year one of my students missed the step getting onto a train and he fell down in between the train and a platform. Thank goodness I was holding his arm at the time (trying to help him get on) so I was able to catch him. And, last one, the same kid who hit his head on the bag lockers also got right up in a visiting dogs face and the dog nipped him on the nose - the kid was hysterical about it, and the dog never visited again.

4. My most favourite children's movie is Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium, and I would love to meet Mr Magorium! He's super cool!

5. I have one sister and she is 3 days short of being two years younger than me. This meant we had a lot of joint birthday parties growing up. Not always my favourite thing, but it meant that the budget for the one party was that little bit bigger - one year we had a jumping castle in our backyard!!

6. I love pancakes with maple syrup, but on a cold morning yummy warm porridge is also amazing!

I haven't linked up much with The Teaching Tribune Summer Blogin' Series, but I've loved reading everyone elses posts!!

 

New product: Sh Th Ch Digraph Pack

I have been really terrible with posting on this blog and making products lately. It's been a very busy couple of weeks, and I just haven't had the motivation. Until tonight!!

I've made a new product, which I'd been meaning to make for ages. It is a pack of five different activities to work with the digraphs /sh/, /th/, and /ch/. The pack includes a set of worksheets, a set of Clip It cards, a set of puzzles, a set of cards to use for Memory and a set of cards and headings to use for sorting. As I think of more activity ideas I will add them to the pack. Here is a look at the different pages.

As it's a brand new product I will be giving a copy away to a lucky winner. Just leave a comment on this blog post and I will send a copy of the pack to the winner next weekend. I will be printing and using this pack in my classroom during term 3 so when I do I will write a post about it.