Transition Showbags - collaborating with Australian Teachers

I've joined the collaborative blog Australian Teachers. My first blog post with them went up today. I'd love you to check it out, it's about Transition Showbags. 

http://australianteachers.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/transition-to-school-showbags.html?m=0

Wrapped books during December

A stack of Christmas books from the school library, all ready to be individually gift wrapped and then opened (one each morning) to read and enjoy during December. Looking forward to this Christmas idea!! 🎄🎄🌟🎄🎄

Here's the original image from Pinterest. 

From here

Sight word stations

We've been working on reading and spelling sight words and three-letter words (CVC words). Six stations: Pop for Sight Words, play dough, magnetic letters, letters hidden in coloured rice tubs, CVC word game by @lozzybeck called Shark!, and shaving cream writing. Lots of fun!! And lots of practise!

Here are the Sight word stations in action!

Making words with play dough. They also had to read the word out to their group to show that they knew what it was. 

Writing words in shaving cream. They also had to read the word out to their group to show that they knew what it was. I like using plates with the shaving cream (rather than directly on the table) because it makes cleaning up easier.

Writing in shaving cream is messy, but it's so much fun!!!

Ordinal number fun

Maths today. Great fun! This sheet is from a great resource by Tina Rubie. We started off with some 'walking races' in the classroom and talked about who came 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Then we made lines of 10 people and I gave instructions like "the 4th person in line needs to bob down, and the 7th person in line needs to spin around". We talked about what 'ordinal numbers' are, then discussed how to read the shorthand version of ordinal numbers to colour in the right pictures. This student matched the number with the picture so they could colour in the other pictures when finished. 

Remembrance Day craft activity

Remembrance Day craft activity. We'll watch a YouTube video called The Poppy Story, then listen to the poem In Flanders Field. They'll make this craft to take home, hopefully knowing a bit more about why we recognise Remembrance Day. 

Beautiful poppy pictures for Remembrance Day. I love that each of them is a little bit different.

The Doorbell Rang - early division

A lesson about fair sharing (division) using the text The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins. Students arranged the teddies and shared the M&Ms while we read the story. They then drew their 12 teddies and 12 M&Ms. It was lots of fun, and a great hands on maths lesson.

I love how they arranged their teddies differently. 

One of the great drawings showing the teddies and the M&Ms. 

Learning intentions and a fair sharing activity

These are our learning intentions for the week. The posters along the bottom of the board are the reading strategy posters I show my students, but I can't remember where I go them from. I'm looking forward to doing fair sharing in maths - so many great activity ideas out there!!

This was our 'fair sharing' activity in maths today. It's a freebie on my TpT and DBT stores. We watched a Numberjacks video on YouTube about fair sharing, then talked about the important points from the video. Students got the sheet and stickers, had to share the stickers fairly, and then finish the sentences. It was great to talk about strategies, some shared the stickers one at a time, some new that 3 lots of 4 would make 12 stickers, so there would need to be 4 stickers on each monster.

Fun Friday!

Having a go at using a bead frame to work out some crazy animal addition sums. 

Getting ready for a school sleepover. My room looks so big!! The students are very excited about sleeping at school 😴

Investigation Station Writing

Today students wrote about the Movement Investigation Stations. They had to write what they noticed and provide a reason why they thought it happened. The explanations were really interesting, and I loved this one!

Movement investigation stations

For inquiry our students were investigating how changes to size, shape and weight affected how things move. They rolled different sized cylinders, rolled different shaped objects, dropped feathers and tennis balls, took ten steps to see how far they got, jumped from standing and with a run up, kicked a ball from standing or with a run up, bounced different shaped balls, and rolled themselves along the grass. 

Now they have to write what they noticed about movement from the activity they were photographed doing. It was great fun, and the students loved experimenting!!