Five for Friday

It's time for.....

-one-
This week I took my preppies for their first excursion!! We walked to our nearest kindergarten to visit the 4 year old group. In their room they had live chicken eggs. Three chicks had hatched the night before we visited, and about 30 minutes after we left another chick hatched. My littlies were absolutely fascinated watching the babies chicks. And they also loved playing with the kinder stuff! I took heaps of photos, but I left my camera at school - whoops!

-two-
I've started doing a teacher photo a day challenge on Instagram. It's at #padteacherchallenge. I love sharing photos of my classroom, and I love seeing photos of other teacher's classrooms!

-three-
Our Science topic this term, as I mentioned last week, is What's it made of? This week we walked around the school and discussed some of the items in the school ground. We talked about what they are used for, what they feel like, and what we think they are made of. Next week we are going to map out where we walked and what we saw. In the lead up to the work on maps we did a fun lesson about treasure maps. I read a pirate book which had a treasure map in it (it's called Captain Teachum's Buried Treasure), then my students made their own treasure map. It had to have an island and some water, an 'x marks the spot' for their treasure, a pirate ship to show where to start looking, a path to follow, and an arrow to show which way up the map goes. Based on this we also touched very briefly on north, south, east, west and compasses. They LOVED it!!

-four-
I'm trying to be healthier and lose a bit of weight at the moment. I bought myself a Fitbit One and I've just started using MyFitnessPal. Hopefully tracking a few things will help keep me on track!

-five-
I've been sick this week (which is why I haven't blogged). This is my third year as a teacher, and over the first two years I had about 20 ear infections! I know... I was building up my strong teacher immune system. This is my first cold for the year, so fingers crossed I'm developing my ability to withstand 5 year old's cold/flu germs!

Storybook Sunday and Books You'll Love

What an awesome day for link-ups! Paula's Place has Storybook Sunday and A Kindergarten Smorgasbord has Books You'll Love. I'm going to post about my most favourite book which is one I will read this week to my new preps!

Here it is!! I like myself! by Karen Beaumont.

I absolutely love this book!! I will read it at least once a term throughout the year. It is all about a girl who likes herself no matter what she looks likes.

I like myself, I'm glad I'm me. There's no one else I'd rather be.

I love that as a concept to start teaching the kids from the minute they enter my room. I read it all the way through, then we discuss what it means. At different times through the year I will address it again, in more depth each time. I have also sent a passage of it home with my students as a poem to read with their family. I think it is so important to discuss all of the great things that we have going on, and how awesome we are! I get students to talk to each other about things they like about themselves, things they are good at, etc. Students draw and write about these things. We talk about what makes us special and unique. We talk about why it is important that we are all different, and we discuss how to respect other's differences. It is a great springboard for a huge range of discussion ideas!

And, the illustrations are just awesome!!