My amazing cupboard

I am so lucky to have the most awesome cupboard in my classroom. In fact all four classrooms in my building have them. Let me show you this piece of awesome-ness:

It has three big doors (which are so heavy and hard to move that they are "teacher only" doors) and inside there is heaps of storage. Although, as you can see, I have so much stuff that I even use the space above the cupboard. But the bit that I love the most about it is that the doors are half magnetic whiteboard and half pinboard!! Yup, I can staple gun things into the blue bit across the bottom half! I love this cupboard. Actually, I probably love it a bit too much, but it is so handy.

Up until today the cupboard had a few empty spaces, but I added the rainbow word wall (the words are colour coded by the groups in Magic Words, and then alphabetised) and the big number cards.

Here it is again, and I thought I would tell you a bit about what I put on the cupboard because this is the main hub of my classroom, we sit in front of it for carpet time, and you can just see the edge of my mobile whiteboard on the left in the picture above.

 

Starting on the left. On the left door is our visual timetable and mini calendar on the whiteboard part, and a 100s chart, our five star listening rules and an emotions poster.

On the middle door is my school's "classroom noise management" system (white sound is no sound, amber sound is whispering, green sound is talking sound, and red sound is outside sound), the space where I write my learning intentions for reading, writing, maths and science, and also where I write our class behaviour goal (this week's is "To keep our pencils, textas, scissors and glue in our pencil cases", if they get to the end of the week and have achieved the goal they get a special treat), and on the pinboard part are anchor charts for Writer's Workshop (from Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills pack), my groupings for fine motor skills and perceptual motor program groups, and big number cards.

On the right side is where I write our successful classroom goals, then I have our class jobs, and underneath that on the blue bit is our new word wall.

Phew! We fit a lot on to one small space, which is why it's looking a little cluttered, but they all have a specific purpose so they all have to stay! And they also have to stay because if you looked around the rest of my room you'd see that I don't have another wall space that I could put this stuff on (I have lots of windows and two giant doors - the doors are the size of half a wall!).

So there you go, that's my amazing cupboard, the hub of my classroom, and what I use every single day!

Positive reinforcements in the classroom

Yesterday I linked up with Miss DeCarbo at Sugar and Spice for Wordless Wednesday. I'm going to explain more about my post.

I was talking to a friend recently who was concerned about some of the specialists in her school using lollies frequently as a positive reinforcement tool. It got me thinking about what I thought about using lollies for this, and also about what I do in my classroom.

I'm a big fan of stickers. Huge fan!! I have a mini-suitcase full of them. I can't help but buy a few extra packets every time I got to a "cheap shop". I use them as encouragement (read: bribery) for cleaning up the classroom, I use them to say happy birthday, I use them to say "well done" when students do assessment/testing work with me. I love stickers. They are a cheap and easy positive reinforcement of behaviour.

Along with my stickers, my whole school uses a clip chart model for behaviour management. Here is mine:

I got the template from someone a couple of years ago and I have absolutely no idea who it was. If you know please let me know!

Each child has their own peg and they start the day on green. If they make a good choice, they move their peg to blue. Another good choice and they move their peg to purple - then they get a sticker! The best bit, though, is that I bought customised address label stickers from Vistaprint for my "I've been on purple today" stickers. The kids love them. I get a new set each term, and they get so excited to see the new stickers.

I also have a 'treasure box', but I never use it. I had planned to use it many years ago when I first started teaching, but I have found the stickers have been enough for the students I've taught so far. There may come a time when a group of students needs a bit more encouragement/bribery, but so far I haven't needed that.

One thing I don't use as a positive reinforcement is food. Sure, if we have a class celebration we might have some lollies, but I don't like to use lollies as a daily positive reward. We don't have an official policy on this at my school, but as teachers we are meant to be good role models and I don't believe giving lollies to my students everyday is good role modelling. But that's just my two cents!

I'd love to hear about what you do in your classroom for positive reinforcement.

Wordless Wednesday - Positive reinforcement?

I'm linking up with Christina over at Sugar and Spice for Wordless Wednesday.

Does your school have guidelines (official or unspoken) about the kinds of things you can use for positive reinforcement in the classroom? eg. stickers, stamps, lollies, treasure box, etc.

New product: 100th Day of School Party Pack

I have just uploaded a new product to my TpT Store. It is a 100th Day of School Party Pack!

It contains:

- 100s charts with different numbers missing for different abilities or grade levels
- 100 is 10 groups of 10 maths sheets, two version
- Making 10 using tens frames sheets, two versions
- An original 100th Day of School poem
- Writing prompt sheets, three versions
- Alphabet writing and tracing sheets, Victorian Modern Cursive and print fonts
- 100 snacks placemat
- Colouring page using Graphics from the Pond clipart
- Simple 100 Days crown
It will be a great pack to use on your 100th Day of School. I can't wait to use it for ours, which is still a couple of months away. I have made different versions of some of the activities so that they can be differentiated across ability levels and can be used at different grade levels.

I even wrote an original poem!! I'm definitely not a poet, but it is something for our students to read and it has rhyming words, too.

I had fun making it, and I hope you have fun using it!

Five for Friday - holidays edition

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. This week mine will be a holiday edition because I'm currently on the two weeks of holidays between term 1 and term 2.

-one-
I have been catching up with lots of people this week which is awesome. I'm not a coffee drinker so it's been yummy hot chocolates for me. I absolutely love having catch ups during the holidays and I make sure to make coffee dates with as many people as I can. Term time can be so busy, and the holidays are the perfect time to catch up on all the goss.

-two-
You may have noticed that I've been hitting the social media/blog/TpT stuff hard this week. I'm really trying to create an online teaching network for myself and to increase my involvement with teaching as a profession. I love the people I work with, and they're awesome for advice, but it is so rewarding to read about other schools, other classrooms and other teachers! Big thanks to all those awesome bloggers out there whose blogs I love to read!

-three-
I can't believe it but this weekend my niece turns 4!! Those four years have flown by and she is growing up so quickly. Only a year and a half until she starts school which is amazing. I'm think I might make her some really easy writing sheets and counting sheets so she can practice "school stuff" before she gets there. Just for a bit of fun, and I'd love her to be able to write her name before she starts school!

-four-
I do a photo a day challenge on Instagram and the other day the prompt was "hobby". I found a serious lacking in this area when I needed to photograph it. I love reading teacher blogs and making teaching resources, so I put up a photo of a product I've made. But I need to expand my horizons a bit. So this week I took up knitting again. And I love it! Last year I started knitting squares with different wool just for something to do, but I've decided to keep making them and then stitch them together to make a blanket. I've got a long way to go, but I'm determined!

-five-
Last (very) random thing - I'm going to see The Lego Movie tomorrow with my sister (who is only two years younger than me). We both love kids movies, and me being a teacher is such a great excuse for going to see them!

Sensory activities in my classroom

I see huge value in engaging students senses in activities we do in the classroom. We do lots of sensory-related activities throughout the day, from quick songs to fine motor skills centres.

Throughout the day we sing songs that involve finger and hand movement, and do little activities that support finger control. For example, we sing songs such as Where is Thumbkin? and Little Rabbit Foo Foo. Before writing I often get my students to hold up all ten fingers, wiggle there fingers, then put all fingers down except for one. I might say "wiggle all ten fingers, now hide all except for your pointer finger". We do this with rapid fire instructions so that my students have to listen carefully and also have to have quick control over their fingers.

During the first 7 weeks at school I ran a perceptual motor program (PMP) or a fine motor skills (FMS) program every morning for the first hour (alternating days). For PMP we explored lots of gross motor skills, including balancing, jumping, crawling, hopping, crossing the midline and throwing/catching. I don't have any photos of these, but the kids loved doing this every morning. I had them in two groups (one group with me and one with my classroom aide) and the students would do both activities for 10-15min. I think this program helped my students settle into school, and it certainly helped with their gross motor skills. I have a pack at my TpT store with activity cards for PMP.

Our fine motor skills program is something that I will continue throughout the year, but from term 2 on it will be incorporated into our reading groups sessions, instead of a stand alone lesson. We have done such a huge range of fine motor skills activities, and the kids love the variety. I have photos of some of these! Here they are:

Giant chalk drawings to support arm movement and control. It is also a very different experience drawing on concrete with chalk, than drawing on paper with pencils.

 

Constructions with soft blocks supports control/stability of arm movements. And, as an added bonus, it helps kids learn to share and get along!

Sorting small objects works to engage kids because the items are interesting, the items all feel different and I get them to sort by as many different attributes as they can, so they might sort by colour first, then size, shape, texture, if the object can roll, if it's shiny, etc.

We do lots of threading and weaving. This one is very straight forward and supports their hand/eye coordination. We have different patterns that we focus on, like all straws going one way, or criss-cross, or on a diagonal.

Very easy threading task using bright coloured buttons that are different shapes and some rubber string. Some students like to create patterns or sort out the buttons before they thread.

And, finally, the coloured rice from yesterday!

I will be using the coloured rice, all mixed up in a big container, as a sensory bin. It will be a centre in my reading groups session. The first centre is going to be focused on sorting out capital and lower case letters, students will have to fish out the magnetic letters from in amongst the rice and then sort them out on a chart. I know that the sensation of having their hands in rice will interest all of my students, but it will also be calming for a couple of them.

I love using sensory activities in my classroom!

Wordless Wednesday link up

I'm linking up with Christina at Sugar and Spice for my first Wordless Wednesday.

Coloured rice to use for sensory-based activities.

 

What sensory activities to you have in your classroom?

Leave me a comment!