Five for Fraturday - 21st February

After a very long hiatus from my blog I'm back! And with a gorgeous new blog design to boot!!

I thought a great first post back would be a Five for Friday! It is Saturday evening where I am, but it's still Friday somewhere!

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I have had an amazing start to the new school year. In my class I have 22 preps and they are all gorgeous. They are an incredibly helpful, happy and persistent bunch. Yesterday we did our first session of maths groups and I set out a few maths activities that were too hard to see how they reacted. Only one of my poppets gave up and had a whinge - every other one was persistent and had a go even if they weren't too sure about how to get it done. I'm really proud of the behaviours this class are showing, and it is sure to be a fantastic year with them!

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As with any start to the year a good clean-up is necessary.

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The way I have set up my classroom (and I will post a classroom tour next) has the smartboard and whiteboard in front of a window. It works perfectly for the way the room is set up, except it is quite bright through the windows. As a way to cut down the light I laminated some cellophane and bluetac-ed it to the window.

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A new school year also needs some new 'words to live by'.

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And a new hairstyle!

If you'd like to see more of my photos follow me on Instagram @jemluck

It's official! Jem's Bright Buttons is my new blog name!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Luck's Little Learners is now Jem's Bright Buttons!!

After lots of mulling over, and brainstorming, I decided to change the blog name. Please bookmark Jem's Bright Buttons if you'd like to continue reading my blog post!

You can still find me on TeachersPayTeachers

And on Facebook!


I'm excited to start blogging again in 2015! I meet my new class on Thursday and I will start blogging about all the fun things we get up to.

Peek at my Week - Addition week

It's been too long since I've blogged. I get so excited to blog, then I forget or something comes up. I missed last week's link up, but I had a few photos from the week before that I wanted to share.

We worked on even and odd numbers, so I used the Even & Odd Sorting Centers product by Kelly Witt. My kids loved the pictures!

We also used the worksheet in the pack, and students had to sort out the numbers provided into even and odd.

During the week we also made a book to take with us when we went to visit the local kindergarten. It was called School is Awesome: What we love about school. Our kinder kids are all starting transition ready to start school at the end of January, so we thought they'd like to know what is fun at school.

This is one of my little preps who tries SUPER hard, but is still struggling.

So, onto this week!

I'll link up with the awesome Deedee Wills!

Here's what my week will look like.

I'm looking forward to it. On Thursday morning while my preps have buddies with the 1/2s I am running the first transition session for our 2015 preps! I've very excited to meet them. This year I'm the coordinator (for the first time) so I'm a bit nervous about making sure it runs smoothly. I love seeing how little they look in comparison to the current preps.

I have also just added two new products to my TpT store (I'm using them this week, so I'll have photos next week).

The Dinosaur Addition and Subtraction Mats are free!! Go check them out.

Peek at my week - Term 4 Week 2

Already this term is flying by. We're about to begin week 2 of the last term of the school year. I will be saying goodbye to my little preppies in no time...

A quick recap of last week. I had on last week's plan that I was going to do fine motor skills groups. They went so well!! I had to share our activities.

Here we are using the awesome Fine Motor Mats by Tara West. We used the glass beads this time and next time we'll use tweezers as well. Most of my students were fascinated by how many 'jewels' they were using so they were also counting as they did this activity.

The preps had to write or draw with chalk, then they magically made the chalk disappear by tracing over it with water on a paint brush! They thought it was very cool, and it was a novelty to use chalkboards.

Ol' faithful - playdough!

They had to make the tallest tower they could. Steady hands were necessary!

Using tweezers to pick up magnetic letters or letter tiles (one at a time!!) from the rice sensory tub.


Now, here is a Peek at My Week (linked up with Mrs Wills Kindergarten) for next week.

We have a Stress Down Day every year. During the morning the grades will rotate around activities (20 minutes at each activity). Activities will include cyber safety, stories, games/puzzles and craft activities. After recess we invite the parents to come and participate in a Trivia Scavenger Hunt. Each group is given a list of things they have to find out, there is a winner drawn for the most correct answers. After lunch, which will be healthy salad rolls that the students will make for themselves, we have an incursion for a performance called Cyber Busters, all about cyber safety. To top it off, it is Pajama Day, too! Comfy comfy comfy!

New product: Word Family List Worksheets

I've just uploaded a new product!

This product has six worksheets all about word families. Each page covers two different word families.

Students colour the words in the box at the top. The words from the same word family are coloured in the same colour. Then students write the words from each word family in the boxes below to make a list. There are a few extra words that aren't in the word family so that they have to be attentive to the letters in the words. At the bottom there are some words to trace in Victorian Modern Cursive.

The word families included are:
-at / -og
-ed / -op
-ot / -ip
-it / -en
-in / -ap
-ig / -et

I'm giving three copies away, so if you're interested in trying out this product leave me a comment and I'll email it to you!

Peak at my week Monday 6th October

I'm going to give the Peak at My Week link-up another go!

This upcoming week is the first week back at school for term 4, after our Spring break. I've had a lovely holiday but I'm really looking forward to getting back into work.

That's what my week looks like.

For writing I run Writers Workshop with mini lessons (which is just new to me this year and I love it!). I use Writing Through the Year by Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills as a guideline, and then add and tweak it to suit my group of kids and our scope and sequence/curriculum.

For Reading Groups I have five groups that do two activities each - a focus/phonics activity and then a phonics/fine motor skills activity, and I will pull one student at a time to do reading assessment with me in the lead up to report writing. This week we are focusing on Little Red Riding Hood retells and sequencing, and looking at word families -og and -at.

The 'World Around Us' is the name I gave to the hour when we do humanities/social skills work. This term we are talking about celebrations.

I don't normally do so much handwriting and fine motor skills, but given that my kids have 11 more weeks of school this year I'm really focusing on getting their handwriting up to scratch ready for grade 1.

For Buddies we work with a class of grade 3/4s, and we alternate between working on maths together on the iPads and doing 'team building' activities.

I love this link up because I'm fascinated by the different ways classes run!

October Currently

The year is going by so quickly! By the time my birthday comes around (7 October) I know that the year is almost done. So nuts! A new month means a new awesome template from Farley for Currently. Love them.

 

Listening - I came across the band Walk off the Earth when they did a cameo in a tv show called The Listener. Loved the music, so looked them up. My favourite song by them is this one:

Loving - It is Saturday night on the last weekend of the Spring school holidays. Only Sunday left, then back to work. I've had an awesome break, and I'll write a bit more about it in my (late) Five for Friday post.

Thinking - Term 4 is 11 weeks, which means I only have my preps for 11 more weeks. They have made huge progress this year, but there are still things I want to do with them. Term 4 also includes the school swimming program, report writing, and lots of Christmas/end of year stuff - it's a busy term!

Wanting - I went away these holidays and before I left I made sure I cleaned out the fridge (I was gone for 6 nights). I got home two days ago and I still haven't done the groceries. I have basically no food left in the house...

Needing - I am the report coordinator at school and I have a bit of work to do to get everything up and running for the other teachers to get their reports done. Lots of admin hours coming up.

Treat - It's my birthday on Tuesday so I'm going to put my entire TpT store on SALE! 20% off everything starting tomorrow (5th October), and ending on Wednesday 8th October. Grab a bargain!

Now, go link up with Farley! And read the other Currently posts.