Peek at my week - week beginning 16 February

I love reading what other teachers are doing in their classrooms, and I love sharing what I'm doing. Here is a peek at my week!

Here is a recap of week four of term 1:

When my students come in each morning they unpack their satchels. Their satchels are blue, velcro-closure pockets that they carry notes, take home books and their diary in. They also transport money in them. Each morning they put their money pouch in the white box, their diary in the green box and their satchel in the blue bucket - we only started this routine last week and it is taking some time!!

We made these in maths. I love combining fine motor skills with other subject areas and number formation is an area we focus on. You can get the mosaic squares from Zart Art.

These were our four Reading Groups last week. We had guided reading with me, puzzles, playdough and beading. My students are still learning how to work in groups, and fine motor tasks are really useful for practicing group work. All students understand the tasks and can do them independently while I work with my small group. This week our phonological awareness focus was rhyme.

This is the board behind where I sit for Guided Reading. I write up our focus, and go through the black words (which are high frequency words from the book we are reading) before we read.

We started Maths Groups last week too. I will be doing an hour per week of Maths Groups, where the students will work in groups of 3-4 students and will complete 5 different activities. All activities will be focussed on number/place value. It is a great opportunity to do some quick assessment and see how different students are coping with the content.

My 2015 classroom

 

I absolutely love setting up my new classroom each year. This year I have moved back into the classroom I was in during 2013. It felt a bit like coming home. I wanted to give you a tour of my 2015 classroom. I have preps (5/6 year olds) again this year. I have 22 students in my class.

Here is a panorama photo of my room, taken from my doorway.

My small group teaching area/teacher desk.

What the whiteboard above looks like now.

My whole group teaching area. Love me Ikea chair!!

My timetable and mat rules on my portable whiteboard.

My amazing giant cupboard, tables, door to outside and trolley with resources on it.

 Close-up of my trolley with resources on it.

This is where I write up my learning intentions for the week.

Book Corner area.

Close-up of the Book Corner. My students LOVE spending time here.

I use these for my Reading Groups activities (on the right) and the ones on the left will be used for Maths Groups.

The view from my desk area.

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!