Best Books for Boys

I am a HUGE advocate for reading. I don't care what your reading ability is, I don't care what you are interested in, I don't care if you don't read those crappy books that we call 'home readers' because they are as boring as anything - just pick up something that you like and READ.

When I saw this linky (yes I know, another linky) I thought it was important to participate, because boys and reading aren't necessarily the best of buddies. So here are my top 5 picks of books for boys to get them engaged in reading.

1. Zac Power. How can you go past a boy that is a spy? I like that there are 2 different types of Zac Power books, one with a larger text and one that is more complex and a lot smaller. It means that boys, no matter their reading ability can participate in reading these books with their friends.

2. The "Just" series by Andy Griffiths. If you have never read one of these books, please go and buy or borrow one. Your boys (and girls for that matter) will thank you! These stories are full of gross, embarrassing and funny tales of a boy named Andy, his friend Danny and his annoying older sister. 

3. Hot Wheels books - these are for your struggling, reluctant readers. The text is minimal, with awesome colourful pictures. I actually bought some for my son for home, then colour copied some for school with my student who was having a very hard time with reading. He loved having books JUST FOR HIM at his level.

4. Choose your own adventure - These are great for your older readers. I still remember reading these when I was at school!

5. Superhero anything! - I have a range of magazines and books with superheros. Kids who can't read or struggle to read well can still read a story with the pictures.

Go and link up with Courtney at Swimming into Second and share you top picks!

12 Things I Loved about Christmas

Mel at From the Pond is having a fun linky. Go and join and tell us what you *heart*-ed about Christmas.

1. My family :) Last year my relationship was really struggling and it has taken 12 months of perspective to really appreciate how far we have come :)

My wonderful hubs, son and daughter. This baby is not mine! It my niece born last Jan.

2. My kids and how much they loved the season.

3. My gorgeous pressie from my family.

It is from Koolaman designs - hand stamped silver and I *heart* it.

4. Trampoline Santa - he stood in the rain on Christmas eve putting that darn thing together so our kids could enjoy it on Christmas morn.

5. Food! - I love Christmas ham. I know, it is just ham, but at Christmas it tastes different for some reason :)

6. Presents - I love getting them but I love giving them more! My best present for someone was the pic that my kids and their cousin (aka ME) gave to the grandparents.

7. Warm weather - now in Sydney on Christmas it was POURING rain, but Christmas eve was a stinker and when my hubs got home from work, we had a family swim in the pool.

8. Christmas pudding swimming in custard!!!

9. Christmas shows on TV that I used to watch as a kid. Do you remember watching Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer and Frosty the snowman? I got to enjoy these with my kids this year.

10. Gift cards just begging to be spent!

11. Time with my family

12. No school for 5 weeks!!!!

I hope your time with family was enjoyable wherever you are in the world.

Oh Holy Night...

For all the sadness that has been felt this week, this song has reminded me of all the joy in the world. I hope you enjoy N*sync and Oh Holy Night.

Santa's Little Helper Blog Hop!

Hi there! I hope you have come from Shanyn's blog and received your first freebie and if not, click the button below to go back.

My fabulous freebie for you is a New Years focused activity. It gives you the opportunity to explore with your kiddos what they WILL do to celebrate or what they DID to celebrate making it a great activity for both before and after December 31 :) And I have included some cute Year number graphics that go up to 2015, so if you don't get around to using it this year, there is always next year and the year after lol.

Check out some of the pages.

Click on the title page to go and grab it {forever free}!!!

I hope you enjoy my little present for you. Now its time to hop along. Click the button to go to the next blog and grab some more goodies. 

And don't forget, when you click all the way through the blog hop, you can score an entry into our fab giveaway!

Thanks Mel @ Graphics from the Pond for these gorgeous graphics.

Silence for Sandy Hook

12 in 12 Linky Party

I like the idea of reflecting on the year that has just passed. It has been such an interesting year for me! Lets reflect with this linky - go link up yourself!

12. Favourite Movie you watched-

American Pie - The Reunion :) Need I say more?

11. Favourite TV series -

I *heart* HIMYM or for the uneducated How I Met Your Mother.

10. Favourite Restaurant -

With a 3 and 4 year old, restaurants really aren't our thing. Does MacDonalds count? I do love happy meals :)

9. Favourite new thing you tried -

Its got to be blogging and my TPT adventure. In the 6 months that I have been doing this, I have grown as an educator and looked more critically at my activities and practice than ever before! I love the support I have found :)

8. Favourite gift you got -

Does last Christmas count? My husband got me a cherry red KitchenAid mixer.

7. Favourite thing you pinned -

I am in the process of making these for my kids carers at daycare

Click here to go to the pin

6. Favourite blog post - 

It was a more personal post, rather than being classroom focussed about my beautiful little girl Madison. Read it here.

5. Best accomplishment -

I have had a great start to TPT and have been in both the member sponsored and freebies section in the newsletter! Click the pic to go grab my freebie that was featured or check out my Dice and Card games that was also featured.

4. Favourite picture

My two gorgeous babies

3. Favourite memory -

I have had a lot of great memories this year. School wise, it has to be the awesome time I have had with my class 2B. Personally, it has to be taking my daughter to school for kinder orientation.

2. Goal(s) for 2013 -

* Be a great mum and wife

* Be a great kindergarten teacher

* Go forward with my blog and TPT :)

1. One little word......

AMAZING! 2012 has brought me so much - can't wait to see what 2013 brings!

My TPT journey ...and tips!

I started on this journey not so long ago. I think my first item was listed at the end of May and I look back and think eeek! It is definitely on my holiday to do list - going back to fix them up to match the rest of my store.

But anyway, the reason I started or even found TPT was a friend of mine. She had a Facebook message about something called Pinterest (lol). **Side note if you do not know about Pinterest, I highly recommend staying safely in the dark. However, if you don't mind developing addictions, here is a good place to start.You could always follow me when you get there http://pinterest.com/brookeychook/

I digress

I joined up to Pinterest and saw that someone had posted a thing called TPT. Intrigued, I clicked on the link and WOW! I was sold!

I just kind of lurked for a little while and downloaded some freebies. Like a lot of teachers, I have dabbled in making my own classroom resources for years (see this post on my old school maths games). I thought to myself, I could make some games to go on this site! 

As I investigated the site, and saw what was on offer, my mind was slowly blown! There are so many creative and awesome teachers out there that are willing to share their ideas, both for free and a small amount of money.

I started creating my first real item, just in time for the teacher appreciation jackpot - it was this one :)

After this I started developing a style and it has evolved over the past 6 months to where I feel comfortable with it now.

I wanted to share a few tips with you incase this is something that you are dabbling in or have thought about or maybe just would appreciate a few tips!

1. Use Powerpoint! It is mega easy to format and use and you can convert the file to a PDF, just by going to File>Save As>PDF.

2. Start off small. Take something you have already used in your classroom and "cute" it up! Buy some fun and engaging clip art and look for some free fonts to make it more eye catching - a great font site for freebies is http://www.kevinandamanda.com/fonts/freescrapbookfonts/

3. Make things that you would use! One of my most popular items stemmed from a need that I had for some hands on games for a particular topic. 

4. Make sure you give credit where credit is due. It is easier to make sure that you list all your sources as you go, rather than get stuck down the line and have to remember whose clip art or fonts you used in your product about ducks - you know?

5. Make sure you have a copyright statement on your product.

6. Make sure you are enjoying creating - I think that if it is becoming too much of a chore, it will probably be reflected in your work.

I'll share some more tips in the new year :)

HELP! Santa is stuck! and a giveaway!

Ho ho ho. This week in 2B is Christmas week! But wait, I hear you cry. It is only the 1st week of December - there is so  much time left to do this! Are you crazy?

Yes I am crazy.

But this is our last real week together in class because next week has Picnic Day, Presentation Day, Christmas Concert, Gold Reward day...the list goes on!

The last week of school is only 3 days with the kids and that week has Talent Quest as well! I think you see where I am heading!

So Christmas week kicked off with some writing letters to the big man AKA Santa. We were talking about the things we might like to get. I wish I had taken some pics of the writing - one boy wrote that he needed clothes because all he could find when he opened his drawers were pyjamas! It was pretty funny teeheehee. We will publish this later in the week.

Then we did Christmas literacy based groups. I had 4 activities - Cookie Editing, Alphabetical Hot Chocolate, Design a Cookie and Find-a-Cookie. These are all in my Christmas Cookies Literacy Pack. Keep reading for your chance to win one! The kids were enjoying themselves!

Then we did Maths groups - not Christmas based though. But I had more activities than normal and had mixed ability groups PLUS an Ipad station - the kids where in heaven.

But the craft was what won hearts today. We did our Santa is stuck craft (see pics below). Although we used crayons to colour because in the WHOLE school there was no red paper to copy onto. Wow!

Carefully cutting out the pieces!

Oops this little guy is pigeon toed

The finished product - with our crayon colouring in

So did you want to win either my Santa is Stuck or Christmas Cookie Pack? Comment below and tell me a fun activity you are going to do with your class in the lead up to Christmas. I will pick 2 random numbers on THURSDAY afternoon (my time! which is about midnight-ish or so on Wednesday for the US). Don't forget your email address if you want to win!!

Oh boy...it's Currently December!!

Wow! Where has the year gone? I can hear you all saying "I know!" The second half of the year seems to scream past at an alarming pace. Which brings us to.....

My daughter is nearly finished preschool and off to Kindergarten next year! They have a special Christmas concert and graduation ceremony where they share things they have been practising. The other day she sang me "I can sing a Rainbow" - you know the one? (Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue..I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too). But to my absolute surprise, she know the sign language that goes with the song. Was I crying - ABSOLUTELY!

Here in Australia we are beginning summer! We started off with a sweltering day on Saturday - 41degrees Celcius which is about 105 but before you say...only 105!! Sydney is very humid. I lived in AZ for 2 years so have been in 120+ but it is very dry. We stayed cool in the pool :) I *heart* summer and Christmas in summer.

I also *heart* online shopping and we do a lot of our Christmas shopping online. I need to get busy as some places have long delivery periods :)

My house is clean - but for how long?

We have a great garbage man so project Christmas cookies is underway.

Go link up with Farley and share your Currently