Teacher Tip Thursday

Well this week, I thought I would try something different for

So without further ado......here is my first video tip! Apologies about the hair lol

Would love you to let me know what you think!

Blast Off into Sight Words!!

I have some cool posts planned for the next week but I just quickly wanted to share my latest and largest pack to date!

I've been trying to think of a way to engage my Kinders in learning their sight words because up until now, some have been trying to learn them but most havent (and to be fair, I havent been pushing them - I figured that learning HOW to go to school was a bit more important).

So I tried to think of all the things I needed to make sure I was on top of sight words in terms of learning and assessment and then what the parents needed to experience success at home.

In the main PDF, you will find all of these things featured in the preview

There are 2 other files included - a PowerPoint featuring all the words divided into the appropriate lists and a student practice book which features a read, trace, copy theme - perfect for centres, early finishers or take home practice.

Until Sunday it will be $7.50 and then will go back to its real price of $10, so go and grab it while it is on sale. At a total of 188 pages, that is a bargain right? Click on any of the pics to go and look at it in my TPT store.

Apologies - please redownload!

Last week I offered a Freebie - Ten frames and linked up with freebie friday. I must have been tired/crazy/out of my mind but number 5 had a tenframe with four dots - can you say DUH!!!

But thanks to a lovely follower who let me know, it is now fixed for you to redownload :) Click here to go back to the post and then click the picture to go to the new download :)

"Dream English" - check this out

I stumbled upon these videos purely by accident! My teaching partner on my day off had found this kind of weird guy singing kind of weird songs BUT the kiddies LOVED him!

I've been using them as a brain break or a quick wiggle, but he has some songs you could link to learning.

So without further ado, I introduce.....

Dream English

This is one of our current faves

Go and check out his videos if you are after some brain breaks. I would probably say they were suitable for Kinder and Year 1.

Let me know what you think !

Freebie Alert!

At the moment I don't have a lot to say. 

Here is a freebie I whipped up for my littlies who are struggling with numeral ID - it shows the number with its corresponding ten frame, so that even if they can't read the numbers, they can count the dots and then associate their count with the number shown.

It is 2 to a page so I copied them onto some fun coloured paper. Click the pic to grab them from GoogleDocs. 

Congratulations to.....

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks to everyone for entering!!

This is your life!

I think we have all been here before heehee :)

Roll a Sentence GIVEAWAY

I promised you a giveaway on my Facebook and here it is!

I have just uploaded my Roll a Sentence bundle. So far it includes the pack for each of the following

*Every Day

*Christmas

*Winter

*Valentines and

*Easter

Hopefully by the end of the giveaway, there will be another pack to add that I am working on - SPRING! By the way, if you have any suggestions of other themes to add, please let me know :)

On to the giveaway.

Would you like to win this bad boy? Use the Rafflecopter below to enter. The giveaway will end on Monday night (US time) and I will be posting the winner when I get home from work.

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

Please share this with your friends and pin it! I would love to see you win! But if you don't, click the pic above to go and grab your own copy.

Teacher Tip Thursday

Hey all

Just a quick one today as I am feeling a bit tired! I don't know if you have ever taught the grade your children are in but teaching Kinder and having my daughter in Kinder too is a bit rough at the moment. We have started homework this week as well as sight words and home reading......The best bit is that she is super keen to do it all...but the worst bit is that she wants to do it all at once and then be done with it (not her mothers daughter much hehehe). I have been trying to explain that we need to practice so we can learn...but you know 5 year olds!

Anyway....

Do you hate how you store your dice? Does it make it a chore for you to distribute dice to groups or for the kids to find what they are looking for? You might be interested in one of these...

It is a plastic bead box. I bought mine from Woollies for about $4. You can then use it to turn your dice into this.....

This is not mine - for the life of me I cannot find the images I took, but you get the idea. (Click the picture to go to the original pin). I store all my small dice - numbers, dot dice, ten sided, 12 sided, decimal, hundreds, 8 sided. It make it neat and accessible for everyone and then it has a spot to be returned to as well.

Why not go and a grab a box and transform your dice storage?

Combining Maths and Fine Motor Skills

Another post about maths - can you tell that it is my teaching passion? I would seriously love to be a maths consultant. And this is weird because in my life as a high school student, I loved English. For those who understand this, I did 3 unit English for the HighSchoolCertificate (as well as 3 unit Japanese, but that is a story for another day).

But in my class, we are struggling with fine motor (let alone maths). And our maths time has not been much more that learning to recognise numbers, practicing writing them and playing some easy games.

Enter the pipe cleaner.

This game is another $2 gem, costing me only the $1 I paid for the stickers as I had the other components already.

So what do you need?

 A bag of pipecleaners and some long white stickers. You will also need a black marker to write on the stickers as well as some beads with a wide enough hole to slide onto the pipe cleaner - pony beads word well!

 Write your numbers onto the stickers. I did 3 different sets - numbers to 20, dot patterns to ten using the idea of a ten frame and then dot patterns to ten in a more random fashion. I did these dots to help engage the kids who can't recognise numbers.

 Fold your sticker around your pipecleaner.

 Taadaa!!! I used different coloured pipecleaners to help me be able to pull sets out for different ability groups.

The students thread the beads onto the pipecleaner based on the number or dot pattern.

As my kids progress I see more potential for this activity. You could extend it to addition by using 2 different coloured beads and writing the sum onto the flag in different colours, you could show friends of ten as well. Many mathematical possibilities all while improving fine motor.

I hope you can use these ideas in your class too!

Currently MARCH!!!

It's that time again - yep!!!

Go link up with Farley

Don't you just love her 'stache??

Listening - both boys at my place lurve super heros, so I am listening to some documentary about the first Batman movie???

Loving - my Kinder class have very poor fine motor skills so I am buying lots of fun goodies from Amazon. I am becoming slightly addicted and lots of things have resonable postage to Australia :)

Thinking - Last weekend, I lost all my files from my USB. I did have them back up in another location but not since just after Christmas. So today I went and bought a new portable hard drive and I am in the process of backing up right now. The current time is 105minutes to go (it started at 132min).

Needing - sleep, naps and sleep. This weather is making me tired.

Like - baking - yum!

Love - buying - woo!

Hate - bullying - yuck :(