Currently July!

If you have never linked up with Farley's Currently, you should!! You meet new bloggers and read about lots of intereting things. And of course, Farley's posts crack.me.up.

Listening - Monday. First day of our 2 week school holidays. Kindergarten daughter bugging me to engage in educational activities. Go watch the TV was my reply (I just need a break!!)

Loving - It has rained pretty much non stop for over a week here in Sydney. But today...sunshine! Mild weather! It is amazing how a bit of sun changes your whole mood. And just in time for 2 weeks at home.

Thinking - I have a prac student who is up to her last week where she controls the class for the whole day. The last 3 weeks of school she was with me she taught lessons, sessions...all building to the day. When I told her she had complete control over programming and all, she was a bit stunned. This is the place for experiments, I told her. While I am here for support, take some risks. If you succeed - GREAT! If it fails, no worries :) Do you remember your prac experiences?

Wanting - time by my self!!!

Needing - to keep on track. I joined Weight Watchers 2 weeks ago and since then I have lost 1.9kg and 1.3kg. I am pretty stoked and past the super hungry phase. Just got to keep it up.

Tips - My kids (4 and 5) are wicked balls of energy! It takes a lot to run them down but on those days...and it gets to 7.45pm...and I am sitting on the lounge by.my.self....it is a pretty good day.

Go link up!!

Fans Only on Facebook

Just a short one today!

You may have seen some bloggers have installed a Fan Only tab on their Facebook page....

Well guess what?

I now have one too!

This little tab will have some exclusive freebies for my followers on Facebook and the freebies will be available for a limited time!

So click the image to go to my Facebook page - and make sure you hit like so you can download your freebie :)

Techy Tuesday....Topmarks Ladybirds

If you haven't used TopMarks before, you need to go and visit! There are so many fun, interactive games for kids and they look and work great on the IWB too.

This one in particular has had a facelift and is working really well in my Kinder computer time.

The great thing about this game is that it only deals with numbers between 1-10 making it perfect for early learners.

Subitizing! Put the right amount of spots on the ladybug

Matching/subtising/numeral identification - matching the number of spots to the number on the leaf.

 Ordering (counting/subitizing) smallest to largest

Ordering (counting/subitizing) largest to smallest

Go and have a look :) Click any pic to get there.

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Jump on board....all the cool kids are doing it!

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Healthy Lunch - Kinder Style

Wednesday last week was a big huge gigantic day for Kindergarten at my school. It was the culmination of our term of work on Healthy Choices. Our final activity was to host a Healthy Lunch and invite the families of our 46 students to school.

The menu was decided!

The RSVP's rolled in......116! Yikes!

So the prep began!
It began like this...plus 2 other trolleys!

The many hours we spent shopping then had to be translated into the hours we needed to spend CHOPPING!. I didnt get a photo of all the prep, but the teachers of my school (for the most part) were so supportive and fantastic! The last chopper left school at 9.30pm the night before the lunch.

Ill let the pics take up the story now!

Very hygenic! I did have to give lots of gloves to one boy in particular. He would take his turn at 'making' and then exclaim "This looks yum!" Then his hand would go straight in his mouth. I was killing myself laughing!

We divided into 4 groups and each group prepared 3 dishes. My group made Garden Salad, Crunchy Noodle Salad and Wraps

How cool is the watermelon shark? You have probably seen it on Pinterest? Well someone was showing this pic around when we were chopping and my awesome boss says....I can do that! So watermelon shark was born! I think kids who didnt even like watermelon had a try of some out of his mouth.

Our hall was so full of happy families and kids who were so proud of themselves.

It was a lot of effort and come Thursday morning there were some VERY tired teachers but it was so totally worth it.

Planning with Planners!

Last year I dabbled in creating some planners. Simple yet functional was my line of thinking.

But now I am a year wiser, a year more versed in design, a year more immersed in awesome clipart and fonts! My planners have taken on a new look and feel that I hope you like!

Enter The Simple Teacher Planner.

At this stage I have 4 new designs plus I have revamped one older design (I plan to do the other existing designs too and maybe a couple of new ones!)

Here they are!

Chalkboard, Bunting and Birds (I think this is my favourite!!)

  

 Bright Chevron

Soda POP!

Teal Leopard 

Click any of the cover pics to go and see them at TPT. If you purchase one of these, I am more than happy to personalise your cover with whatever you like (well....within reason lol).

Want one?

Comment with your favourite one and why (dont forget your email address!) I will pick 2 random numbers at 7pm tomorrow night (my time) which gives you 25 hours to comment. I would also love if you had any other suggestions or would like something specific.

Edited to add: Here are the random numbers!

Congrats to Kelly (3) and Debbie (11). Ill be emailing you soon :)

Freebie Friday!

I have been battling the 'finger space' issue in my class with some kids. So here is a freebie for you to help tackle it with your class.

Click either pic to grab from Google Docs.

Another idea to beat the space issue is to give your main culprits a regular sized paddle pop stick and get the to use this as their reminder. I might have to make some cute space men to stick on them too :)

Throwback Thursday

I have been on this blogging journey for just over a year and my mind boggles at how much I have learned!
I'm linking up with Cara for Throwback Thursday

This post is from 

Saturday 8th December 2012

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 :)

Five for Friday!

My week started with a long weekend for the Queens Birthday Holiday (which is weird because her birthday isnt even in June!But it means an extra day off so who's complaining?)

We went on a quick trip up the coast and got to do some 'firsts' for my kids

1. Horse Riding!!! My kids thought it was legend....wait for it.....dary!

2. I got nostalgic about this!

Yes it is a glass sauce bottle. You know you remember these. Before sauce in a glass bottle became dangerous ;)

3. I have a Reading Wizard! For home reading, if a student reads for 100 nights, they achieve reading wizard status. Our principal has had some cute capes made and the kids get to wear them for a week. Super cute :)

4. My little buddy is turning 4 this week. Looking back through my phones old pics, I wonder where the time went

And finally

5. Cheers!

New pack...and you can win it!

 This is my newest pack! I usually give one away on FB but there have been some crack downs on giveaways and getting people to 'like' your page in exchange for something.... So Ill give you a chance via rafflecopter.

This is the inside. The page looks the same for colours and numbers :) Due to the length of some words the Find It part can often snake around the grid.

Words included are red, yellow, blue, green, white, orange, black, purple, pink, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

For a chance to win, enter Rafflecopter below. Nice and easy. Good luck! And if you miss out, you can click any of the pictures to go and grab it in my TPT store.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Clipart Challenge!

Several fabulous clipartists and bloggers have come together for an amazing Clipart Challenge hosted by Primary Possibilities!  Each blogger is featuring a clipartist and a product they made using that artist's images!  This is a great way to discover new clipart creators for your summer creations.   So keep reading and following the linky at the bottom to head on to the next post!  You may even pick up some freebies along the way!

I signed up for this neat idea! Stephany at Primary Possibilities paired a product 'maker' with a clip artist! We could choose something from their store to make either a free or paid product with.

I was pretty pumped by the idea :)

I was paired with K is for Kinderiffic

She is just beginning in the world of clip art so she only has a few things...but I look forward to what she does next! Debbie has a few great freebies for you to test out and a nice looking alphabet set in colour and b&w. Go and visit her store. I chose her cute Bright Spring Flowers set - a steal at only $1!!!  And I made a cute matching game using the flowers laid out like dots on a dice face. Students can match the correct number to the amount of flowers pictured. Although its just a simple game, it practices many skills like counting, numeral identification, visualisation and subitising. It covers numbers 1 to 6.

Click on the picture to go grab it from my TPT store for FREE!

Thanks Debbie for the cutie clip art and thanks Steph for hosting this great idea!

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Currently....JUNE!

Go and link up with Farley's Currently!

My little girl is 5 and testing her boundaries. every.single.day.

My super cute Kinder kids and teaching friends spoilt me for my birthday. See this post.

Now reports are done, I am looking forward to more time to pin, create, blog, pin.....

I scored some cash and vouchers for my birthday. I am after some new tights and long cardis.

It is cold here today! And rainy. And yuck. The socks aren't cutting it, so its on with the Uggs.

We have our half year break in 4 weeks and get 2 weeks off. Looking forward to it!

Stamping Fun Freebie

Just a quick one for you today! The weather in Sydney is FOUL! Rain, rain, rain......

I created a pack of CVC stamping sheets for my class last week. Click HERE to visit them on TPT. But for some of my lower Kinders, thinking about CVC's was just too much to handle. So I created a few sight word stamping sheets for them to practice those high frequency words they see all the time in their easy readers and in our class shared reading books. That way we were practicing looking at and reading these words AND they still got to have fun stamping!

Here they are

How fabulous is the Elkonian boxes font? It is from Graphics from the Pond. 

Click either pic to grab them from GoogleDocs.

Ive linked up with