Tap the Cat gone FREE- a Reading Eggs app

I have had some experiences with Reading Eggs in the past. I have purchased some of the apps for my iPad for my own kids to use, as well as use at school. They have some great free versions of sight word apps as well! I have been looking at this particular app for a while and when I was contacted by Reading Eggs and told it would be FREE for a limited time - TUESDAY OCTOBER 1, I though I should share with you all.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/tap-the-cat/id570540334?Is=1 

Tap the Cat is a fun, engaging and highly interactive app for the iPad that teaches 4 – 6 year olds key early literacy skills through touch, listening and speaking. 

The app is a great example of how learning can be enhanced by making the most of what an iPad can do – and we know how much young children love using the iPad! It features 9 playful activities, each reinforcing a different literacy skill – from rhyming words, to drawing and colouring, to speaking and handwriting. Bright animations, catchy music, fun sound effects and exciting rewards all come together to form the perfect learning environment! 

A special feature of the app allows children to record and play back their own voice. Children can also create their own ebook out of their completed work (such as coloured in pictures and voice recordings). The ebook feature unlocks once a child completes all 9 activities – bringing all of their work to life! 

Tap the Cat is brought to you by ABC Reading Eggs – a team of educators with more than 20 years’ experience in early childhood education, who believe learning to read should be fun, motivating, and full of success.

 If you would like to find out more about Reading Eggs apps, visit www.readingeggs.com.au/apps

**Disclaimer - I was contacted by Reading Eggs about this post. I am sharing this information because it is an app gone free for a short time and may be valuable to your students. Please make your own judgments as to whether it is suitable for your class.

Syl/la/ble chunk/ing

Last term, we talked a lot about syllables and breaking words into pieces to help us figure out how to read and spell unknown words. When I went to school, we clapped syllables but in our school, we teach the kids to place their hand under their chin (palm down) and the word is broken into syllables by the number of times your chin hits your hand. And the fact that we teach kids to clap for A LOT of things....if we want it to actually mean something, often it will get lost in the 'act' of clapping.

Let's do a test.

Hand flat under your chin.

1. banana - (ba/na/na)
2. apple - (ap/ple)
3. peach - (peach)
4. watermelon - (wa/ter/me/lon)

How did you go?

To go over our syllables, I made this cute little worksheet. Kids say the word associated with the picture, cut it out and glue it into the column with the right amount of syllables :)

Click the picture to go and grab it

graphics by Graphics from the Pond and Pink Cat Studio.

Planning...

It's Friday morning here in Australia and I am in the middle of my 2 weeks off. I am feeling pretty good! But I know that term 4 is such a jam packed term so I decided to start to tackle my planning for the term.
I know last term there was a lot of missed teaching due to the school concert which consumed us for weeks! So I am trying hard to squish everything in before the Christmas period sneaks up!

Writing is something I would like to do more of this term to prepare my Kinders for Year 1 and part of that is free choice writing. I thought if I timetabled it in, it would make me more accountable! And this term we are studying the farm so I am sure it will give us plenty to write about! We are getting chickens to be incubated in Week 2 (for 2 weeks) so we will be keeping a chicken diary and then we are visiting a farm in Week 4! Lots to write about coming soon :)

Here is my Version 1 timetable for Term 4. There is no Friday because I get to play Mum on that day :)

I find it hard to fit everything in...but we are going to be changing the way we do our literacy next year with the new curriculum coming in...so maybe there is hope!

What does your timetable look like?

Delicious patterns...with Fruit Loops!

I'm sure at one time or another you have bought your kids (or yourself) a box of sugary, delicious Fruit Loops. My kids had just about finished the box when I saw it! Instant maths activity and I didn't have to create anything for it!

Have you ever looked at the back of the box? It has patterns activities right these for you to use. The patterns include ABAB, AABAAB, ABACABAC, AABBAABB, ABCABC, AAABAAAB, ABCDABCD.

Awesome hey? And totally delicious!

Go and grab a box of Fruit Loops and have some have with patterns.

*Disclaimer - the box ingredients say may contain traces of nuts, so pleases consider any allergies in your classroom before using.

Prefixes and Suffixes

It is one of the those tricky concepts to teach...where there are lots of rules involved, sometimes a bit of the teacher saying "It's like that and thats it!" and often a bit of frustration for students. When I looked at this with my Year 2 class in depth last year, I was after something engaging and meaningful. So I created this

I have just given this pack a little facelift so I wanted to share a couple of activities out of it.

Prefix and Suffix Spinners

 Prefix and Suffix Making Words Displays

Other things included are:

* 18 anchor charts
* Prefix and Suffix Spinner Games
* Read and Write the Room ( 8 prefix and suffix worksheets)
* Prefix and Suffix Display and brainstorming words
* Prefix and Suffix Flip Book Templates and instructions.

Click any pic to go and find it in my TPT store.

Five for Friday!

Happy Friday/Saturday! It is a gorgeous Saturday morning here and I am feeling fine....2 weeks off for our term break! Did I mention holidays? Woooooo.

Linking up with Five for Friday to share my adventure from last week.

In the public school system in the state I live in (New South Wales) we have the opportunity to be sport coaches and managers for students at a Zone level (so the schools in your area), Regional level (for me it is all the schools South West of Sydney) or State level. For the past 2 years, I have been a swim team manager for my region and taken a team of kids to the State carnival. This year I upped it a level and applied to be a State manager to go to the National School Sport Swimming Championships...and was successful! These pics provide a little snapshot of my week away!.

 1. We travelled to Adelaide, South Australia to compete at the newest pool in the country (I believe). It is pretty awesome and for someone who has done her rounds of pools across the country and the world, this is definitely right up there!.

2. The competition was over a whole week, but being a school event, students couldn't be out of school for so long without some 'education'. So we had competition on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then took all the swimmers from all the teams on an 'educational excursion' (I will use this term very loosely as I didn't see the kids in engaging in many educational activities) to the Royal Adelaide Show. Think rides, junk food, showbags.....it was pretty fun but a HUGE day.

3. Medals! My little swimmers did so well. The relays on the final day for my 10 year olds both won gold and broke the Australian record!!!

4. My role as manager was to look after the 10 year old boys and girls attending their first Nationals. They were a very sweet bunch of kids with lovely supportive families. This little note and pressie was from one of the boys. Don't you just love the sentiment?

5. On one the nights I had to get a bit formal and wear my team corporate outfit to a managers dinner. Can you see the beach in the background? We were lucky enough to stay right on the beach at Glenelg.

I have already applied to go again next year so who knows? It was a long week being away from my own family and a lot of prep leaving a weeks worth of work for the casual on my class...but it was a great break from the classroom.

Do you get to have any opportunities like this?

Learning with YouTube

Nothing needs to be boring! YouTube is our friend!

There are so many resources available on YouTube to help us with concepts in the classroom and help make learning engaging for our kids.

Let me give you a couple of examples from our week this week....

Counting

Our backwards counting is not so great. I saw this clip in my daughters Kinder room and knew it would be a hit with my kids

This counting video is a great one for the beginning of the year with numbers to 10...

Magic 'e'

We know that very important rule that an 'e' can make a vowel say its name...these 2 videos are some that my kids in Kinder and last year in Yr 2 all enjoyed and helped them remember...

Morning Routine

We use these songs nearly every day as part of our morning routine or calendar time

Days of the week

Months of the Year

And lastly a time video that the kids love!

Do you have any favourite videos you use?

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