Graduation Bands - FOREVER FREEBIE!

I know a lot of you are coming up to the end of the year.

And the end of the year gets expensive!! Craft, student and teacher gifts.....

So how about a fun, easy and no prep way to celebrate?

It is all on one piece of paper. Just print, colour, cut and glue! Easy and fun :)

And the best part is I have made them from PreK up to 6 so you can use them for years to come.

Click the pic to go and grab them from my TPT store and I would love if you left some feedback.

FarFaria and a giveaway!

Recently I was approach by the people at FarFaria to a reviewa great new reading app.

What is it? It is a fabulous app that is chock full of stories! 

It is divided into many lands. You can pick from places such as Animal Kingdom (full of animal stories), Adventure Island, and Mount Make Believe. You pick the one you are after and a range of different stories are available for you to read.

When you are presented the stories, you can choose to sort them by title, newest or even level, which is fantastic in the classroom :)

After it downloads a story, it gives you 3 options- Auto play, Read to Me and Read myself which is fantastic as students can listen to the story and then read the same text themselves.

FarFaria currently has 600 illustrated children books with 5 new books being added each week!

The app is free to download (and you can access one story per day) OR you can try  monthly memberships to access the stories - only $3.99 per month.

Go to http://www.farfaria.com/ to read more.

The great people at FarFaria have given me a 6 month subscription to GIVE AWAY!!!!

Just enter via the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Another Bright Idea!

Collecting data is important for all grades! But how to keep it organised in a neat, easy to use way? 

I think I have a Bright Idea!!!

Thanks to Shelley Gray for this awesome idea!

This is an idea I saw in my teaching partners classroom, so thanks Kim for the inspiration. 

You will need a folder, some plastic sheet protectors, some lined paper and some sticky note flags.

First, put your lined paper in! You want to think about how many pages per kid you want to start with.

Write your students names on the tags. Layer these throughout the notebook paper as shown so you can easily locate the student you are looking for.

Place a plastic sheet straight after each student name flag. This is for you to add any information you might collect on separate pieces of paper or as ongoing assessment task that needs to be consistently updated.

Finally add a cute cover! Font by KG Fonts AND clipart from Krista Wallden.

Add some extras into the folder to help you keep on top of data - here I have pictured reading levels, which I can just highlight as they progress and an alphabet sounds assessment (in each child's sleeve.)

Taa-daa! Data collection, made easy!

Looking for more Bright Ideas? Follow me on Facebook, Pinterest or my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

For more bright ideas from 150 different bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting!

An InLinkz Link-up

A peek at the week

I had a bit of a rocky week which started with me having 2 days off with tonsillitis. I probably should have had another day to recover, but teacher guilt got me! Here are some of the things we squeezed into 3 days!

It was 'p' week! We started off brainstorming p words - the kids came up with so many, I ran out of room!

We learned how to correctly write p. This is a handwriting booklet we use every week with our focus letter. You can find it in my TPT store, but in a more generic font (the font pictured is my state font). Click HERE to see it

We looked for p words in this fun activity Beginning Sounds Color It from Lavinia Pop

We had an indepth look at number 8 (another one from my TPT store) Click HERE to see it

P sequencing - each week we read a 'big book' with the same word pattern and different words subsistuted on each page. This week was "I can see the ......" I chose pig because I thought it was a great word for sounding out. Look at the super cute pictures! I am so proud of this writing - after only 9 weeks at school :)

We tried some sight word writing as a group with my pocket dice.

On Friday, we went to the circus on an excursion in the morning which was so much fun for the kids :) Afterwards back at school, we tackled our letter of the week craft - Pink and Purple popcorn. The cute popcorn box is from Krista Wallden's popcorn set. We coloured in in a pattern with pink and purple crayon, then put our fingers to work with some scrunching of crepe paper. The kids found this really therapeutic! 

How was your week?

Currently April and an updated pack!

 I cannot believe its April!! And that means its Currently time with Farley over on her blog

Listening - My husband has a pet peeve about the kids playing with balls in the house. So I *might* let them play when he isnt home....... ;)

Loving - We have nearly reached the end of Term 1! Its hard to believe I have had my current class for only a term. They have to be close to my favourite group of kids so far! And that means school holidays :) Hooooray for 2 weeks off.

Thinking - I am honestly grateful for some of the wonderful and inspiring people I have become connected to in this crazy journey. I have needed some people to lean on lately and time after time, these women have been there for me. So thank you from the bottom of my heart *you know who you are*

Wanting - It is now Autumn and that means an excuse for shopping! How gorge is this cardigan?

Needing - I have had 2 days off school already! The doctor offered me a certificate to have another day off but I need to get back....I feel slack for the kids (as only a teacher would understand)

Hours - I try to get to school most days by 7.30 as I like the time in the morning to get myself organised. I am always out the door by 4 to go and pick up my kids. (Our school hours are 9-3 in case you are wondering). Days - Being in Australia, we have only just started our school year and we go all the way through to December 19 before our big break for the year.

Thanks Farley!

Just something extra....I updated my Initial and Final sounds pack today and it has DOUBLED in size! For your chance to win one, simply use the rafflecopter underneath :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway