Freebie revamped!

I have been having a critical look at my old stuff lately - you know you have one (or two or more) files that you created when you were starting out that at the time you thought they were awesome but now........

Blah!

So I have deactivated a few things and am going to give them a makeover!

My newest freebie made over is

It is forever free. Click the pic to go and grab it in my TPT store

Literacy Work Stations - Teacher Tip Thursday

Guided reading is definitely not my strong suit. Coming from a primary background, kids usually came to me knowing how to read, with plenty of strategies. Then I was put down to Year 2. Lots of these kids could read up to a certain level but some couldn't! Panic came creeping in. I developed something that worked for me, with those kids, at that time. Panic subsided.

Enter Kindergarten.

Wow!

Know I need to know how to give them the strategies they need to read, to listen, to speak, to write.... you know where I am going.

Enter Debbie Diller.

I read something in a blog post while cruising Pinterest about a book of hers called Literacy Work Stations. I thought I should give it a shot, bought it on Book Depository and it arrived yesterday.

Wow again.

I am only up to chapter 4 but my head is so full of ideas of how to manage groups while the kids are involved in meaningful learning. One of these ideas leads me to....

One of my recent TPT purchase was a fabulous set from Keeping Life Creative. It is a felt story set of the Hungry Caterpillar. Click HERE to go and see it on TPT. 

At the time, I only bought it because of its uniqueness, but after reading some of my new book, my ideas got going!

I was going to use the pieces to create a drama/puppet set and get the students to retell the story!!!

Firstly I cut out each piece, then laminated and cut again. I usually hate that extra step but thought it would be worth it in this case :) How cute are these pieces!!

 Then I sticky taped a long thin paddle pop stick on the back.

How cute is this guy?? Taadaa....puppets!

He was still hungry so he ate through a piece of chocolate cake......

If you love these felt creations, she has other story sets available too! Go and visit her blog/website too http://keepinglifecreative.com/

I see this workstation being a favourite as I develop other sets of characters from well known stories. I hope this is something you might use in your room too :)

Classroom Photos!

Well I know it has been a term already...and a long term at that....and I have finally gotten around to taking some pics of a semi-clean classroom to share with you :)

 Weclome to KB!!! This is a shot from the entry to class. You can see that I have 4 table groups and still have a big floor area for group gathering, small groups and IWB stuff. How cute is the craft looking?

 This is the view looking from the front of the room back. Besides my computer to run the IWB, I have one more desktop in my room. This will be used more next term for small group activities or fast finishers. you can also see into the room next door - we have big heavy sliding doors which sadly we have been keeping closed a lot because out classes seem to settle better in their own space.

 This is from the other front corner looking back. I have a cupboard near my door which holds my maths groups boxes and reading group boxes. It is also where the kids put their home reader every day and has other stuff we use pretty frequently like crayons, magnetic letters etc.

 The front, next to my IWB. The extra whiteboard is handy as I can jot things down. But at the moment, it is more of a storage space for papers. You can see the purple cards - these are our Bee Cards (behaviour management cards). When the kids are doing something great, trying hard etc, they are told to get a bee. 10 bees = lucky dip prize. They also get to tell the class they have 10 bees and then the class chants "10 bees, 10 bees, 10 bees". Its pretty cute! Under the board is the rules - Be Kind BE Safe Be Fair (goes with the bees see?) and up the top is the birthday charts (get them from Mel @ From the Pond)

 This is definitely the cutest place in the room - I'll call it the IKEA corner.The green tubs hold books, math manipulatives, playdoh.....I really do need to make some labels though! The little table has been so handy as it is a great spot for group work. The kids love coming to sit here.

 One of the reading spots featuring my crafty recovered chair (and matching IKEA pillow). My books need to be organised better though. The little yellow tub up the top is full of non-fiction sight word readers I got from book club that are definitely a hit with the kiddies. The rainbow chair is highly sought after at free reading time.

A view of the front, featuring my helper Miss M. The rainbow bench is where I sit and the IWB is the star of the show. Someone built these nifty stages and steps for our K and 1 classes as it was hard for them to reach a lot of stuff. On the left is my other small whiteboard which becomes our word wall for our sound of the week and behind that is numbers to 30, ten frames to 10, days, months and calendar.

Hope you have enjoyed a glimpse into my classroom :)

And exhale.... Thursday Tip!

Term one is complete! I have to say that I am surprised! Surprised that I have enjoyed Kindergarten so much. Surprised that I have coped (sometimes I am not the most patient person hehe). Surprised at how much fun we have. And finally, surprised at how far these kiddies have come!!!

Which leads me to.... 

This idea came from Pinterest (I think). When your kiddies are just learning to write letters and numbers, or struggle with certain things, in the past I have often tried to draw dotted lines for them to trace over. But then I found a tip that changed my life.

HIGHLIGHTERS! 

Thanks Mel @ Graphics from the Pond for this cute little highlighter fellow!

 To help your kiddies, simply carry a highlighter around, show them a few times with the highlighter and then they are able to trace or channel the letter or number they are struggling with. 

We were finding 8 quite tricky this week. There was a lot of high lighter happiness going around! The kids told me they prefer yellow lol.

Hope this is something you can use in your classroom

Word Family Racers

I just wanted to share something I have been working on with you. As I head into Term 2 with my Kinders, I know my focus has to shift from alphabet and phonics and move onto combining our phonics knowledge to read words.

Enter

The fabulous clip art is from Mel @ Graphics From the Pond. I am just loving everything of hers lately!

I tested this out with Miss M who is in Kinder. This is what we started with - 2 word family sheets and the cards that go with each one. We also had the recording sheet in my nifty new sheet protectors that were delivered yesterday from Amazon.

Forgive the jammies - Saturday morning in our house is PJ day until we have to go out. Here is M matching the words to the family ending. I should have taken a video of how she was working it out

Here is our finished family race tracks - the ap and at families.

Now on to the recording. The sheet is black and white so you can copy for each student, or maybe have some laminated ones or do what I did with my protectors (can you tell I am in love with these! And I am so going to order more!!!)

Ta-daaaa! Look at that awesome writing! I was encouraging her to say the words as say was writing to reinforce her phonemic awareness.

Here is a look at what is inside. It includes 20 common rimes including

at, ap, ot, et, ad, an, ab, ay, un, ut, ig, ip, in, it, og, op, ug, ow, oy, ub.

I would love to give one away! So just tell me why you need it! I will pick one comment on Sunday night (so don't forget your email!) And if you don't win the giveaway, I'll have it in my store for $2.50 instead of $3.50 for the weekend. Just click the picture above to go to it.

Teacher Tip Thursday

Firstly thanks for the kind comments about my video post last week :) I will definitely consider it again one day....

But my tip for this week is to do with Facebook.

You may have noticed a lot of people have a 'blog/business' Facebook page which they use to promote their blog and TPT/TN stores. This is great! I have had mine for a while and it has been building nicely. It is easy to use and not a big hassle to switch between your personal page and your blog page. But anyway...on to the tip.

I have seen many people posting the link to their product in the comments section. At first I thought why? But now I know a couple of reasons and I thought I would share with you.

1. By not posting the link directly in the post, you can upload a much larger picture rather than the very small thumbnails. You know how visual the internet is right? Catch some more attention with a bigger pic.

2. I read something recently about Facebook not promoting posts which contain links that direct traffic AWAY from Facebook. So if you are posting links directly in the post part, all of your followers may not be seeing all of your posts. By putting the link in the first comment, it allows more people to see the post and consequently drives more traffic to your link.

Maybe this is something you can try :)

Currently APRIL!

Oh Farley - your currently is too much fun. It is nice to have a little reflection every month - or forward thinking as it may be.

But anyhoooo

Hey Mum - can I have an Easter egg for desert? Sure as long as you eat your dinner. But I'm full!...*sigh*

The holidays need to get here - NOW! Kinder Term 1 has been a little draining.

Our literacy/oral language groups will evolved into guided reading groups next term and I am looking at a huge focus on sight words and word families etc. Any tips definitely appreciated!

I have ordered dice in dice, a pocket chart, differentiated instruction cubes (dice with pockets) and write and wipe pockets and it is all on the way to me in Australia! Can't wait!

Bath = hard work. No bath =  stinky kids. Hmmmmmm

My advice is to myself. Things will happen. Don't let it get to you. Suck it up princess :)