Selfless

This is not a teacher related post but much more personal. I hope you enjoy my little story.

My daughter Madison is 4 1/2. Next year she will be going to big school and starting Kindergarten. She is a sweet little girl who often just comes over to me to tell me she loves me *heart melts every time*

I took her and my son to a birthday party at a play centre yesterday. We have been to this centre for parties before and she knew that at the end of the party, they would both get a balloon and lolly bag. Maddie asked me if she could have a pink balloon (of course all little girls want that colour). I said she would have to wait and see which one she was given. She was happy with that.

When the balloons came out, all the kids went to pick one. Maddie went over to get a pink one for herself and a blue one for her brother. There was only 1 pink one and she got it and came back to where I was sitting so I could mind the balloons.

But then one of her little friends started crying. She had wanted a pink balloon too. Maddie didnt think twice but came back over to me and took her pink balloon over to her friend. Then she went and picked another one and brought it back to me.

"Maddie" I said. "I am so proud that you did that."

"I know" she said. "Amelia was sad and I wanted to make her happy."

*insert more heart melting here*

Thats my daughter and I am so proud of her.

Hopefully I am doing something right :)

Spring has Sprung Sale!

The other weekend I saw a lot of fall themed sales. But here in Australia, it is definitely one of the best times of the year SPRING!
You don't have to rug up, going to the park is awesome, the air smells great and everyone starts to feel a bit happier. It is great and I love it!
So to celebrate Spring, I am having 15% off in my store until Sunday midnight. Go and snap up something! Click on any of the pictures to take you to my TPT store.

Themed teaching and a FREEBIE

Hi all
Thanks for your support about my shame cupboard. I appreciate that I am not the only disorganised teacher and am very thankful for my cupboard! I have not been into school yet - next week, but promise to show you some updated pics when I get more organised!

One huge difference that I notice  about my American blogger friends and my own classroom is that you all seem to teach to themes. There is Halloween, Valentines, Presidents Day..... the list goes on. At my school, we acknowledge days that come up but don't do much specific teaching about those days - with the exception of Australian specific special days like ANZAC day, Remembrance Day, NAIDOC week (Aboriginal). We have topics for the year that must be covered that fit into either HSIE (Human Society and Its Environment, kind of like social studies) and Science. This year my stage (Year 1 and 2) have covered Built and Natural Environments, Transport, What's Alive and our last topic will be Celebrations. We basically integrate our HSIE/Science topic into our Literacy, Creative Arts and Technology.

I feel a little jealous because what you guys do looks like fun!!! Better than studying transport for a whole 10 week term hehe.

I know a lot of you are celebrating apples and Johnny Appleseed. So for you I have made some cute apple themed writing paper with From the Pond Premium Club graphics. Mel is so awesome :) Click here to go and see her cute graphics.

You can download your apple paper by clicking on the pic. It is in my TPT store. Please leave me some love if you like it :)

Welcome to Latoya from Flying into First Grade

Happy Johnny Appleseed Week!!!!

I am guest blogging for Brooke today and I cannot wait to share with you some of the things we are going to be doing to celebrate Johnny Appleseed and Apples.  First let me tell you more about myself.  I am Latoya Reed and I just became a blogger in July.  I also started my TPT store in July as well.  It has been such an amazing experience so far and I love the ideas and resources that are shared.  I was a Kindergarten teacher for 4 years and now I am in my 2nd year of first grade.  I teach in Tennessee where I live with my hubby.

Since Johnny Appleseed's birthday is on September 26, we are doing a unit on apples and Johnny Appleseed.  I get excited to teach this unit every year.  I know the students enjoy it as well.  I would like to start by sharing some of my favorite apple themed books I like to read to my class.

My favorite Apple Activities

1.  Graphing apples by colors- I get parents to send in apples in red, yellow, and green. The students get to pick their favorite apples color and then we graph them.  Complete the data information below. 

2. Apple Tasting- I cut the apples up and have students try each color.  We fill out our Apple tasting chart.

3. Apple Word Search- You can find this freebie in my TPT store.

4.  Make an Apple Pie- I love to make an apple pie with the kids and let them eat some of it.  This is when I read The Apple Pie Tree.

5.  Read about Johnny Appleseed- We have the PE teacher to dress as Johnny Appleseed and read a story to the students.  We alo watch the Johnny Appleseed video on Brain Pop Jr.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my post on my favorite Apple activties and books.  You can go to my TPT store to find more freebies and check out my blog anytime.

My TPT Store

My classroom cupboard shame...

I am lucky enough at school to have a HUGE storage cupboard. Now we all know what teachers are like - classic hoarders. We keep lots of 'stuff', thinking that we will find a use for it. I definitely do this.

But occasionally, my stuff gets me down a bit. Every time I open the cupboard, I want to shut it again very very quickly. So I thought to myself, it was time to get it a bit more organised and put my 'stuff' to better use.

My school holidays project (we have the next 2 weeks off) is to reorganise and CULL!! Thats right - chuck stuff out. Here are some pictures of my shame...

At one point I did try to organise my stuff, hence the black and white boxes that contain my maths groups stuff by strand. But the rest as you can see, is just horrible!

It is so messy that I can't even find a spot for my MAB stuff and it is taking a big chunk of floor space. It doesn't help that I have all my Year 5/6 stuff in here too, even though I teach Year 2!

My floor :( I know you are probably wondering about the thing of apples. We have a fruit break in our class every morning and rather than forget, I just leave fruit at school :)

So stay tuned for a hopefully, more tidy, organised storeroom in the near future!

And hopefully I am not the only one with a secret storeroom shame lol.

Massive, huge, ginormous!

Just a fast one from me. Last day of school for the term yesterday and boy did I feel sick! Struggled through it went home, in bed at 7.30 slept til 6.30am, feeling slightly more human today. What horrible timing!

But anyway....
Olivia at Liv to Teach is celebrating 500 followers and is having a super sized giveaway. There are items on offer from 39 fellow bloggers including me!

There are heaps of ways to enter so go and try to win (I know I will be!).

Be back with a more entertaining post when I am feeling better.

Learning through Games

Do your kids ever hit you up for games like Heads Down Thumbs Up or Murder Wink? And how often do you say no? Get a little more game time into your learning day with games that you will let them play during class time which reinforce learning. 

 The first and close to favourite in my classroom is Buzz Off Hairy Legs. This spelling game is great for practising sight words, word families, theme words...the possibilties are endless. If you have never played BOHL (for short lol) here is the must know. Get students to make a circle (or stand behind their tables). The teacher chooses a spelling word (or sight word/theme words/random choice) and one by one the students spell it out letter by letter. When the spelling of the letter is complete, the next four students say in turn Buzz - Off - Hairy - Legs and the person that comes after this sits down. I usually make a rule that the first complete time around the classroom noone is out because I feel sorry for the kids who don't even get a turn. I also sometimes have a time limit for answering.

Have you played Heads and Tails? Its a great fun easy game and all you need is a coin (fake or real). It is a great game for exploring probability. Standing up, students chose heads (hands on heads) or tails (hands on hips or butt). Teacher flips the coin and calls out whatever it lands on. These are the people who stay in and the other students sit down. It is very interesting to watch kids thought process in this game.

I'm sure everyone has played some kind of 'guess a number' game. But why not give a maths specific focus spin? You can play so that students are only allowed to ask greater than or less than questions or why not do it with ordinal numbers and have students ask about the position of the number eg is it before 8th?

Those are some of our favourites in 2B. I hope you can use them in your own class next time your students beg you for a game :)