HOORAY for school holidays!!

What a term! Despite it being 10 weeks long it has gone extremely quick. Having said that, I am still most definitely ready for a break. Now to decide how I'm going to spend my break....Books? Yes! Sleep ins? Yes! Lunch dates? Yes! Shopping? Sadly no :( Saving for a house deposit means no shopping for this little duck. 

What a better way to start off the holidays than with a Doodlebugs linky party!!

 Our profile books are up and running! We dedicate one teacher group session to goal setting every 2 or so weeks depending on how the children are going toward achieving their goals.

I'm looking forward to adding more personal info in our profile books in term 2. 

 As part of our Inquiry unit 'Past and Present Family Life', we made board games based around this topic. The little wonders used the information they have learnt to create challenges and successes for their game. It was great to see them coming up with things like 'Dad built you a wooden rocking horse, move forward two places' and 'Your horse is sick, miss a turn'. They used mini patty pans, clay and paper to create their game pieces. 

I had to show you this one!! It took all I had not to burst out laughing when I saw his flag hehe.

 As all grade 1 and 2 teachers know, losing teeth is a common occurrence in our level, and when a tooth goes missing, we launch a search party! This little guy (who happens to be one of the most animated and happy children I have ever taught) took it upon himself to get some gloves from the office, and search the bin for the apple the other child was eating when he lost his tooth. 

Unfortunately the tooth wasn't retrieved, so the Tooth Fairy was informed by letter, and all was well! 

 Don't you just love monkey bars??

Thank the Lord it wasn't her writing arm!

Thursday was pyjama day at school. It is amazing how calm and relaxed the little wonders are when they are in their pj's. We spend the whole day doing winter themed art and craft, needless to say they absolutely loved it! Now if you work with me you will know that my teaching/blogging/organising inspiration in Maria Manore from Kinder-Craze. She has amazing ideas and beautiful craft activities to brighten up your classroom. 

After getting over my anxiety of using contact paper in the class, I was super excited to have the children do Maria's 'Stained Glass Mitten' craft. I was a little unorganised however, so the little wonders helped me get everything organised. They loved having a part in the set up. 

Here are some of my little wonders cutting up the crepe paper squares for our mittens. How cozy do they look in their onesies! 

I was very relieved when not a single child made a mess of their contact paper.

The mittens look absolutely amazing on our windows and brighten up our winter days. I'm sure you all already follow her but if you don't, do yourself a favour and follow now! 

I hope everyone has a relaxing break!

Goal setting and recording, how do you do it??

Public holiday means one thing... more time to blog and create new products!

As I've mentioned before, my school has begun on the journey toward personalised learning, and this has meant a lot of changes and trial and error. One thing we have been battling with is trying to find an effective and hassle free way of setting, displaying and recording student goals. 

We decided that children would set an English, Maths and Classroom goal, all with teacher input and guidance. Last year we tried displaying our goals in the classroom on a pinboard. This however turned out to be visually unpleasing, messy, and a pain in the...well you know. This year we have been a little slow off the mark to get a goals up and running, but we believe we've found a way to display and record student goals that's going to work for us, and not be a royal pain. 

If you've visited my TPT store you would have seen my Student Learning Profile pack. After conversations with my colleagues (and a stroke of brilliance from one of our foundation teachers) we decided to include extra pages in the profile books to display students English, Maths and Classroom goals. I've added these pages and the Goal Cards to the pack if you're interested in doing the same.

This solution means we aren't creating any extra work for ourselves or the children, and it will be easy for the kids to get their profile books out to refer back to their goals. I will take some pictures of our profile books to show you this week sometime. 

On the topic of goals, I have created a set of Classroom Goal Cards that I plan to use with the little wonders when setting their personal/classroom goals. When beginning the process of goal setting, I think it's important to give the children lots of ideas for goals, before guiding them to choose one they think applies to them. 

 Click on the picture to be taken to my TPT store. 

I'm going to use these cards tomorrow to set our classroom goals. 

Big shout out to Kari Bolt for her super cute clipart! 

I would love to hear how the rest of you display and record student goals in your own classrooms. 

Happy teaching everyone!

I'VE BEEN BUSY!

My school is currently making the move toward personalised learning (exciting times!) and as part of this we are making up learning profiles for each student. It's been a long process deciding what we want to include in the profiles, and what would be the best way to present them. 

On Monday we had a PD day where my team (1/2's) were given the chance to sit down with the foundation (prep/kindergarten) teachers and make up a list of the things we want included in our profiles so that they were visually exciting and informative. 

The activities we decided on will give us an insight into each child's interests and preferred learning style. 
I've just put the pack in my TPT store and would love for you all to check it out and let me know what you think. Click on the picture below to be taken to my store.