Classroom Inspiration

Saturday 26 July 2014

TGIF...or should I say TGIS??

Happy weekend everyone! For the next two days I have no plans and am looking forward to doing absolutely nothing....except reading blogs and watching youtube hauls and tutorials. 

In my opinion there is no better way to celebrate the week than to link up with Doodle bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. So here are 5 things to share from my week!
Incase you didn't know, 'Healthy Bones Action Week' is coming up (the 3rd-10th August to be exact) and to get my little wonders thinking about their bones and ways to keep them healthy and strong, we did a super cute craftivity where they made a skeleton out of cotton buds and wrote a response to
 'My bones are brilliant because..'
They turned out so cute. It was good to see some of the children create skeletons with jointed arms and legs. Clever little things!

Our writing focus at the moment is procedure writing, which always results in making fun and often yummy treats to write about. This week we made milkshakes and wrote a procedure for it using a template from my Procedure Writing Template pack (which is available on TPT).
We made chocolate and strawberry flavoured milkshakes. One guess which was more popular!

I have the most gorgeous photo of one of my little wonders with a milk moustache that I wish I could show you!

 One of the activities we complete in Religion this week was to create a family tree for Jesus.
We've been reading a lot of stories about Him as part of our 'Life of Jesus' unit which the children really enjoy. Building up their bank of scripture stories is a real focus in this unit. 
 (I don't know how she managed to spell Jesus wrong! lol)
 This little wonder always produces the neatest work, ruled lines, perfect circles and beautiful handwriting. I'm forever using his work as an example for the other students. 
Our art focus for the week was watercolour. As I was scouring Pinterest for inspiration I came across a blog post on Kids Artists (original idea from Use Your Coloured Pencils) that used watercolour to create David Hockney inspired art.
First the little wonders drew themselves in their bathers floating. They then used oil pastel to colour their picture in, and using a white pastel, drew wavy lines in a grid pattern all over their page. 
After they completed their picture they used a mixture of green and blue watercolour paint to wash over their entire page. They looked fantastic! The white pastel lines looked like the tiles on the bottom of the pool. 



If you know me or read my blog then you know I have a completely normal HUGE obsession with clipart, namely Krista Wallden's clipart! I had been waiting months for Krista to release her Zoo Animal Clipart set, and when she finally did I bought it the very same day and created a transformation activity for our maths focus on flips, slides and turns. Before we did this activity some of the little wonders had seen the sheet on my desk and were constantly asking when we were going to do it. I was overjoyed to see that they loved it just as much as I did! They took so much care in their colouring, and just like Krista, used light and dark versions of the same colour to create contrast.  I'll admit we spent more time colouring in than doing the actual activity, but hey...gotta practice those fine motor skills right?

I hope you've all had a great week, wether you're at school or starting to get ready for the new school year. 

Happy blogging everyone!

10 comments:

  1. Those crafty activities look like so much fun!! You've inspired me to plan something like that for this week. Love the water colour pics!

    Jemima
    Luck's Little Learners

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    1. Aw thanks Jem! I look forward to reading about it on your blog :)

      Zoe x

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  2. The watercolor pictures are so cute! I love the ideas you're using for art. I'm jealous that you get to teach this in your room! I have to send mine away for art class!

    - Abbey from Tremendous First Grade Tales

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    1. Thanks Abbey. At my old school we use to send the kids out for art too. I love that we get to teach it ourselves, it's so much fun!

      Zoe

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  3. Love the skeletons! I pined it so we can do that in October. The watercolor pictures turned out fantastic too! Looks like you had a great week.

    ~Laura
    Luv My Kinders

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    1. Thanks Laura :) they were really easy to make. In hindsight I'd probably cut the ends off for the fingers and toes myself before the lesson as the little scissors the kids used made it a bit hard.

      Zoe x

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  4. Hi Zoe!! Thanks for saying hello on my blog! I'm your newest follower and I just LOVE the blog design Kassie did for you!! She's amazing! I love your idea for slides, flips and turns!!! And what a fun art activity!! I really enjoyed reading your Five for Friday and look forward to following your blog! I am now following you on TpT, as well!! :)

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    1. Thanks so much for following Rebecca! Kassie is great isn't she? So clever.
      I'm so glad you enjoyed reading my blog, I look forward to reading all your back to school posts :)

      Zoe x

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  5. Look at those kiddos' coloring skills! That is awesome! Thanks so much for the shout out and your patience with me getting that zoo set done- it was a doozy to finish! :)

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    1. It was definitely worth the wait! Thank you so much for stopping by my blog, can't tell you how much it means :)

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