What's New?

Thought I'd share a few photos of the new things I've added to my classroom in 2015.

Space themed display at the entrance to our classroom.

 Door display on the back of the lockers...because I don't have a door. Loving Krista Wallden's space themed clipart.

 Monster display for our reading groups.

 I kept the pencil buckets from last year. Best. Find. Ever!

 Name tags for tables. Animal clipart and wallpapers from Krista Wallden.

 I transferred my paint into these large sauce bottles at the end of last year. I'll ever go back! So much easier and less wasted paint.

 We made these kites on orientation day last year. I had them up for the first day of school to make my new kids feel at home in their new classroom.

 Daily classroom helper flip charts. I choose a boy and a girl each day to help me with EVERYTHING. Lights, handing out, line leaders, everything! So much easier than having a different person for each job.

 New fuzzy signs. If you don't know what fuzzes are, head over to Mel's Seusstastic blog, I've been using them for the past 3 years as a behaviour management tool and they are awesome!!

 Book covers using...you guessed it....Krista's clipart. 

 Birthday display from Pink Cat Studio, so super cute!

For the past couple of years I've given out crazy straws for birthdays, but thought I;d change it up this year, for little bags of skittles :) yum yum!

Hope you've enjoyed a little peak into my classroom!

YAY!! Five for Friday!

Fridays have always been my favourite day of the week, and now they are for another reason. 

Doodle Bug Five for Friday Linky Party!! 

It's a great way to sum up the week and I love getting a sneak peek into the other amazing classrooms that link up.

So! We ran out of hand sanitiser this week, I promptly went to the supermarket to get some more. I chose a Dettol brand at what I thought was a great price. Turns out I didn't buy hand sanitiser, I bought hand soap instead (sigh), and didn't realise until the kids came to me with soapy hands saying 'It won't rub in!'. So back I went to the supermarket and came back with this deliciously inviting GREEN hand sanitiser. Needless to say the kids were very impressed. 

I also decided that I needed a new set of hand sanitiser labels, so I made these! They are available in my TPT store now!

I always drill into my kids how important presentation is to their completed work. My little wonders have heard me loud and clear! No more sloppy grey lead drawings with stick legs and mixed-match colours. They now give me background, bright colours and gorgeous drawings. 

It's great to see them show such pride in their work.

This week, as part of our poetry unit, we wrote some free verse poems. To inspire us we went outside and sketched whatever inspired them. The little wonders sketched magpies, galaghs, trees and flowers. I really love this photo, the little wonders have learnt to carry on working when I'm taking photos, I love catching honest moments. 

I've decided to begin the long process of organising a classroom library. The first step is to level the books I already have. Wouldn't the world be a better place if there was a single program/website/app that could level ALL my books?? Of course it would, but alas, there is no such tool. 

The inspiration for my library is, of course, Maria Manore's classroom library. 

Who isn't in love with it??

I purchased her Classroom Library Labels which are absolutely gorgeous! 

Anyone else out there a HUGE Mo Willems fan?

He is one of my all time favourite authors, and for good reason. His books are entertaining, funny and full of character. The little wonders love hearing about the Pigeon and his adventures. 

I am suuuuper excited that this little beauty, Mo's newest book, is currently on it's way to me and will land on my doorstep any day now. I can't wait to read it to the kids, a title that I'm sure they can all relate to!

Thanks for reading :)

Enjoy your long weekend!

Five for Friday

Thank God for the weekend! My week has consisted of benchmarking, report comments, progression points and wet days. Boy do I hate wet days! Now don't get me wrong, I love the rain! But when the little wonders are stuck inside all day and can't get out to run around, I'm not such a big fan. You all know how kids get when they're cooped up, they get restless, and that means no concentration, no focus, chatting, and dobbing! But with the 'not so good' comes the 'good'. 

Julia Donaldson is by far one of my favourite authors of children's books, and the kids love listening to her stories. As our library activity this week we read Julia's book 'The Gruffalo'. The little wonders loved the bright illustrations and the catchy story line. As a response to the story we made our own Gruffalo masks, complete with orange eyes and green warts! 

As far as I know, every teacher on the planet it obsessed with Pinterest, and I am no exception. My favourite use for Pinterest is to find lessons for my classroom. It is a treasure trove of fantastic ideas! I especially love it for art projects that I can do with my little wonders. I found this great idea, based on Edvard Munch's 'The Scream'.  We looked at his original painting and discussed the importance of it in the art world. We also spoke about the techniques he used to create movement in the sky and water. We then had a go at drawing out own versions of the famous painting. 

On a non-teaching note, look who I found in my classroom Thursday morning! I'm not sure if he was in there all night, or wether he flew in through the door that morning. He must have been trying to get out for a long time because he was exhausted when I attempted to catch him, hence my success! I had to take a photo to prove to the little wonders that I really did catch a bird with my bare hands.

The were very impressed to say the least!

A shot I took today, just messing around with my camera while my little ones worked away on their 'Scream' art work. These are one of my favourite items in my room (its always the small things). They are my pencil buckets, purchased for $2.80 each from a discount store in Melbourne. Shout out to my friend Emma for a great find! 

A few weeks ago we went to Hamilton for a PD on 'The 7 Steps to Writing Success', which turned out to be a fantastic learning experience. We have been implementing these steps into our writing lessons and they have proven to be fantastic ways to engage the children in the process of writing and identifying various parts of a text. This week we focused on 'pebbles, bricks and boulder', which is a way of classifying the problems in a story. Pebbles are small problems, bricks are medium size problems and the boulder is the big problem/tension scene. We read a big book called 'Rose Rat and the Scary Plant' and drew the pebble, brick and boulder scenes. I absolutely love how the children illustrated each problem from the text, and was especially impressed with how quickly they were able to grasp the concept.

I hope everyone has had a great week, enjoy your weekend!

My bright, organised, buzzing classroom!

At the end of 2012 I moved to a different learning centre in the school to be with the other three 1/2 classes. I was moving into a completely empty room which meant a lot of work!! So I enlisted the help of 25 little wonders to help make the job a bit easier hehe. Let's be honest, they all love a little 'out of routine' distraction.

So my summer holidays were mainly spent at school, creating and putting up displays, organising supplies, and deciding on furniture placement. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this stuff! My OCD tendencies, which seem to exist solely in my work life, come in extremely handy during this time of the year when there is so much to do.

By the time the first day of term came around I was pretty happy with how my classroom looked. Needless to say I've made A LOT of changes from then until now, and am sure I will continue making changes until I'm 100% happy with my room.....which could be never!

 I used paint buckets on the tables as stationary caddies. These only cost $2.80 each! The children put their writing pencil and red pencil in the paintbrush holes on the sides. Keeps them very organised. The table numbers on the caddies makes it easy to identify who's is who if we have been working on the floor. 

The Birthday Bees are a new addition this year. They are from Pink Cat Studio on TPT, Melissa Rodger has so many fantastic displays and resources! My teacher chair is from Ikea and the little computer table is a kitchen trolly from a discount store. The behaviour chart you can see on the right is from DK Coleman's Owl and Polka Dot Classroom Theme Pack which I looove. 

This is my favourite area of my classroom; the reading corner. I used bookshelves on their sides to make the bench seat and covered some foam in fabric for the long cushions. The shelf houses the children IPICK book which they keep in little calico bags. This photo was taken last year and since then I have added colourful cushions to the bench seat (which you can see in the first photo).

I hope you've enjoyed a little look into my classroom!