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!

Organising My Themed Units

Around the middle of the year I came across this post on Mrs Terhune's First Grade Site showing how she organises her thematic units into binder folders. When I saw this photo I was immediately drawn to the uniformity and functionality of the folders. 

At the time I kept digital copies of all my sheets and activities in folders on my computer. While this did save on space, I was always forgetting what I had! So I decided to spend some time organising my own units and putting them into folders. This means that when I teach the unit again, everything I have will be at my pretty little fingertips! 

Here are a few photos of my folders, which are kept in the office I share with the teacher in the room next to mine. 

I cannot explain how much time this system has already saved me! Since taking these photos I have added a number of new folders, and as I find new resources I simply add a copy to the folder and it's there for next time. 

I hope I've inspired you to do some organising of your own :)

Happy blogging!! 

It's that time of the week again!

Five for Friday link up with Doodle Bugs is here again! A definite highlight of my week. 

It's been a whirlwind week to say the least. I had a horrible sore throat so was only at work for four days, perhaps thats why I feel like it's gone so quick!

Righto, lets get stuck in!

We began our new Inquiry unit this week on SPACE! I'm super excited about this unit, and decking my room out in space themed art. The kids are loving it too. We brainstormed all the things they already know about space, and added them to our Wonder Wall. We also wrote down all the things they wanted to find out. We'll find the answer to a question (aka google it) at the start of every lesson. 

To draw an end to book week, our 1/2 team decided to do a book activity rotation. 

The book I chose was 'I'm a Dirty Dinosaur' by Janeen Brian and Ann James. It's super cute book, and the kids loved that they used actual mud for the dirt in the pictures. They joined in when we read the repetitive pages with the big coloured writing. 

After the story we made our own dinosaur out of paper plates and templates I found at Learn with Play at Home. We used oil pastels to create bright patterns on our dinosaurs and coloured their body parts in with paste too. I forgot to take a photo of one of the finished one....sigh. But I'll get one and put it up. 

Today we had a special visit from the grade 5 students. They came over to our classroom and read to my little wonders, and listened to them read. It was so nice to see them helping out my little ones on some of the tricky words.

 Check out my SUPER ORGANISED cupboard! Thank you Maria from Kinder-Craze. Your classroom supply labels inspired me to clean out my entire cupboard. 

To tie our art in with our Inquiry unit, this week we made moon mobiles. The little wonders sponged two paper plates with grey paint and painted their stars yellow. After they dried they glued the stars onto some fishing line and attached them to their moons, and stapled them together. We were going to add gold glitter to the stars, but ran out of time. The kids then suggested we put silver glitter on the moon. I liked that idea so I think next week we'll take them down and add some sparkle!

Happy weekend everyone!

I'm in love!

With organising that is!

I've always considered myself a very organised person (in my classroom anyway). Everything has its place and I can easily grab any art or craft supply I may need. But when I saw one of Maria Manore's most recent products I knew my supply cupboard was about to get a HUGE makeover...

enter Classroom Supply Labels!

(They are on sale as we speak so go right now and get them for yourself!)

As I look at these photographs I literally hear angels singing. 

Any teacher who says they don't hear it, is lying. 

Unfortunately we don't have a Big Lots in Australia, therefore my dream of having these bright coloured containers is dashed. But that doesn't matter because Maria's labels are going to look amazing on any storage containers, so I'm still super excited to get stuck in. 

Meanwhile...after school I went to our local cheap shop to buy some containers that match the ones I already have, and low and behold they no longer sell them. Needless to say I was devastated. However as I was walking to the checkout, what did I spy on sale for half price?!?!....wait for it....the clear storage pails that I've seen featured on the Kinder-Craze blog and have been looking for for sooo long! 

I felt extremely pleased with myself as those babies rang through the till. Awesome end to the day.

Stay tuned for photo updates, I can't wait to share them!

Happy blogging!

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!