Top 10 Classroom Dancing Songs

All ready for the school disco!

Those who know me well know I love to dance. Whether it be at a bar, club or pub, at a concert, in the lounge room, in the car or just sitting in a chair I love to dance.  I’ve been to lessons since I was young and have tried a bit of everything including jazz, hip-hop, ballet, tap, ballroom, Latin, rock and roll and belly dancing.

 

Love school discos!

My favourite place to dance is in the classroom. I love playing music for brain breaks, transitions and in the back ground while we work. I am always encouraging kids in my class to show off their moves. Watching them bust a move always makes me smile.

I have had many giggles, eye rolls and groans at some of my most gracious and elegant choreographed steps. Even better is when the kids copy these ‘Mr Bean’ style moves.

I thought I'd share with you my Top 10 Classroom Dancing Songs.

Most of my top 10 classroom dancing songs already have easy dance steps for the kids to copy and are great for getting everyone dancing (even the reluctant kids). You’ll find videos on you tube so you can copy and learn these easy steps. The others are great songs to make up your own moves. My advice if you are not a confident dancer is to pull out some hip shakes, walks forward and backwards, claps, stomps, knee bending, spins and nothing beats the old grapevine!

1. Cha Cha Slide – DJ Casper

Best ever classroom dancing song. It is fun, easy and gets all kids moving. Just listen to the lyrics and follow the words of the song.

2. Blame it on the Boogie – Michael Jackson

Best song for some disco style moves.

3. I Like to Move It – Reel to Real

This one will give you and the kids a work out!

4. Hoedown Throwdown – Miley Cyrus

Who can resist a line dance? The kids love a bit of Miley Cyrus (pre-wrecking ball days).

5. Macarena – Los Del Rio

An oldie but a goodie. Most of us know the Macarena moves.

6. Wobble – V.I.C.

Great song to dance like no one is watching. We love doing silly ‘wobbles’. The Wobble is another line dancing style dance. A word of caution though; some of the lyrics are a bit inappropriate; “Hey big girl make em back it up”, “I got em shaking their boobies like congos”. I think the kids don’t pay attention to the lyrics but parents might!

7. Happy – Pharell Williams

I don’t think I need to say anything about this Happy song.

8. 5, 6, 7, 8 – Steps

Another line dancing style. You’ll need plenty of grapevines for this one.

9. Nutbush City Limits – Tina Turner

Another song to get your heart rate up. It just doesn’t get old.

10. Greased Lightnin – John Travolta

Channel your inner John Travolta and pretend you’re wearing your leather jacket, tighty whitey shirt and skinny jeans.

Do you have a favourite song for dancing in your classroom?

Leave a comment to share and have fun dancing! 

 

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2015 Goals

2015 is just around the corner and resolutions and goals are on the mind.

More blogging is definitely one of my goals however you will not find it on my resolutions list. I have deliberately left it off the list to save room for other more achievable goals and so I won’t face the blog guilt when/if I don’t achieve it!

To start the year off on the right track (with a blog post) I’m joining Second Grade Nest with a 2015 Resolutions Linky.

 Here are 5 of my 2015 goals!

And a couple of extra goals. 

For my teaching professional goal I want to continue learning in my favourite area, literacy and teaching reading and writing. A long-term goal of mine is to become a literacy coach or specialist and I have loved studying Reading and Writing Difficulties for my masters this year.

Another professional goal is for my Teachers Pay Teachers store. It is more of a general or widespread goal to become more active by creating more products for my class and to share, linking up with other stores and bloggers and learning more about both the business and classroom practice. Broad I know but there are lots of little goals in there!

A personal goal of mine is to stop shopping! GASP! Yes a tough one I know. I have managed to live for 2 years on a remote island with only minimal online shopping. On visits to Brisbane however, I have hit the shops and bought myself all sorts of goodies from clothes to shoes to jewellery. My fear now is that having the stores just a short drive a way is very dangerous. 

I want 2015 to be more about the experiences not the material things. Yes I know I want those shiny new shoes but do I really NEED them? Probably not. So 2015 will be the year of wearing things until they fall apart. Clothing, shoes, jewellery and underwear (holes are acceptable in my opinion)! By working towards this goal I am also helping myself achieve goals 1, 2 and 4 from above, winning!

Check out Sarah Wilson’s blog posts for her take on material things and some inspiration; Why Iwore the same pair of green shorts for 8 years and Buy experiences not things.

Get active! Notice I didn’t use the word exercise? I think getting active sounds better don’t you? That means walking my chocolate labby Dexter, escaping to the beach, finding some bush walks outside of Brisbane and generally getting out of the house. I think it can be done.

 

So there are my goals. What are yours? Leave a comment below to share….

 

Thanks to Second Grade Nest for the Linky!

Motivational Monday Freebie - Rock On! with Sight Words Four in a Row Game

24th August 2014 Motivational Monday Freebie

It’s been some time between not only blog posts but also Motivational Monday Freebies.

Today’s freebie for your Monday is a sample from my Rock On! With Sight Words Pack 1

This is a Four in a Row Bingo Game with sight words and an awesome kids rock star and glitter theme.

Print and laminate this game to use in literacy lessons and centre work.

Sight words included are: 

a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, you.

To get your hands on this freebie from my TPT store click here.

To access it through google docs click here.

Please click here for my full Rock On! Sight Words Pack 1.

Also available are sets 2-5

Pack 2 Rock On! with Sight Words

Pack 3 Rock On! with Sight Words

Pack 4 Rock On! with Sight Words

Pack 5 Rock On! with Sight Words

Finally get all 5 packs in my bundle. If purchased together you can save $10.

Rock On! with Sight Words Bundle

Preview of Rock On! with Sight Words Bundle

 

Preview of Rock On! with Sight Words Bundle

Enjoy this freebie and have a wonderful Monday!

 

Welcome Sheera our new class pet (RIP Leonardo)!

Farewell sweet Leonardo

You may remember Leonardo the turtle our lovely class pet from one of my previous posts. Sadly Leonardo did not survive his last trip home with a student (lost, chewed by a dog or destroyed by a sibling I’ve been told). The class were upset at first but quickly forgot poor Leonardo after their kind teacher told them she would get us another class pet. Not to be mistaken for a softy the children have been told that the loss of the next pet would mean no more class pets!

It was an extensive process choosing another pet. The class was the ones making the decisions.

First was a suggestion of animals (tiger, shark, giraffe, turtle, crocodile and snake).

Voting for an animal

Next a class vote on the type of animal.  Each student recorded votes on paper. They were placed in a tin then drawn out and recorded in a tally next to each animal name.  Tiger was the winning vote.

The votes are in

Tallying the votes

Students loved tallying the votes (they didn't even know it was maths)!

The final numbers

Next Mrs Hayley had to track down a stuffed tiger toy. The mission was finally accomplished by donating to the World Wildlife Fund who then sends a stuffed animal, bag, adoption certificate and photo. 

While we waited for the tiger to come from the USA to Australia another vote occurred to decide whether the tiger was a girl or a boy. Girl won this time.

Then we started thinking about names. Some of the suggestions were Nala, Sheera, Tiger, Stripy and Alice. The winner: Sheera.

It took a few weeks to finally get Sheera to our remote island home.

She has finally arrived.

Sheera the Tiger

After her first week she has sat with students during our carpet time, sat on desks to help with work, played tennis and with hula-hoops, participated in reading groups and helped us with our math. Sheera goes home with students on the weeknights in a special bag with a writing book and pencil. She has been home with 2 students for a sleepover. They have both returned Sheera (unharmed) and presented their talks about what they did with Sheera.

Reading, hula-hoops and tennis fun!

Going home for a sleepover.

The next sleepover

Once again it is great to have a class pet. The students have fallen in love with Sheera and want to spend any time they can holding her in class. It has been great to help with behaviour management, oral language, confidence, writing and hopefully more responsibility looking after her at home!

I’ll be trying to share more Sheera adventures throughout the rest of the year.

Does anyone else have a class pet? Have you thought about donating to WWF. Click here to head over to their website. I’d love to hear your class pet stories.

 
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Back to School (or halfway through) Sale!

Well it has definitely been too long since a blog post! Toooooo long!

Its not like you have not been on my mind dear blog. You have I swear. It’s just that it’s been a hectic time and I’ve been focusing on lots of other things. Its not you its me.

Click on this link to visit the store

I know you’re probably feeling a bit ripped off too because this is just a quick post to share some back to school (or halfway through school in Australia) love and to let everyone know about my Teachers Pay Teachers sale. But don’t fret I’ve got some posts coming your way soon. Too many ideas that will keep you busy and satisfy your every blogging need!

But enough of all that! Yes even though I live in Australia and we are halfway through our school year I am participating in the TPT sale along with so many other great sellers.

For 2 days everything in store is 20% off as well as another 10% from TPT (just enter the code BTS14 at checkout).

I have been frantically finishing some of my half finished products and have 2 more up in store. My Rock On! With Sight Words Bundle and We Rock Our Goals individual student goal display are shown below. Click on the photos to see the products on TPT and download my preview file for a closer look.  I have so many more to add but am still putting the final touches on those so stay tuned.

Head on over to the Teacher Teacher Store on TPT to check out what’s on sale while you can. Time is ticking….