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….

 

First week complete and yes we had water!

Wow! Week 1 of school has flown by already and only 9 more weeks until the holidays. Not that I’m counting already. The kids in the class have certainly settled and by Friday were not shy at all. I remember starting last year as the new teacher at the school. The students were so quiet and shy that whenever we played my ‘getting to know you’ games I could almost hear crickets! Not this bunch.

Blowing our nose

This week was full of rules, routines and getting to know you activities. There were many rehearsals of walking around the class, sitting on the mat, sitting at our desks, staying in our seat, walking to the tuckshop and how to use our pencils, rubbers and glue (with only 1 glue stick fatality). Phew!

Washing our hands

Walking to the tuckshop

My favourite getting to know you activity was the silly self-portraits we made and hung in the room. We wrote things about ourselves and stuck that page on the body then attached the head, legs and arms. Mine shows such a resemblance don’t you think? I got this idea from Pinterest by Kallangur State School

The kids had messy fun with this one. Legs, arms, bodies, heads, scissors and glue everywhere! I’ve made a template to use for this activity that you can find here or in my Freebies page.

Miss Hayley's Silly Self-Portrait

The student's self-portraits

This one is missing a leg!

We made a friendship fruit salad on Friday after reading the book I’m the Best by Lucy Cousins.  I can’t claim this idea as my own either I got it from Crazy For First Grade

After reading the book we talked about how the animals were feeling and why. Then we came up with a list of what makes a good friend. I told the students each ingredient (or spoon full of fruit salad mix) was one of those things that made a great friend. After putting it all into a bowl and mixing I got out a pear that I had fun throwing around my kitchen 2 days before! It was bruised, brown and it was smelly. We talked about words to describe the pear: rotten, stinky, yucky, bad. Next we talked about the rotten pear being like a rotten friend, someone who doesn’t do the nice things that we put in our friendship fruit salad. I asked if we thought the rotten pear should be in our fruit salad and the class voted NO. So it was chucked in the bin. Of course we ate the friendship fruit salad and the kids loved it. I wish I had a camera with me at that time especially when I pulled out the rotten pear. Now when the students aren’t being ‘a good friend or class member’ we talk about being a ‘rotten pear’ and the friendship fruit salad.

I’m not sure about everyone else but Friday night I was exhausted and couldn’t move off the couch. I hope all the teachers out there had a great first week back.

Had to share this one. My Teacher Aide captured me explaining how to use the glue stick properly. Nice facial expressions :) 

Some more good news: our Internet is back on at school and I can now print! The classroom has been almost complete for a week but now I have no excuses I can finish printing my displays and proper labels. Stay tuned for photos of the finished (is it ever finished?) product.

If you would like regular updates don’t forget to subscribe.

First Day Fun

The first day of school for 2014 has come and gone and I have survived!  There were only a few set backs such as no school internet, a huge water leak in the class drowning some student books, no water at school with kids sent home at lunch time and a lingering tummy bug from yesterday but we remained positive. Who needs the internet in class anyway? The books can be replaced. A half day eased us all into the school year and I am feeling 100% better this afternoon.

With my blog finished over the weekend thanks to the amazing Rebekah Louise Designs (check out her wonderful work here) I thought there was no better time to write my first blog post than the first day of school.

This year I have Grade 1 and 2 and my goodness haven’t they grown from last year. The year 2s in my class had me last year for year 1 and are so proud to be the “big year 2 kids” and show the year 1s the ropes. The year 1 students made the transition from prep (kindergarten) and loved to get to know how things work in our class. They didn’t even seem to notice the lack of playtime!

The half day meant that not everything in my planning got done, but the rest of the week will now be even busier.

 

Success Wall

I thought I’d share some pics of one of our class data walls or as we like to call it our success wall. In our class we have four success walls where we share our achievements and use them to set individual goals. This year I decided to have:

* a beach/sea theme for our Superstars of the Sea classroom behaviour management/points system

*  a map of the islands for our Sight Words wall where each student has a little boat travelling around the islands

* a ladder for our reading levels with the students photo moving up the ladder

* a monster maths race for number goals with monster characters racing to the finish

These photos show our Success Wall with three of the four data wall displays completed. The monster maths will be added and ready for next week (yes once I get some time to finish it).

Superstars of the Sea Display Chart

The kids loved the Superstars of the Sea display and I wonder why? Rewards! Once each student gets 10 points for following the class rules and displaying appropriate behaviour their sea character moves along the wall and they get to choose a reward. I’ve decided this term to put all of my reward cards into a bag and have the students select one at random. Most of these rewards are free but some such as Prize or popcorn party obviously come with a cost. I’m hoping the random selection might save me some of the money I spent on prizes last year.

My Superstars of the Sea display and table points chart is available from my Teachers Pay Teachers store HERE.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the week and will be sure to add some updates and share what we have done (if there is water at the school!!!!)

Check out my Meet the Teacher page for more info about me and the story behind Teacher Teacher. Don't forget to leave a comment or share your first day stories.