Meeting my new class

Hello again! It is getting to that back to school time and even though I’m supposed to be on holidays I have started work! I’m sure I’m not the only teacher.

I am starting at a new school in 2015 and was lucky enough to meet my new class in the last week of school. We had just under an hour of getting to know each other, which went too quick!

I have grade 1 next year. They were as excited as me and were a very chatty bunch! Not like last year.

I will be Mrs Wilkes this year not Mrs Hayley and I think it will take me awhile to get used to my name!

Of course I over planned for the hour and had too much to do but now I’ll save some of the activities for the first day.  The activities we did can also be used on the first day or week of school. A lot of ideas were found on Pinterest (where else)!

Here is a look at what we squeezed in.

 

Getting to know you ball

1. After lining up we walked to out new class

2. We sat on the carpet and I introduced myself then we went around the circle saying our names

3. My ‘All about me’ power point with photos couldn’t be played as I did not have my new teacher laptop yet! I’ll save that one for the first day

4. Getting to know you beach ball was thrown around the circle. When the students caught it they had to read the first word they could see “looking at them” to tell us about them. Words I wrote were: family, colour, sport, school, movie, I like, pet etc. Most of the kids loved this and we made sure everyone had a turn. It was a bit long for some of the wriggly ones! I’d plan for at least 20 minutes.

5. Eyes Shut Self portraits. This was fun! I modeled my portrait first and the kids had such a giggle at my drawing.  Then they went to a desk, wrote their name, closed their eyes and drew themselves on the left side of the page. They opened their eyes and looked at the silly drawings then drew their real portrait with eyes open on the right side. Of course their were some kids who ‘cheated’ and peeked to make their drawing perfect but others followed instructions and had fun squishing eyes closed or covering their eyes with their hand. We were going to colour these drawings but time ran out. I am deciding whether to colour them on the first day or to hang them up  and leave them in pencil.

6. Aaargh! Time went so fast. Just as they were leaving I took a quick photo of each child so that I could make a display for the first day of school and use the photos in  my student profiles.

Phew! Cannot believe I ran out of time. I also had a story to read and was going to take a photo of them holding a chalkboard with their name but alas this will have to be done on the first day.

Eyes Closed for Portraits

Trying not to peek!

Eyes Shut Self Portraits - My Model

One of the kids portraits! So funny.

Another student who didn't peek the first time!

Did anyone else get to meet their class? Leave a comment below and share what you did.

Aussie teachers enjoy the rest of your holidays!

 

 

Follow my tpt store

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….

 

Motivational Monday Freebie – Part Part Whole Party Page

How was everyone’s weekend? Mine was fantastic, a relaxing day at the beach and a productive day in the classroom preparing for my week.

Not sure if anyone has noticed but there are only 2 more weeks til Australian Easter school holidays! I’ve definitely noticed and yep the countdown is on. I’ve got a list as long as my arm of goals, things to do and how I’m going to relax around my lovely island home.

But enough about that, let’s get our heads back into Monday.

Today I have a Part Part Whole Party Page as my Motivational Monday Freebie for the 24th March. Once again I print and laminate copies so that we can reuse them. Or you could print and shrink them down to 2 or 4 to a page on a paper copy.

I’ve used this page with the kids while we are learning addition and subtraction. We use counters, cubes or bead strings alongside this to separate numbers into parts then write the addition sentence and turnaround addition sentence. Then we write the subtraction sentence and turnaround.  I used to think part part whole was a bit boring but we love having some fun with these party pages. I have been so happy with the progress of the kiddos. I think they finally ‘got’ how to complete these independently. The students have their first ‘real’ maths test tomorrow that includes showing their thinking for addition and subtraction problems. I hope they do well. Fingers crossed.

Here is the link to the Part Part Whole Party Page freebie or alternatively check out my TpT store and some of my other products.

If you are looking for more classroom freebies I've linked up with the Classroom Freebies Blog: Manic Monday. Check out this fantastic blog full of free resources.

Phonics Work Pack 1 Complete!

After working on this pack for the last month I have finally finished my first Phonics Work bundle! Yay!

My class this year has a lot of little grade 1 students who have not yet learned to read and do not recognise most letters or sounds. At first I panicked a little (just a little) as in my previous year of teaching I my grade one students knew the basics so I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to start. Memories of university courses and teaching prep (kindergarten) students were a bit fuzzy so I did what most of us would do… hit the internet, pinterest and teaching textbooks to come up with a plan of attack.

I have used a phonics programs before but was not entirely happy with the structure and lack of resources to use. After a lot of reading I decided to structure my phonics lessons around another program although lacked the funds to purchase all of the resources and materials.

My first phonics pack has three parts to it:

1    * Phoneme/Letter work

2    * Word work

3    * Sentence work

Part 1: Phoneme/Letter Work

Preview: Part 1

Part 2: Word Work

Preview: Part 2

Part 3: Sentence Work

Preview: Part 3

Each part builds upon the previous part. First the students learn 8 phonemes and the corresponding letters. Once they know these first 8 sounds they can start to blend CVC words (using only those 8 letters) and move on to the word work. After this they move on to the sentence work with CVC words and basic sight words.

The first letters are s, m, c, g, t, p, a and o.

I have used this pack for my grade 1 students in Term 1 and plan to move on to the next 8 phonemes next term. 

Activities include flashcards, writing pages, tracing pages, reading pages and mini books, worksheets, cutting and pasting activities, dice games, four in a row and bingo games.

The pack is mostly in black and white with a few colour pages.

Print, laminate and reuse! I keep paper copies in my folder but I also have multiple laminated copies to reuse and save ink and paper.

I’ll keep you posted about my next pack that will use the next 8 sounds I’m hoping to get that done over Easter break. I’m very excited about sharing this with you. I’d love to post more about it but time is running out before Monday hits! You can purchase this pack from my TpT Store here. Please feel free to leave a comment. What do you think?

Motivational Monday Freebie - Guided Reading Planning and Observation Pages

So I’ve finally been able to finish off some of my ‘half finished’ products that were piling up on my desktop and I’m happy to announce that every Monday I will be giving you a freebie product.

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Sundays. Love because it is a day off and time to relax or catch up on some work. Hate because as the day goes by I know Monday morning is approaching and I need to say goodbye to the weekend and muster up some Monday motivation.

I’m hoping my Monday freebies will give you a bit of extra motivation for the week ahead (or just something of use for your classroom or home).

My first Motivational Monday Freebie is a copy of my guided reading planning and observation sheets. Get it for free here or have a look through my TPT store. I use this printable for my guided reading groups. The planning sheet allows me to map out my lesson, choose a focus and write questions for before, during and after reading. It also has a spot for me to note new vocabulary, sight words and phonemes that are in the text.

The observation sheet provides a space to record reading behaviours the students are using and make a note of future work or lessons each student will need.

I keep multiple copies of this in my guided reading folder and when I’m done file the sheets under each reading group. They are great to refer back to and use come reporting time. I hope you enjoy this freebie and have a wonderful Monday! Remember the weekend is only 5 days away.