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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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.