Motivational Monday Freebie - Ten Frame Kids

It’s been a very busy weekend for me. Obviously not socially but I found my motivation to try and finish off some packs I have been working on. They are almost there and will be popping up in my store during the week (fingers crossed).

Today’s Motivational Monday Freebie is my Ten Frame Kids. These are black and white printable ten frames with cute little kids on each one. I have printed, cut and laminated these and we are using them with a lot of our number work. We have got so much use out of them making numbers, learning about teen numbers, doing addition and subtraction and learning our tens facts. The students have enjoyed using them. Just don’t make the mistake of giving a boy a ten frame with a girl on it. Oh no that won’t fly Miss Hayley! A boy cannot use a ten frame with a girl on it.

You can download the Ten Frame Kids here or find them in my TpT store. 

Have fun with these in your class or home. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for future freebies? If so leave a comment below.

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.

Parent Open Day

 

Last week we held a successful Term 1 Parent Open Day. I’ve read a lot of blog posts and seen a lot of pins about the different things teachers do for their open days and all I can say is WOW! Some teachers go to great lengths to make presents, displays and little activities for parents.

I did not go to such lengths for my open class and kept to a ‘less is more’ or ‘cheaper’ approach. I did not buy extravagant presents. I did not have apples as gifts. I did not write cute little poems. I did not set up treasure hunts. I planned a more realistic afternoon that took me few hours of time rather than a weeks worth of effort. I think what I did do was not so bad. Here’s how my afternoon ran.

• Parents were welcomed into the class and got to check out our student Guess Who wall. Students had completed a guess who page with a self-portrait and facts about them.  Parents had some fun trying to guess which page was their child’s.

• On each of the students desks were some of their books to show their work so far and their recent assessments. 

• I showed a power point presentation that included information about me, work and assessments covered so far, upcoming work and assessments, information about our class pet Leonardo and Buddy class from Brisbane, Homework expectations, student goals and an invitation for our first class Parent Party (more on that later). 

• I also made a photo presentation using imovie with photos of the class so far and some very funky music that had the parents bopping in their seats. I love using imovie to make fun presentations that look like they took hours but in reality took little time with all of the templates available. 

• Lastly I presented the parents with an envelope to take home with a copy of their child’s goals for Semester 1, a card made by their student to thank them for coming and a photo of the students first day of school. This was our present to them.

We had a good afternoon and it was a great opportunity to catch up with families and chat to them about their child’s progress. And best of all it did not cost a bomb!

I have the pages I used for the envelope cover page, student card and guess who printable as a freebie for you to use in your classroom if you would like it you can download it here or check out my TPT store for freebies and other products. Hopefully it saves you some time and money too!

I’d love to read about what other people have done for their parent open days. Do you have any tips or ideas that save time and money?

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JOMO – What?

More like "Teacher at the end of Week 5 Term 1!" 

After an extremely busy school week including numerous 10-hour days I made it to Friday and collapsed on the couch with my dearest husband Lee (who has been my house husband this week cooking, washing and doing a lot of dishes).

We all know a teacher’s job goes beyond 9-3pm weekdays. If I hear someone tell me how great my working hours are again I might just resort to an angry outburst. This week I have struggled with fitting it all in and have developed a neck pain that I’m sure is from a combination of my ever present “To Do List” and my anger at not having a 27 hour day instead of 24! “Just 3 more hours a day is all I need,” I whine to Lee this week.

I woke up this morning with my never ending To Do List floating around in my head and decided to push it to the back of my mind. I must say although my thoughts drifted to the classroom, darling Johnny’s behaviour, sweet Jenny’s reading development and little Jimmy’s counting difficulties, I’m glad I’ve done it. A day of cooking, cleaning, reading and drinking cups of coffee while browsing mindless trash on the internet has done me wonders. Yes I can hear you all now. “She thinks cooking and cleaning was better than doing school work?” Yep! Crazy right.

During my Internet browsing I did find the time to clean out my 355 emails (345 of which were junk I’ve subscribed to and never read) and finally found the time to read some blog posts (which are not to be confused with the junk emails)! I came across a post from Sarah Wilson’s weekly blog titled ‘the joy of missing out’ (read it here) or JOMO. “JOMO – what?” I say.

JOMO or the joy of missing out is 2014s newest ‘thing’. Apparently 2013 was the year of FOMO – fear of missing out (described as negative feelings of nervousness, anxiety and envy that you are in fact missing out and that other people are experiencing better things than you). Well I guess living on a remote island I miss more than just general news and current events. I missed out on FOMO last year! Or actually being aware of FOMO! Funnily enough sometimes being away from friends and family we have felt a fear of missing out. Missing significant birthdays, parties, social events and our good friend’s wedding last year brought on those feelings of ‘missing out’.

On the other hand being able to walk 15 metres from work to home and spend quality time with Lee and some trashy TV on a Friday night brings on feelings of happiness and relaxation for me! After a long week of work I can’t imagine wanting to travel home through the city, get dolled up and go back out again on a Friday night to socialise. People often ask what do you do on the island? Well work, work and more work is my answer. When I’m not working I’m doing what I call ‘nothing’ or what others call ‘being lazy’ or ‘veging out’. One of the perks of living remote is being able to just do nothing! Go on; call me a grandma or a homebody or a hermit!  Don’t get me wrong I love going to Brisbane and seeing people and actually having a social life but I also get excited about shutting out the world and having a date with a few episodes of Suits, Dexter or SATC (oh and Lee of course)! This is when I’m feeling JOMO.

Who would have thought doing nothing today would bring such a wealth of new knowledge and vocabulary for 2014 hahaha! And as an added bonus for today that horrible neck pain has disappeared! I’m making a new resolution to have my ‘nothing’ day or night more often just so I can experience the wonderful feelings of JOMO.

But wait a second. Not doing schoolwork and relaxing might just bring on some FOMO. Missing out on getting some work done. Hhhmmmm no I think I’ll ignore that thought and bring back the JOMO! 

Hope you are enjoying your weekend too.

It wasn't all homebody activities today. 

Squeezed in a walk at low tide