Five things for Friday

So, 3 posts in a row this week, clearly I am still on holidays! I just saw this post at Doodle Bugs and figured, why not join in?! Even though it is Saturday here, the sun is shining and I really should be finishing making salads for tonight lol

1. Today is 'Australia Day' which means a public holiday for all on Monday and a weekend of lots of barbeques. Which is why I've been peeling a ton of potatoes.. ick (I really hate peeling) 

2. I'm super-dooper excited about finding out about ClassDojo from Engaged in Education yesterday! I've set up my class, all ready for starting the new year. Pumped to try it out and see how the kids like it on Thursday.

3. Heading back to work on Tuesday with the kiddos having their first official day on Thursday. Preparing to start again with a new bunch of Preppies is exciting and terrifying in equal measure. Currently having lots of "Oh no, they won't be able to do that yet!" moments

4. Have had "What I am" by Will.i.am stuck in my head all week. It's so cute! We are definitely going to learn it this year.

5. Made my super delicious Pad Thai for tea last night and just had the left overs for lunch. Mmm-mmm. I got the recipe from here.

Happy weekend everyone!

x Bec

Writing Freebie

My first year of teaching, I had 22 3/4s and I found prompting them to edit a really difficult task. I had a friend who taught grade 1 who used the acronym CUPS to teach her poppets to edit independently. So, as you do when you begin teaching, I took this idea straight back to my class and was amazed at the difference it made! CUPS stands for Capitals, Understanding, Punctuation and Spelling. 
It was also around this time that my school installed SmartBoards so I turned this acronym into a SmartBoard page with explanations underneath to prompt my poppets. It was also easier to put this on the SmartBoard each writing session, rather than writing it up each time.

I find this is also great for my grade 1's and I introduce a different letter during first semester, for example, we begin by only editing for Capital letters.

If you would like this download it from my store here

What other ideas do you have for editing? Have you used this acronym before?

Hope it's helpful!

x Bec 

Ready, Set... School!

Heading back to work on Tuesday, so end of holiday blues are approaching but incredibly excited that my room is all ready to go! A bit disappointed that these pics don't show the complete cuteness of my room this year but thought I'd post them anyway- as you can tell my photography skills aren't great

My new ABC rugs are from livingexclusive.com and were only $30 each.

I've also brought back my reading tent, thanks to my hubby who had great patience late one night and helped me find a place for it. 

I have a couch, which we had last year- it's fantastic for my tired Preppies in the afternoons and for quiet reading time. And my new pencil buckets are from Woolworths. 

All of my kiddos have their own reader boxes and we 'shop' for our 5 books each on Friday's. I have also just brought 23 clipboards which I plan to use for 'write the room' and if we need to write on the floor, rather than leaning on library books. If you can see the flash of red down the back these are my 'finishing folders' (just manilla folders) for work that isn't finished yet. I used to use display folders but found the pockets would get ripped out. The finishing folders really work if you don't use them, things don't get lost and children who are on the ASD spectrum learn that they will have time on Friday's to finish unknown work and that it is ok not to be finished.

Birthday calendar (it's a freebie!) from here and I made the owl cards with the names underneath using free owl clipart. I need to put up a Calendar heading.

If you can see the days, months and seasons cards I got them from K-3 Teachers Resources when I used to have a subscription. I couldn't include pics of my jobs list, math buddies or reading groups because I use the kids photos for these but I put them on my blackboard next to the SmartBoard.

Loving my Welcome Sign this year! I used the free owl clipart as above, found the absolutely adorable owl borders from a local stationary shop. 

 Loving that everything is clean and neat, let's see how long that lasts :) Good luck to anyone else who is heading back to work next week x

Classroom Set-Up!

And the new year set-up has begun! Was dragged Went into work last night with the hubby to start setting up my room. Not my most favourite part first up- tables and everything stacked up so the the carpets could be cleaned :( 

Room still looking like a disaster zone but reading corner n tables now set up. Put more pics up when the room is finished!

Bought some new supplies for my room as well :) the shopping is always one of my favourite parts!

I bought 2 of the school buses (from Sam's Warehouse), they double as seats and the inside is storage! Think I may have to go back to buy 4 more so I can use these for reading sessions. The blue containers were from WoolWorths and are perfect pencil containers! I managed to buy a few of the $2 stamps from there as well. I got the ducks, bins and dice sharpeners from Kmart for my reward box for about $2 each (I love cheap multi-packs!). The 'new' magazines I found in a thrift shop for 20cents each- love! 

What bargains have you found?

Make 18 Math Game Freebie

It's two weeks tomorrow until we start the new school year here, so I have the 'I have so much to do, my room isn't ready, I need to plan....' blues (a.k.a. panic attack) today! I know I'm not the only one who gets this, right? Anywho, sorry just had to share that, but now onto the freebie!

I've added a new Math game that I use all the time called 'Make 18'. 

My K-1's play this using only addition and 3 dot dice so we can 'count all' the dots. When my kiddos started to know some number facts, I'd swap one dice to a 6-sided number die and they would then start counting on from that number. For this year I have updated the template and made it pretty! If you click on the link above, this will give you instructions on how to play for the year 2+ version (using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

I'm only new at my store and blog so I would love you to follow me & leave a comment if you download this! 

Thanks heaps for reading,

x Bec