Rain and Manic Monday freebie

Oh my goodness it's RAINING!!!! Today was a really hot, sticky, messy day= tired, sweaty, hot & miserable preppies. There were A LOT of tears today. 
It hasn't rained here all summer so just a tad excited- hopefully it will cool down a little this week. My plants (and my husband who waters them) will be grateful :) 
We made these cute stuffed Humpty Dumpty's today. I got the idea from here but there was no template so I made my own. Here are some work in progress pics:

The kiddos drew their own faces- some of them were really cute.

Two of my less focused poppets decided they would make the 'stuffing' for everyone when they were finished. Was a 'Yay' moment.

Humpty's, stuffed & all finished:

To download this free craft click on the pic below.

Enjoy!

x Bec

Bertie and the Bear Activity Pack + a freebie

So excited today to finally add my "Bertie and the Bear" pack to my store. This is designed to be used with the book of the same name by Pamela Allen. It's the first big packet (35 pages- which probably is standard but it felt HUGE) I have made for TpT and chose this book because it was our focus book last week for the letter B.

We made the bear last week- they looked so cute! I'll post the pics later in the week.

If you click on the pic below it will take you to my store. Just download the preview to get the freebie.

Have you read this book with your kiddos before? What's your favourite Pamela Allen book? Love to hear some feedback!

x Bec

Valentine's Day!

Found this super cute freebie from the 1st grade teacher on TpT. Valentine's Bookmarks!

I laminated these and added the curling ribbon for gifts to take home- would have loved to use white & pink ribbon but I didn't have any. Click on the pic to get the link!

Tomorrow we are going to make these Love Bugs (I'm renaming them Love Monsters to fit into our Letter of the Week "Mm") from 2nd Grade Pad

I printed the free template on white paper and we will use these parts to make a Love Monster- so I'm not worried where they put the different parts. On the circles they will put the name of someone in their family who the Love Monster is for, e.g. Mum and Dad.

Happy V-Day everyone! It's always a good thing to give a bit of love and thanks back out their to family, friends and our poppets. Hope you get a lot back in return!

x Bec

Giveaways

There are some great giveaway's happening in Blog land this weekend.

Check out Shanyn's giveaway over at Coffee Kids and Compulsive lists to celebrate having 500 followers! One lucky duck will get 3 free products from her TpT store. If you haven't checked out her store or blog please do!

Kelley at the Teacher Idea Factory has a Valentine's giveaway happening with the help of her bloggy friends. So cute!

Happy weekend,
Bec x

Freebie Friday: Measuring

This week we have been focusing on measuring length using informal units and the letter 'Ss'. Found this great Snowman Measuring idea from Mrs Plant's Press, so I very bravely got out the white paint to make these and because I was feeling lazy we finger painted them! I forgot to take pics so I have added Mrs Plant's pic instead for the moment but I will update these next week. We painted directly onto the blue card and then drew on the features the next day with crayons. 
And incase you were wondering it was 30C (86F) on the day we did this so the only link was the letter S not the weather but it never snows here so it didn't matter :)

Today we made Paper People by tracing around our bodies and then we measured these with pop sticks. Thank goodness we borrowed 12 Grade 6s for this so there were 2 little kids per big buddy. The big kids were so patient! They did all the tracing around the bodies after I demonstrated just drawing the big outline- around hands with fingers closed and around legs placed together. The kiddos then coloured these in (with texta which they hardly get to use so this was THE BEST lol) and then their buddies helped them measure these with pop sticks. We talked about 'good measuring' with no gaps before they did this and just measuring the height from head to shoes not covering the whole person in pop sticks!

I loved the Snowman idea but couldn't find the "My snowman is..." heading anywhere. Incase you were in a rush like me I have attached free headings for both the snowman and the paper people. 

PDF version

Editable MAC version

Happy Friday!

x Bec

Valentine's Day Freebie

I haven't ever celebrated Valentine's Day  in my classroom before but with all the cute things on Pinterest I thought I might this year. Just found this great freebie from the Toffee Mag blog.

Planning to print either the heart or 'Be My Valentine' tag and attach to a tea bag and send these home (to Mum, Dad, grandparents, etc) in a zip lock bag with a bag topper like this one

from Anything But Perfect (another great freebie).

If you like my Valentine's Day Blinkie check out Grade ONEderful for this super cute freebie!

If anyone has any other ideas I would love to hear them!

Freebie Friday: Classroom Rules Poster

Whew! What a week! My new preppies and grade 1's started on Thursday. Always a huge day for the Preps & their parents! It really is great getting to be a part of their first day at school and knowing how much they will learn & grow this year. 
The first 30 minutes before the bell always borders on chaos- 23 kids, with parents, all trying to find where their table, tub & bag locker's are, finding out what they have to bring inside and where it goes. Only had one blossom in tears (I really don't like having to take them off their parents when they're like that- heartbreaking) but she came in tear free yesterday :-)
I got the hugest surprise after the bell went, when I turned around and my kiddos were sitting quietly on the floor waiting for me! Plus my grade 1's had packed up the Lego & colouring pages that were out as well. The cutie-pies!
Even though the Preps only had half-days this week meaning I only had 11 grade 1's for the last hour, I was still really grateful for last night to roll around! 
In only 2 days we managed to- sing a load of songs (the shark song, wash your face in orange juice, all 3 versions to twinkle, winkle little star & the 3 bears rap), play getting to know you games, make a snail for 'Ss', read at least 5 picture story books, write and draw about our holidays, draw pictures to match our classroom rules (worksheets for Journals), go 'Shopping' for books for our reader boxes, go to the computer lab & start Reading Eggs, play a few games inc. Simon Says (lol this was highly entertaining as the Preps kept forgetting what to do), count by 1s to 20, 40 and beyond, play Buzz & a Gingerbread roll & match dice game, get to know all our rules and procedures, practise 'silent' reading.... and probably a dozen other things I've forgotten! Ooh and make 7 class trips to the toilet! (Yes, we all walk over together about every 40 mins so I don't lose any kiddos)

After that big spiel, I have a freebie for you! This is a simple Class Rules poster with 3 'respect' rules. We use these for our school rules and then have several rules for each main one, for example, Respecting ourselves- we will always try our best. 

Also, there is a 'Make your own rules' sheet that you can use for bigger kids to draw/write what they think your class rules should be.

Just click on either of the photos above to go to the freebie or click here.

For any Aussie teachers who have headed back already or are starting back next week good luck & all the best! And for anyone in flood or fire affected areas my thoughts are with you, your school's and your families as you take part in the clean up.

Wishing you an awesome new class (or a great second half of the year for teachers everywhere else),

x Bec