Friday Five & Flashback!

*I'm Linking up with Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday!*

Even though I've been talking about it for weeks it feels really weird to be on Easter break already! This is the first time since I've been teaching that the Victorian hols have actually started on Good Friday so maybe that is why it feels like it came up really quickly! This week was bedlam trying to fit in all our Easter activities and cleaning into 4 days but we got there! Although the room is not super clean but I'm trying to forget that and enjoy my holidays :)

1. Bunny Bait
This week we made Bunny Bait which I had found via Pinterest. This was freaking delicious! And super easy to make with my class of poppets. I couldn't find any bag toppers I liked so I made my own. Download from here if you'd like a copy. Print half size and it fits a lolly bag perfectly. Sorry about the dark pic

To make 25 small bags of Bunny Bait (about 5 Tbs in each bag) you will need:

- 2 big bags of popcorn

-white chocolate melts

-sprinkles

-mini MnMs or other lollies

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and then add melted chocolate. Mix to combine.

The kiddos loved this! We melted the chocolate in the staffroom microwave- that's always a big adventure visiting the staffroom. They were so quiet!

2. Excursion

On our last day we were invited to attend the opening of the new playspace in the Mall in town. There with a 1000 kids there from a ton of schools- my skills at estimation are rubbish, I thought there were about 300 kids but the paper told me differently! The kids got a free show bag each which they loved but the opening was looong- we were there for almost 3 hours.

It was well planned out with Zumba in the middle but it's always funny to see things planned by people who are not teachers. My favourite part was when they moved the 1000 kids from the stage to the playground by doing a conga line. I have never counted so furiously in my life trying to keep track of those 40 kids! Fun day though including the staff sing along in the main street while we were waiting half an hour for the bus- I rocked Twinkle, Twinkle Little Fish; The days of the week song; The months of the year Macerena and Miss Mary Mac. Hope the passersby had a giggle at our attempts to stop the kiddos from being restless! The kids were brilliant though.

3. Baking

My first attempt at making Cinnamon Rolls was a hit! Delicious! The recipe made enough for an army (18 large rolls + a log) so my hubby and I both took the left overs to work so we didn't eat the lot.

4. Sales!

Very excited about the TpT Spring Sales this weekend! I only have 5 $$ products in my store so I won't participate this time but I'd love you to check out my store and all my freebies as well.

5. Wardrobe dilemmas

My wardrobe has gotten to point where it is exploding!!! This pic isn't quite the whole wardrobe and I will admit I took this picture AFTER I had tidied it- you can tell that, right? :) 
My tallboy and chest of drawers is full too! Plus I still have a basket full of washing & a chair full of clothes to put away :( I need wardrobe help... or a new wardrobe! (All my hubby's clothes are squished into a far corner that you can't quite see in the pic- he thinks I have issues which is probably true).
I was looking for organising ideas and found these wardrobe tips from How Does She. Apparently this is this woman's real wardrobe....

I can dream..... and then throw out most of wardrobe to achieve it. I don't even keep my jewellery in my wardrobe! I have a whole cabinet from that. And two of those shoe caddy's plus two shoe racks plus more shoes on the floor. Gulp!

Anyway Happy Easter and I hope you got a laugh out of my 'issues'

Easter Cave Freebie

I found this cute activity somewhere via Pinterest.

We read the Easter Sunday story and then made these 'caves', with the 'boulder' hinged to the top and the angel inside the cave.... Sorry that seems like a really long explanation!

I couldn't find a template of the angel so I made one. Get it from google docs here

So much left to do and only 2 days to do it all! Good luck

x Bec

Manic Monday Easter Stained Glass Windows

I still can't believe Easter holidays begin Thursday! I only started Easter activities today but we crammed alot in!

After talking about Holy Week (Palm Sunday to Good Friday) this morning we made these gorgeous stained glass windows.

It always amazes me how hooked the kids are when listening to bible stories in Prep/1. Wish I could have posted pics of their little faces. The cutie pies! 
I got the idea from here but there wasn't a template so I made my own. Click on the pic to download it!

To make the windows:
-Cut out the inside of the template. For little kids I would cut it out for them- I initiated a 1st year student teacher this morning by having him cut out 30 of these. Yeah, he just loved me by 10am :) Some of my grade 1s were able to cut these out (a few that I hadn't expected too could, yay) but the majority struggled.

- Place inside a laminating pocket. This was an idea from one of my teaching buddies and it is so much easier than contact! If you have never made stained glass windows this way you will never go back- trust me :)

 -Fill the gaps with squares of tissue paper or cellophane. We used cellophane as the grade 4s had a big tub of squares left over from last week that they gave us. Score!

-Laminate! Tip: place a sheet of A4 paper on to the top and then feed into the laminater. This stops the laminator from chewing the sheets. One of our fabulous admin lady's told me this a few years ago and it has changed my life- yes, I do laminate that often!

-Remove the paper and voila! Instant stained glass window.

Don't they look great?!

Hope you can use this freebie! Happy Easter

x Bec

Easter Freebie

Linking up with Doodle Bugs for 5 for Friday.

1. Autumn
Swapping the shorts for boots and scarves this week. The change seemed really sudden but my wardrobe is adapting :) I'm one of those really whingey people that is always cold so the ugg boots are out already!

2. Watch this!
Loving this video, 'Give a Little Love' by Noah and the Whale that our Grade 6 leaders showed at assembly yesterday. We are focusing on 'setting good examples for others' this year with the bigger kiddos. The kids had to count all the ways someone helped others or showed a good example. This was really powerful!

3. School Update
One lot of Parent Teacher's down, another night to go Friday! 

4. A Freebie
Wow! I can't believe next week is Easter already. We have not started Easter activities at all. After having a slight panic attack I whipped up these Easter Egg patterns tonight which I plan to use Monday.

Click here to get 4 egg patterns from google docs. 

Please tell me I'm not the only one panicking?! I also managed to go and buy Easter eggs tonight for Thursday which will go into the kids easter egg baskets. 

5. More Easter prep.

Thanks to Pinterest I'm also planning to get around to making Bunny Bait with the kiddos this week- somehow.

Check out my easter activities on Pinterest as well. Wishing everyone a chaos free week. 

xx Bec

Squiggley Wiggley Freebies for Friday

A few weeks ago, after singing "Mr Clickety Cane"

with my blossoms, one of the kiddos said "Can we watch that movie of the clown?" (from those pics of 'similar vids' that pop up at the end of you tube). Me : 'Clown? You mean Mr Squiggle?' Kids: 'What's that?' 

Therefore adding another story to the 'I feel OLD' pile. Anyone who is Australian, in their late 20s & above will hopefully know what i"m talking about! 

For anyone that's never heard of Mr Squiggle watch this

We watched a couple of minutes of this and the kids loved it! This week I'm going to use Mr Squiggle to help us with some creative writing. I created this "Squiggles and Wiggles" pack. We will finish one of the drawing starters by creating a picture of our own and then use one of the writing templates to write about our squiggle!

There are 32 activities!

Click on the picture below to go my store and then download the 'preview' to get the 2 activities below for free!

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend! Phew 2 weeks until Easter holidays... hang in there :)

xx Bec

Funnies & freebies

I'm changing it up today and starting with my freebie & then continuing with my ramble about the week.... Love you to stick around to hear it

Here is a simple Owl reward chart that I've been using with my kiddos this year. When I 'catch them being good' I give them a stamp or sticker on their chart. 10 = a reward from our Reward Box. Click on the pic to get this freebie from google docs.

Now, onto my ramble...
This week could best be described as "not the best"! Goes a little like this:

-Driven home before 9am on Monday with a sudden tummy bug that was.not.pretty.
- Back at work Tuesday to have Poppet 1 running off during my release time and me having my planning time interrupted dealing with it. 
-My 2nd ASD Poppet having a melt-down because he punched someone, then clinging to a tree and refusing to come in.
-One of little boys chopping off a chunk of one of my girls hair because she was poking him.
-Poppet 1 throwing everything off my desk because he forgot his hat and continuing to melt down during the whole week day.
-One of my other little boys "L" taking another kids icy pole money and burying it in the sand pit

I'm glad I decided to write that down today, because I actually managed to get a giggle out of it & make it sound a whole lot easier than it felt this week

My goal this year is to be more positive so these are all the great things that happened:
-It was my birthday Thursday and getting VERY close to 30 now but that's ok :)
-Got a gorgeous pair of earrings and a Sportsgirl voucher from my cute buddy teacher
-Cake!
-Due to some clever pre-planning, squishing all my Prep testing into 2 days so I had Wednesday as a full release day to catch up with all my class & other responsibilites
-Morning tea for my birthday at work
-Tea out with the hubby to our fave Thai restaurant & left-overs the next day for my lunch, much to my husband's mortification that I asked for a doggy bag :)
-Gorgeous work people who looked after me Monday & Tuesday
-The best ever Mimco handbag and uggs for my birthday from my hubby
-Overhearing "L" telling another teacher 'He buried my hat in the sandpit, he did' and me coming over and saying 'L, didn't it get thrown over the fence?' and him completely changing his story :) Which makes me think that the 50 cents may not be in the sandpit but anywhere
-Little "M" in my grade telling me "I saw God yesterday". Me: "Did you honey? Where'd you see him?" M: "In his house". And me eventually figuring out she's been to visit our parish Priest and thought he was God. Cute!
-Some of my cute little boys telling me I looked pretty on my birthday
-Cutie-pie E & her sisters making me a birthday card!

Thanks for sticking around if you've gotten this far :) Happy long weekend to any other Victorians. I know I need it!

xx Bec

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Can't believe it's week 6 already! First term has gone so quickly. We have already focused on the letters S, M, B & H and this week we are up to T. Last week's Humpty Dumpty focus went really well so thought I would choose the rhyme "Twinkle, Twinkle little star" for T.

There are a heap of free resources on the Net- these are the ones we'll be using:

* Sparkle box 

*Auslan posters- love! These posters have the actions for the rhyme in Australian sign language.

*An easy Spot the difference 

*A list of Star crafts from Enchanted learning- we're going to make the star wands. I'll post pics of these later in the week.

Also, check out this awesome free star clipart:

*Silly Stars from Mel @ Graphics from the Pond (as seen here- aren't they cute?)

*Stitched Stars from Ashley Hughes

And, just in time, I have finished my "Stars Number Recognition" Pack which we'll be using to help with our recognition of the numbers and quantities of collections to 10 (Preps) and 20 (Ones).

                                        

Click on the 'Stars Number Recognition' pic and click on the preview to get this Starry Race to 100 freebie.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week,
x Bec

March!!

March is my favourite month! It's starting to cool down here (slightly) and this is the first month of Autumn. Here's the run down for the month:

Listening
To Pink and counting down til I get to see her (again) in July

Loving
My gorgeous husband for taking me out to tea 2 nights in a row! Spoilt. And the cup of tea I am currently drinking

Thinking
It's my birthday on Thursday! So "Birthday Week" is about to begin- I get spoilt for a whole week. Best tradition ever!

Wanting
I would LOVE to get everything taught that I have planned for the week. We're getting through slightly more than the start of the year but 5 weeks in and I'm still only getting half to three-quarters taught. I'm sure it'll improve!

Needing
To be an octopus to get to all of my poppets- we're still not great at our waiting. I'll be very glad when I'm hearing "Mrs Perry, Mrs Perry, Mrs Perry" a little less often.

Like, Love, Hate
Liking rainbows after the rain and the beautiful rays of sunshine while it's still lasting! And hating running which I'm still persevering with :(

Thanks for reading my link up with Farley! And if you have stopped by I would love you to leave a comment or follow me. Thanks to everyone who has done so, so far & has supported my little blog this past month & a bit.

xx Bec

Retell it!

Being able to retell a story including the main parts is an important skill to learn. We do lots and lots of retelling in all different ways: 
-EEKK (Eye to Eye, Knee to Knee) with a buddy
-Drawing
-Making the book
-Wall stories
-Miming
-'Teacher' retell- the kids take turns to be the 'teacher' and retell the story without the book
-I love this free packet from Rachel at What the teacher wants. My favourite activity is the 4 square retell

-5 Finger retell- tell 5 facts from the story. This is my simple version that I use with my preps and ones. In each of the fingers the students write one word from the story and in the palm they draw a picture. Download it from google docs here or click on the pic

Wishing you a great weekend & if you're as tired as I have been this week, I hope it involves a lazy Sunday and lots of sleep-ins.
x Bec