Fun in 1st New Teacher Blog

The lovely Dana at Fun in 1st Grade has featured my blog in this weeks

Click on the pic to stop by and check it out! Also, I just started a Books, Bugs & Boxes Facebook page. Love you to  'like' it!

Social Stories & a Giveaway

Although I haven't started reports yet {grimace}, I did upload the first of all of my Social stories to my store yesterday! We have been working on dealing with problems because of all the 'fixable' problems we are having at the minute. Oh, yay. 
So we use the "Stop it, I don't like it" steps when dealing with problems. It also works because of the focus on using words rather than hurting someone back.
The pack includes:
"Stop it, I don't like it" poster in colour & black and white

"Stop it, I don't like it" book in colour & black and white.

Click on any pic to go to my store to check it out.

While I'm here, make sure you check out Ashley and Lindsay's 150 follower giveaway. It's huge! Click on the pic to go to Lindsay's blog.

Five for Friday {Saturday}!

So, I'm not technically late posting this because in the rest of the world it's still Friday. Enjoying yummy Eggs Benedict and trying to write this, while my hubby is complaining that I didn't 'clean as I went' while making breakfast. So I'm surrounded by breakky dishes but this is more important :) Anywho...

We have 5 weeks to go to mid-year winter holidays and I really, really need to start reports this weekend. It's getting to panic stages.

This week has been so busy! We started Monday off with a Professional Development day with George Otero to assist us in developing better school-parent partnerships with a focus on parental engagement. Wednesday night we also had a parent session with George at school. It's wonderful to know of the changes we have already made in developing better partnerships.

This term I have had some lovely student teachers in my class and one of them gave me these gorgeous flowers when she finished up last week. It's great being able to work with pre-service teachers but being the mentor gives you a bit of perspective about how hard it is to step back, let little things go and not comment until the end of the lesson.

We made these gorgeous Zebra's for Z on Monday.

We are learning all about Dinosaurs this term. On Thursday, we made our own 'fossils' using clay and dinosaur figurines. The kiddos loved this! Our school maintenance man helped us out with this. He cut up all the clay and then worked with us to make our fossils. The kiddos loved it!

Yesterday we used this site to sort dinosaurs into the categories of herbivores and carnivores. I put the two headings up on different sides of the room and they had to pick a side. They were so excited- it'll be one of those activities they'll remember because they had a ball. Loved hearing the discussions they were having, "No, it's a meat eater because look at it's sharp teeth", "See, 4 legs, herbivore". Cute!

Wishing all the peeps in the Northern hem. a great break! Hope you're enjoying the sunshine because I sure miss it,

Budding Blogger Linky

Oh I have so not been in the mood to blog for the last week, think I have the almost-mid year blues... or maybe it's the weather getting colder... or more likely all the effort that is going into keeping my classroom "calm" so the poppets might actually learn something... Anyway, bet you can catch my drift!

So, I am trying to get back into it after seeing Jess' Budding Bloggers linky at I {heart} Recess

Why I started blogging..

I have loved reading other people's blogs for ages so over the Summer/Christmas holidays in February I decided to start. After my rant above, I really am loving it- sharing ideas and "meeting" new people. Plus, it's a great way to look back on the amazing things that are happening at my school and in my classroom.

My favourite subject to teach & why

At my school I teach everything except for L.O.T.E (Indonesian), Library and Music which is slightly challenging because I hate really dislike P.E. but I LOVE teaching Literacy & Maths. I think that's because it plays to my strengths whereas PE is not! I love reading stories to the kiddos and sharing new books with them- I would read to them at least 3 times a day. With Maths, I am trained as a remedial Maths teacher so it's what I know well and what I am good at. I especially love playing Math games with my kiddos which we do everyday.

My teaching style..

Most of the time it feels- Slightly chaotic! but really I aim for a classroom that follows a pretty regular routine and is consistent. My room is a Visual learners paradise because I have 3 Autistic poppets in my class this year. This year I am working overtime to keep my classroom calm and form routines I would normally have in place (because of the anger issues of one of my poppets).

As a person, I am really forgetful and naturally loud. Both of these things are not great in a classroom so I am constantly trying to fight against it. 

3 interesting facts about me

1. I am gross motor skilled challenged- I cannot skip (really, I know it's pathetic) and my husband has been trying for the last few years to teach me to click which I'm getting slightly better at. The kids think it's hilarious

2. I'm a Major Bookworm! I'd easily read a book a day over the holidays. Just finished 'Dead Ever After' by Charlaine Harris today and have made myself pace it out over the week, it's been killing me but all finished now.

3. Art galleries are my "Ah" place. I have worked really hard to get to go to some amazing places around the world and have visited art galleries in every major city I've been to (parts of Europe & Japan). The Starry Night is my absolute favourite painting and I really want to travel MoMA in New York to see it.

And my favourite Australian artist is Grace Cossington-Smith. I'm really lucky to get to visit one of her paintings often at our local gallery.

My store

I'd love you to stop by my store at TpT. It's a work in progress. I have a bunch of social stories almost ready to be uploaded for students on the Autism Spectrum, with Special Needs, etc.

Thanks for stopping by and I'd love you to 'follow' me

It's Friday!

Thank goodness it's Friday! This week has been huge! Everything from gorgeous Autumn weather to having student teachers', a poppet vomiting during the poor student teacher's first lesson Monday, another poppet throwing up this afternoon, Mother's day breakfast this morning and one of my more precious poppets having a terrible week (trust me, it's been BAD).

This is just a bit of what we have accomplished:

Mother's day presents & cards

Mother's day flowers with our pictures inside... this pic didn't do these justice. They were super cute!! 

Mother's day "Mum, you are my Superhero" cards

Our school Mother's day breakfast. This is huge! The teachers and some hard working parent volunteers cooked for over 50 families. I was there from seven working my magic cooking sausages on the BBQ. I took this pic after I had gone inside to change so the BBQ wasn't full then but earlier on it is fully loaded- eggs, sausages, bacon, hamburgers, mushrooms, tomatoes and onion.

This week we have been measuring. This is the poppets seeing how many footsteps it takes to get around our basketball court.

This week my student teacher did an amazing lesson on where does rain come from. The kiddos loved seeing how many rain came from the 'clouds'. I never would have tackled this topic with Prep/Ones but the student has done a great job explaining it and giving the kiddos a hands-on understanding.

Wishing all of the Mum's & Mom's a happy Mother's day. Happy weekend,

It's sale time!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin
I'm so excited that it's Teacher appreciation week! It's not really celebrated here in Australia but I'm excited because I have a HUGE TpT shopping cart that needs to be emptied :)
I'm joining in too with my first ever sale!

Click on the pic to go to my store. Everything will have 20% off, plus enter the code from above for a further 10% off at checkout.

Lucky I have a new hard drive to fill up with more clipart! 

Five for Friday

This week felt huge! Kinda glad it's over but next week will be about the same so planning to enjoy every minute of the weekend! Bring on seeing the Kooks!

What we've been up to:

1. P is for Paper Bag Princess

This book is one of my all time favourite's! We made these Paper Bag Princesses from here.

 

 2. We played Buggy Maths this week. The kiddos loved it even though we played with counters because I couldn't find my huge bucket of plastic bugs. Just the pretending the counters were bugs was enough!

But the game should have looked like this:

3. More sports skills this week with a group of PE students. They were so patient with the kids, it has been amazing. This week we learnt how to handball,hand mark and chest mark the footy. Click on the links to see a youtube video of each if you're interested.

4. This year our 'guideline' of "keeping our hands to ourselves" hasn't worked so we have started to talk about self-control. I used the bubbles example from Teacher Tipster yesterday. We'll keep working on it!

5. At home this week it's been "Birthday Week" for my husband's birthday. Yep we celebrate for a whole week and yes I'm the one that started this tradition so I get more presents :) So this left me making a Red Velvet birthday cake at 10pm Tuesday night without buttermilk because the supermarket was out but it still worked with full cream. Thank goodness! I forgot to take a pic but trust me it was good!

So looking forward to the weekend! Hope you have a great one too

May currently!

It's a new month already so I'm linking up with Farley!

Oh my goodness what a week this has been! I feel like I'm running in circles but not getting anywhere. I know I've achieved something because my to do list has stuff ticked off but it's just kept growing from the bottom.

Listening- I really, really hate cleaning and this week has been bedlam so we are on load 2 of at least 4 loads of washing to be done before the weekend. Don't even mention having to hang it out or fold it.. :(

Loving & Needing- It's finally here!!! I LOVE music festivals and this weekend I get to see the Kooks and Tegan & Sara! Plus two of my gorgeous mates are visiting to go with me so fingers crossed it will be epic! Need to figure out times and stuff

Thinking & Wanting- need to finish the to do pile before I can 'play' on the weekend & need more time to do it in!

Bucket List- Oh how I wish I could talk about summer! I miss it. It's almost winter here so wishing I was somewhere sunny & hot! I have a huge sewing & reading pile to get through on the next lot of holidays. Any other Sookie fans? Shattered it's the last book. I HAVE NOT read it so no spoilers please if you've read the leaked ending.

Happy weekend & Happy May