Reward Coupon Freebies

I'm always on the hunt for different behaviour reward systems and have struck gold using Reward Coupons this year. They are so simple and my kiddos LOVE them.

This system is really easy to implement, just print and laminate. My kiddos choose one of these from the "Token Box" when they have filled their reward chart.

There are lots of great versions of these around. I have a really simple version available as a freebie. Just click on any of the pics to download or follow this link.

This freebie includes 9 different cards, with 4 to a page. I've kept them at this size as I have printed them but they would also work well as a smaller card. Just print 2 to a page.

Enjoy! And while you're here, please go like my new Facebook page for more updates & freebies.

Swap, Share, Give: A blog linky from Down Under!

I am so excited to share this with you today! I have been super fortunate to be part of a Product Swap, Share & a Giveaway with some very talented Australian bloggers & TpT sellers, so we bring you.....

This has been organised by Lauren over at Love, Laughter & Learning in Prep, go there to see the other great peeps, products & links.

~ SWAP ~

I was paired up with the very talented Brooke from Teachable Moments to try out one of her amazing products. I choose her Find it & Clip it: Initial & Final Sounds Pack.

This was perfect for my Preps who recognise most letters & are exploring sounds. We worked on initial sounds only & this was a great product to be used in a focus group.

The kidlets LOVED pegging & had great discussions with others in the group to work out the sound. Also their stretching out and use of cued articulation to figure out the beginning sound made my heart soar. We have only been at school for 9 weeks & they are just superstars.

We worked on the cards for two sessions before we used the worksheet to record the sound/letter. They loved copying the letter & were concentrating so hard to get it right.

This little dude was so thrilled to work out that moon started with "m". The smile was huge!

I am planning to pick this up again after the holidays as a review and then focus more on final sounds. This is a great pack for Kindergarten & the clipart is perfect- colourful, clear & had the kidlets hooked. Thanks to Brooke for sharing this with me, we will definitely be using it again.

~ SHARE ~

This is one of my favourite attention getters. This poster is perfect when first introducing it to your class or as a reminder throughout the year. Click on the pic or go here to download it.

~ GIVE ~

Enter our Giveaway to win one copy of each of the products swapped! Simply follow each of our stores :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

To check out the other posts visit Lauren over at Love, Laughter & Learning in Prep.

Five for Friday

How has week 9 finished already?! It has been a very busy last couple of weeks so I'm linking up to share all about it :)

~ One ~
We had a fantastic Prep Parents Dinner last night where parents from both of our Prep classes went out together. It was organised by some of our Mum's & we had a pretty good turn out of over 30 parents. This was such a lovely idea, so great that I didn't get home until after 11pm when I was only planning to stay for a couple of drinks. Being wide awake now at 4am however is not so great {all I do after these functions is dream silly dreams about stuff I didn't even say}. My New Years Resolution to 'Stress Less' still needs some work. Arvo nap in store here!

~ Two ~
On Thursday our whole school had a fantastic BluEarth Fitness 'Day' {9-11am was plenty for our Junior Burgers}. We had 20 minute slots of BluEarth Games x 2, Yoga, Aerobics with a parent who was amazing & making fruit kebabs. We had so much fun! 

~ Three ~
We have almost completed Term 1, I can't believe it! Things are starting to click! Isn't that the best feeling?! We have been reviewing our class rules & responsibilities this week by practising our Self-Control Bubbles with help from Lauren's cute packet. Find more info at Teacher Tipster. We start in a whole circle then practise in pairs. 

~ Four ~
We have been crazy busy the last 2 weeks with the tip of it being our School Celebration day at the pool. Our entire school {340+} went to the pool for most of the day. Let's just say I was having a nervous breakdown before we went with thinking of all the things that could go wrong but.... IT. WAS. BRILLIANT! My buddy teacher and I stayed in the pool with the kidlets the whole time & it was a blast.

~ Five ~
Brag time. I've retested my poppets on their Letter Id {upper & lowercase} this week and I have a poppet who has gone from knowing 1 letter to 9 (this is amazing for him!) & a poppet who has moved from 5 to 37!!! I can't wait to finish the testing this week. I love it when they start 'getting it'.

Hope you are having a lovely week & that no-one else is silly enough to be awake at 5am on a Saturday. 

Love & milkstaches,

5 for Friday {7th of Feb}

How'd it get to be the weekend already?! We have been so busy this week that I realised today that I had forgotten to take photos of  the amazing things we have been up to :( so this has become more of a mishmash of the last 2 weeks since our school year has begun.

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs to share my {almost photo free & completely random} 5 for Friday :)

~ One ~
My new classroom is one giant space which my teaching buddy and I share. I really need to take new pics but it's a pretty amazing classroom. We are loving it!

~Two~
We started Maths this week by creating our number bracelets to 10. We looked at ways we can make 10, quick ways to count it, colour patterns and "good" counting.

~Three~
The first few weeks have been routine, routine, routine! We have been using these social stories and visual reminders. Check them out in my store or click the pic's for a direct link.

As well as this freebie which you can find here

~Four~
It has been birthday central in my room this week. If I see another chocolate frog I may be sick. And because that statement is pretty gross here is a rainbow that was above our place on Monday night. Ain't it pretty?!

~Five~
I was very lucky to meet up with Stef, Paula & Alison in Kyneton two weeks ago. The town is super adorable & because this post is random here are some pics of the town {but not one of the 4 of us together because we forgot, lol}.

Happy weekend :)

100th post, a giveaway & some freebies

*Sigh* My last week of holidays is quickly coming to an end but it's probably a good thing because there is only so much cricket & Aussie Open tennis that I can handle!

I'm really excited to be starting this year. I have a really positive outlook and I'm determined to stick with it!

For anyone else starting back to school in the next few weeks or for anyone looking for some new resources here's a quick update/reminder of a few of the freebies I have in my store. Just click on the pics to go the freebie! 

Welcome Back to School Bookmarks

Beginning of the year counting assessment for Kindergarten/Prep

Make 18 Math Game

And this is officially my 100th post {it's only taken a year to get here}! Just follow my Facebook page to win your choice of $10 worth of products from my store.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tried it Tuesday- Sit 'n' Gym ball

I'm Linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday!

This year I purchased a Sit 'n' Gym ball after seeing some of these on a few American teachers blogs.

I hadn't seen these anywhere before but was hoping they'd be the perfect solution  for my ASD students. I bought a 35cm sit 'n' gym ball from Special Needs Australia for about $50 with p&h. The bigger size would have been great but it was just too expensive and when I looked at cheaper balls they were all from the US and either didn't ship here or postage worked it out to the same price or more.

What I love about this product is the legs on the bottom and how it is pretty stable. The kids love it and everyone wants to sit on it which is great. It does the job I wanted it to do- helps my ASD students sit up and be able to move around a little without getting in the way of others. One of my poppets in particular could not sit on the floor without knocking, bumping or hitting every kid near him. It has really helped with his self-confidence this year :) 
What I don't like is that it is too low to sit at our tables- I probably should have bought the bigger size. I also wish that I was able to buy more- I have 3 ASD students who would really benefit from this and at the moment we have to share.
Have you tried one of these or do you have something else you could recommend for my kiddos that find it hard to sit still?

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

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