Five for Friday!

I haven't blogged for two weeks... how did that happen?! I'm linking up with doodle bugs for another 5 for Friday.

1. We have a 'new' Easter Sunday tradition where we have a camp fire lunch with the hubby's family. Roasts cooked in camp fire iron thingy's. Until I met the hubby I had never been camping, or eaten anything cooked on a campfire so it was an eye-opener! But amazing and delicious!

2. Last weekend we went camping with friends to the 'high country'. It's gorgeous up there.

3. This has been the last week of holidays, back to work Monday with the chaos of Term 2 and reports. Feeling refreshed and ready for it!

4. Spent these holidays reading some great books (along with about 10 trashy romance ones, yes Mills & Boons, don't judge lol) including 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', books 1-4 of 'The Shifters' by Rachel Vincent (loved them, desperately waiting for book 5 to arrive in the mail) and 'The younger man' by Zoe Foster.

5. I finally finished my 'Alphabet Puzzles' packet.

This zip file contains over 160 pages including:

-abc puzzles in colour, pictures no words

-abc puzzles in black and white, pictures no words

-abc puzzles in colour, pictures and words

-abc puzzles in black and white, pictures and words

-abc puzzles blank

-abc puzzles blank with page borders

I'd love you to check it out!
Happy weekend,

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?

April Currently

How did it get to be April already?! I'm a little bit late this time but I'm linking up with Farley for this month's currently :)

Listening

After being lazy relaxing all weekend I am now up to my arm pits in washing. I have a day of washing, drying, folding & putting away clothes ahead. Thank goodness I don't iron or I think I'd be moving out :)

Loving

Being able to do a bit of nothing, other than the washing :)

Thinking

Only the 2nd day of hols and I know I need to start planning for next term which is always one of the biggest. 

Wanting

This is the second day in a row I have blogged in my pj's. Yes it is 11am, yes my hubby would be disgusted but he's at work :) and yes, I don't want to get out of them

Needing

We're going camping later in the week which is my (least) favourite thing in the whole world but my husband loves it. Heading to the high country for a few days so I need to stock up on books. Any recommendations?

Advice

This is advice I need to learn to take- Stress Less. I am always worried about finding time to make things for TpT and to do my blog but I'm slowly learning that it all happens anyway. Stressing about it ruins the fun.

Also, check out this awesome giveaway from Michelle The 3am Teacher & her very talented friends. Super easy to enter and they call you 'cutie'- what's not to love about that?!

Smiles for miles,

Let's Get Acquainted Linky!

Oh holidays how I love you! It's Monday morning, I'm drinking my second cup of tea still in my pjs and crusin' the net so I thought it would be the perfect time to link up with Latoya from Flyin' into First

Favourite Place to Shop

This is tricky! I shopped up a storm at all the TpT sales last night so that has to count :) I love a bargain so anywhere with a discount card- Hudson's for coffee, SportsPower for gym clothes (hello $47 voucher- I'm looking forward to spending you soon!) and NoodleBox (free noodles on your birthday? awesome!); and anywhere cheap- yes Kmart, I love you.

I've already mentioned my overflowing wardrobe yesterday. My favourite clothes shop is probably Sportsgirl. 

Especially the Bourke St Mall Store in Melbourne because it is HUGE, has an ever changing funky display and always has a big sales rack at the back :)

Also, I'm a big thrifter so any op-shop that has a $1 rack is on my list.

Favourite TV show

Hart of Dixie and Nashville at the moment :) 

and my fav Aussie TV show is House Husbands

Favourite Sweet Treat

Red velvet cupcakes. These have only just become popular in Australia in the last couple of years so I learnt to make my own because the only place I could buy them was in the city. They are amazing. I got the recipe from here and they're what I make if I need to 'take a plate'.

Favourite Food

Pad Thai- preferably eaten back in Phuket, on the beach with my feet in the sand and drinking a beer :)

Favourite Restaurant

Is a cafe T'hooft- my favourite meal to eat eat is breakfast so I'm letting this count for a restaurant :) It has an old school caravan in the front- how awesome is that?! And they make the best Eggs Florentine

Thanks for visiting :)

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