Five for Friday- 22nd of May

Happy Friday! I'm linking up with Kasey from Doodle Bugs to share the hip-happeneings from this week.

~ One ~

Our Author Study this term has been Graeme Base. After reading Uno's Garden this week we used the site Build Your Wild Self to create magical creatures for Uno's Garden. Easy to use and heaps of fun.

~ Two ~

Our Inquiry topic this term is "How Can We Make a Change for the Better?". We have been investigating our impact on the Earth and the resources we use by calculating our Carbon footprint. We made this cute freebie craft from Teach with Me.

~Three~

Our Silhouette Zentangles turned out fantastically! My class are loving art at the minute, t's great to see how creative they are.

~ Four~

Our Wonderwall thinkings are starting to head in a new direction to finish up our Inquiry unit. It's great to see how my students all have different areas they are interested in from renewable resources, to volunteer organisations, to causes and effects of natural disasters. I'm really looking forward to the 'Going Further' stage!

~ Five ~

Our Bushfire Silhouettes from last week, they turned out better than expected.

Happy weekend,

Back to School Mini-Reader

I've been spending today updating some products in my store and creating some new ones. This one is a little early in the year but I have updated my At School Mini-Reader to include both a black and white and colour version.

This is a really easy book to print and use in the first week of school and is a favourite of mine to use as my students first take-home reader.

There are 6 pages in total, with cutie graphics from Graphics From the Pond. Simply print, cut & staple the colour version or have students colour in the black & white copy.

Download it for $1.50 here. Hopefully I will have some more mini-readers posted soon.

Five for Friday- 8th of May

What a week it's been! Yay for Friday. Linking up with Kasey from Doodle Bugs to share the Friday love.

~ One ~

We got busy this week making these adorable Mother's Day Candle holders. They were fairly easy and look adorable but, I'll admit when my teaching buddy said we were making these and we're arming the kids with spray paint I looked at her like she was insane! Turned out well, so all worth it.

~ Two ~

I was gifted these yesterday from a cutie and her brother. They were so sweet. Even loved the comment from the brother, said to his Mama, "I really think Mrs Perry's minion obsession has gone too far". Haha, and then they bought me these!

~Three~

My kiddos wrote the best Persuasive texts this week. Love them. 

~ Four~

Kiddos loved playing Land Grab this week using our dry erase pockets and new whiteboard markers. We are really starting to understand multiplication {whew}.

~ Five ~

If you are following me on Instagram, you'd know I had an amazing time at Groovin the Moo last weekend. Dirty Docs are always a good sign of a fun time!

Hope you had a great week!

Teacher survival kit

In my 9 years of teaching, I have managed to have a lot of student teachers, so many I've lost count. I'm not sure how the system works in the US but here in Australia, students are sent out from Universities from their 1st year, increasing their placement time until their final, 4th year of University. 

Sometimes it can be really hard to work out what to give them as a parting gift but I've made a few rules for myself that have worked. 

First year & Second Year- Card from the students.

Third Year- Card from students, A Picture story book or two, hard cover when possible.

Fourth Year- Card from the students, a class photo and a Picture story book or my "Teacher Survival Kit". 

The Survival Kit is really easy to make and I vary what I put in it depending on the student and what I can find at the cheap shops. 

Some of the more common items are:
-basket or bag that they can reuse for their classroom;
-a big bucket of chalk;
-coffee sachets, tea bags, mints, etc;
-stickers & stamps;
-pens, textas, crayons, etc;
-notebooks, planners, a diary;
-a big box of bubbles and a copy of Lauren's Self-Control Bubbles;
-award certificates, ribbons or bracelets.

Do you have any other great gift ideas? Leave your comments below.

Currently May!

So excited that it is May already! Mainly because in my head and with Bec-logic that means it's a tiny bit closer to December, like 7 whole months until we get Summer again. Sigh. But on a brighter note it's time to link up with Farley over at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for this month's Currently. 

I spent a massive day yesterday (11 hours massive) at Groovin the Moo which is a music festival here in Australia. As it's almost Winter, let's just say it was a chilly festival once the sun went down but it was lots of fun. We are so lucky that this visits my home town every year. I got to see Ball Park Music who were probably my highlight! And Meg Mac, Hilltop Hoods, Sticky Fingers to name a few. Awesomeness!

So that is why I am not elaborating any further on this and am instead heading back to bed.

Hope you have a fantastic May!

Sorry for being M.I.A. and a great linky party

Big apologies for being M.I.A. lately. Life isn't exactly tough at the minute but it's been a little exhausting and busy. With everything else going on my enthusiasm for blogging and making resources for my store has lagged but I am working on getting this teacher-blogger-ship back on the road.

Make sure you are following my fb page, instagram and Pinterest boards as, for some reason, I've been able to keep these up!

Anyhoo, even though I have been absent, my fantastic Aussie blogging friends have instead been full of enthusiasm. Please check out their fantastic Swap, Share, Give linky. 

There are great resource ideas and a chance to win one of each of the resources. If you stop by Tania's blog, you can then follow the trail to all of the others. 

Stay tuned as I will be back soon,

The best purchase you can make at Daiso

My love of Daiso and pretty much everything Japenese is nothing new but, in terms of teaching resources, the best thing I have ever purchased from there has been a liquid timer. So much so that I went back there to buy one for a teaching friend this week and I walked out with 10 of them. Oops :)

If you have never been to Daiso before, it's an out-of-Japan version of a 100 yen shop where  everything is $2.80 (or in the US, I think everything is $1.50. Jealous). 

In the classroom, there are obviously lots of uses for timers but most importantly I use these for my students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I have used lots of different ones in the past including this one but these timers have become my favourite this year because they're cute, a great visual, a calming tool and these timers vary from 60 seconds to 2 minutes. Sue Larkey sells a similar version to the Orange wheel one above on her website for $10, so this especially makes these a bargain. 

This year, my poppet with ADD has responded really well to using one of these timers so that he has warning time when I want him to stop a task or return from his cool down space. At the beginning of the year we had lots of modelling around how to use the timer so that now it has become both a visual and a non-verbal signal that he needs to return to the whole class activity. 

If you are looking for other resources for students on the Spectrum, Sue Larkey's site is well worth a visit. If you have any great tools or resources for ASD students, or just a great teaching bargain, leave a comment below.