Teaching Adjectives with Monsters!

If you're looking for a fun way to help your kidlets practise using interesting adjectives, you might like to try this easy painting and writing activity.  Bonus: it makes a gorgeous classroom display!

As with most painting activities, it's best to do this part of the activity in small groups.  We all know how messy kids can get with paint when they're not closely supervised! :) To start, give each child a large piece of paper and have them fold it in half.  Near the crease on one side of the paper, place some blobs of paint.  I like using bright, neon colours but whatever you have is fine.  Have kidlets fold their paper again and use their hand to gently smooth and spread the paint as far as they can towards the edges.  Unfold and let dry!

Now for the best bit!  When their paintings are dry, give each child 2 eyes (I used paper circles, but you could use googly eyes if you have them on hand, or they could be drawn on with marker).  They should glue the eyes onto the page in a way that makes their picture look like a monster!  I cut around the edges of the paint to define them a bit more, but that's totally optional.

Spend some time talking about what each monster might be like.  Discuss their colours and features (do they have horns, polka dots or sharp teeth?) as well as what their personalities might be like.  From this discussion, each kidlet writes a sentence and uses an adjective to describe their monster.  Of course, you could extend this task and have them write a few sentences or a paragraph if that's more appropriate for your grade level.  You might also like to use this as an opportunity to work on the concept of symmetry, too.

I love this activity because it has everyone using their imagination and applying their knowledge of adjectives in a really engaging way.  If you put the monsters on display it's a talking point for anyone who comes into the room! I hope this is an idea that you can use with your learners soon!

Back to School - Classroom Set Up!

I know what you're going to say - it's way too early to be thinking about going back to school!  If you're not in the mood to think about your classroom just yet I do understand... but if you're like me you will do a lot of thinking, mulling and pondering over the best way to set up your room for the new school year before you actually start working on it.  I wanted to share a few ideas from my classroom with some learning areas you might like to use in your own room.

First up is my favourite (and probably the most important) part of the classroom: the Library! Whether you use your own books, school provided books or a combination of both you will want to organise them for your kidlets and keep them in an area that is inviting.  I have lots of books from many years of teaching - most of them bought secondhand from the Lifeline Bookfest.  I organise them into author baskets, non-fiction and then general picture books.  Readers are organised by levels.

All of my baskets came from dollar stores and I attached the labels with some ribbon.  Kidlets access the Library to choose new books for their 'Book Box' and during free time.  (Keep a lookout for a post soon all about reading tools to add to your library space!)  

You might be a lucky duck and have a tonne of space in your room for your Library.  Maria from Kinder Craze has a gorgeous big space that I am always envious of!

Next up on the list of important classroom spaces is the carpet area - the place we spend so much of our day either as a whole class or in small groups.  Luckily, this is very easy to set up as you really only need a few things to make it work well: a teacher's chair, board/display area and defined space for the kidlets to sit.  The best investment I ever made for my classroom was to get a class set of SitSpots! They stick to the carpet like glue, without damaging it at all, to give each kidlet a place to sit.  I love them!

On the pinboard near our carpet area I keep our daily calendar, behaviour expectations display, birthdays and classroom rules.

Another important display space is right by your small group teaching area.  I was lucky enough to have this gorgeous U-shaped table in my room (I got the stools from Ikea).  Behind it you can see our number posters, Sound Waves chart and reading strategies, but you should display anything you will reference during your small group instruction. :)

As you set up your room for 2016 you might also like to include spaces like a Writing Corner, art space (mine is called the Creation Station) or an area for fast finishers to work on tasks without disturbing others.  

        

My Writing Corner and Creation Station are simple - pretty much a table, a few posters and the materials needed for each.  We use them during Discovery Play (free time).  You could definitely make these more elaborate if you wanted to!  

My plan has always been to make a space for a set of 'Bee Busy' drawers for kidlets who finish their work quickly (inspired by From the Pond) with a desk beside it but I've never managed to do this properly.  It's still on my to do list!

I hope this post has given you some food for thought as you plan to set up your classroom for the new school year!  I'll be back soon with some more 'Back to School' posts!

Five for Friday - Back to School!

Well folks, week one of 2015 is done and dusted! This year's kidlets are absolutely gorgeous and I'm excited to teach them this year. :) My Five for Friday this week is back to school style!

My classroom is set up this year much the same as it was last year. I decided to cover the horrible brown pinboards with fabric... I should have googled before I got started because the first ones I did have wonky edges! It's driving me mad every time I look at them. I got the hang of it eventually so might change out the dodgy ones.  Here's a few pics of my room!

Classroom library corner.

Small group teaching table.

Carpet space.

In amongst my purchases to get ready for the new year I bought 25 packs of Crayola crayons for 80c each.  We only have pencils and markers on our supply list and I wanted kidlets to have another option for their colouring and drawing.

Turns out that soap holders from the dollar store are the perfect solution for storing them!

I'm trying out something new this year for my classroom helpers/line leaders set up.  I had a pack of foam hand cutouts that I actually bought at Walmart years ago. Brought them all the way home to Australia and never had any use for them until now!

I wrote the names of my kidlets on them and made this very simple poster to stick them to.  Whoever is displayed on the hands gets to be the line leaders, tuckshop monitors and general classroom helpers.  This week I kept them the same as we got used to moving around the school, but I plan to change them twice a week.

We jumped right into maths this week by learning all about the number 1!  We sorted with the lucky dip bag:

One

not one!

 We made these gorgeous Number Crowns...

...and reviewed with these cute worksheets!

My kidlets were pretty worn out after their first week of Prep.  We did this torn paper activity for some quiet time. :)

Each kidlet had a template with their name and first letter.  We cut the strips and they tore and glued the pieces on.

I know, I know... they desperately need a border, but cute doesn't always win. :)

That's all from me today! I hope you are having a wonderful, relaxing weekend!

Five for Friday!

I guess if it's Friday that means that holidays are almost over! :( Next week we have student free days, but after that it will be back to the grindstone.  Luckily, today also means that it's time for Five for Friday! Here's my random moments from a lazy week.

Speaking of lazy... I have been spending a lot of time on my couch this week.  Staying up late watching movies, then relaxing with a coffee after a sleep in each morning.  I didn't want to share a photo of my couch (that would be weird), but here's what I spent a good chunk of my time watching just yesterday:

I love, love, love Anne of Green Gables - but she is a real time investment!  Seven-ish hours of serious watching to get the whole story done! :)

I went into my classroom this week, hoping to get some organising done.  FAIL!  I think all I did was make an even bigger mess... and made myself stressed that my new library furniture hasn't arrived yet.  

I ended up piling all the books in boxes (apart from the few you see here) and crossing my fingers that the selves will get here asap!

I did get one thing done - one of my bulletin boards was changed over to display our word family ribbons.

I hot glued the cards from Marsha's word families galore pack onto coloured ribbons and display them on the wall after we've learnt all about each word family.  We move the ribbons around the room as needed during the week's activities before they go on the wall.  The bonus is that they are so easy to pack away and store because they are all glued together.

One of my goals this winter break was to get some resources ready for the start of term - particularly for those kidlets who needed a little extra practice with some important concepts.  I made lots of reading fluency games, some maths activities, and today made up these cute mailboxes and envelope cards for sorting CVC words by medial vowel sound.

My kidlets are going to love it!!  I called this pack You've Got Mail - it's even got a few worksheets to use as a record of student learning.

Winter in Queensland is gorgeous - during my lazy days I've spent some time reading in the sun and looking at this view.

Has anyone seen this show?  Usually I am a huge fan of cheesy reality TV, but even this one makes me cringe.

A bunch of us Aussie bloggers were chatting about how much we would love to be in Vegas this week, hanging out and having fun at the TpT conference.  Every time I check Instagram I have major FOMO, so I've started saving towards next year!! :)  If you're there or going soon, I hope you are having an amazing time!  As for me - I'll stay here and relax on the couch...

Classroom Photos - a very quick tour!

Warning: my classroom doesn't have a cute 'theme'.  I've kind of stumbled into a monsters/rainbow/polka dot/Crayola factory explosion type of look, but I'm fairly happy to display anything colourful and cheery!  I took a few photos of my room before Open Day today and since everything was tidy I thought they'd be good ones to share! I have done a classroom tour before, so you might have seen some of these spaces already. :)

Our Reading Corner... there's another couple of storage tubs of books that we use to swap into book boxes, but they're not pretty.  :)  I really need to get some shelving so I can get it set up like a real library.  Our Reading Buddies live here, and the floral curtain covers some ugly louvers that look out to the Prep entrance.

My small group teaching area.  (The Alphabet Monster and puppet theatre are on display for Open Day.) The board behind the table holds our reading strategy and Sound Waves (phonics) posters.  The number posters are from my store, the ones I have up are the Queensland print version.

This one shows most of my room.

Another view, except this time you can see the big glass panel that is part of my office.  On that shelf I keep everything that I need to have on hand... Self Control Bubbles and Quiet Spray, CD player, bell, Quiet Critters, tacs and paper clips etc.

Main carpet teaching space (where is my chair I wonder??).  The board above the whiteboard has our birthday cupcakes, the above/below the line behaviour monsters, calendar and classroom rules with sight words and Sound Waves cards on the wall.  You can see my SitSpots and 'Share Chair' (stool) too.

Our Writing Corner.

Kidlets' work lockers and book boxes, with workbook storage underneath.

The (very messy!) home corner - it goes around the edge towards the glass door too - and Creation Station (free choice art table).

A table group and our word wall - the words are crooked because they are on velcro so the kidlets can take them to their desks.  This only drives me slightly nuts! :)

Last one - this is the entrance to my room.  We have a little foyer shared between two classrooms and on my board I display copies of notes we have sent home, the newsletter, requests for help etc.  The white baskets collect readers, sight word books and communication books each morning.

There you have it! A certainly not perfect classroom - but one that is useable and easy to take care of. :)

Lauren