Holiday Photo Catch-Up!

Hello friends! It's been far too long since I stopped by to share a post with you all  - but I have a good excuse, I promise! We've been enjoying a lovely family holiday in Tasmania for the past two weeks.  Today I'm sharing a very quick photo round-up of our adventure so far. :)

We started our trip near Hobart - after a 6am flight we spent the afternoon in Geeveston at the Tahune Airwalk.  The air was so clean and the views were gorgeous! Our 3 year old slept very well that night after no nap and a 2.5km walk!

We took a steam train ride on the Wilderness Railway, which runs from Queenstown to Strahan.  It's quite a long trip so we had booked the carriage that supplies food and drinks - the girls were entertained with morning tea, lunch and dessert while we travelled!

The scenery was just beautiful.  

One of the days we were in Hobart was rainy, cold weather so the activities we had planned had to be changed.  We stumbled (through Google) upon a small zoo just outside of the city.  Zoodoo was amazing! The girls loved the bunnies (they are a pest in Queensland so you never see them - only very rarely at a baby animal farm).

We took a safari bus and got to feed some animals.  The emus, camels and zebras came right up to the open sides of the bus!!

We also got to feed a lion which I thought was very cool! No safety worries - just a pair of tongs and some steak through the fence! :) I'd never even seen a lion before so to feed one was lots of fun.

One of my 'Bucket List' items has always been to see Wineglass Bay which is in the Freycinet National Park.  I was lucky enough to be surprised with a scenic flight right over it!

We had absolutely glorious weather and the views were just spectacular.

The plane was tiny but we managed to squeeze in...

...just!

We spent a day at Tasmazia - just outside of Launceston.  I'd been looking forward to this ever since I'd seen the photos online.

It was just the cutest place ever! we walked straight into a giant hedge maze, and once through that we found ourselves in Lower Crackpot.  A tiny village with more mazes and miniature townships.

Reese has taken to wearing one of my scarves - it's almost as big as her!

We had a (very cold) but fun time here. :)

The girls have seen more than their fair share of wildlife this holiday! As well as animals we saw at Zoodoo they also saw Fairy Penguins in the wild at Bicheno - no photos from that as we saw them at night and a camera flash would scare the penguins. We wen to Seahorse World and Platypus House while we were in Launceston.  The end of the tour at Platypus House was lots of fun as the girls got to feed some gorgeous echidnas.  Reese was very excited when two almost crawled into her lap!

For a few of the days we were in Tassie we toured around the wine regions.  The scenery is just beautiful.

Riley is particularly fond of Riesling.  Just joking - of course! This winery (Puddleduck) served verjuice and cheese so children were included.  

We're ending our holiday in Melbourne to visit some friends.  They've taken the Riley & Reese to the aquarium so we're doing the obvious tourist things....

...sitting at a riverside bar blogging...

...and researching shares! :)

If you've read this far I think it's only fair for me to share with you that I've got some of my favourite product discounted while I'm away - follow this link to grab some discounted math games!  

A sale - just because!

Font, border and cute kid from Graphics from the Pond!

Hello lovely friends! Just a very quick post today to let you know that I'm having a SALE in my TpT store.  I'm popping over to Waikiki for a week and wanted to celebrate by discounting all of my products by 20%.  That will bring pretty much everything down to about $2.40 - and considering most of my best sellers are games that you can use over and over again that's a bargain! :)

The sale is for 3 days only, starting on Sunday (28th September).  You've got until midnight on the 30th to snap up a great deal.  Visit my store if you're in need of a shopping fix.  :)

I'm hoping to share a holiday snap or two on my FB page while I'm gone.  See you all in a week!

Getting Set for the Sale!

Hi friends!  Are you as excited as I am for the back to school sale TpT is hosting on the 4th and 5th? I can't wait to grab some bargains! I've already got quite a few things on my wishlist, but need to whittle it down a bit before I check out.  I know some of you check out multiple times during big sales... but I get shopper's anxiety and usually make one big purchase in the last few hours! :)

I wanted to share with you all a few of my products that might come in handy as you head back to school (or further into the school year if you're here in Australia!).  My products are pretty much all hands-on activities or games, perfect for small groups, centers or fast finishers!  Click on each picture to go see the listing.

Let's start with the hands-on stuff! These guys are my best seller:

I made these two hands-on math activities to use in my fine motor and math rotations - I'm really proud of them because the kidlets LOVE them!  I love the fact that as they are working they talk about their thinking with their friends.  You can grab Link It Up with either numbers 0-20...

...or 2D shapes.

If your kidlets love sorting activities, they might like these guys:

Now for the games!!  I have lots of sight word and reading fluency games in my store.  They are used almost every day in my classroom, either in Guided Reading groups, as a center activity or because the kidlets have chosen to play them in free choice time.  Here's a few of my faves:

(If you're in the market for some reading fluency card games, the best value is the BUNDLE!)

Thanks for sticking with me through this shameless plug post!  I hope you find some really great resources to use in your classroom during the big sale, either from my store or one of the many others offering great discounts.  :)

Two for Tuesday! A best seller and a newbie.

Well folks, this will be a super quick post because I am having a moment.  You know, one of these:

That darn grumpy cat always makes me smile!  He just has a way of articulating my thoughts, especially in those moments when I'm being a big baby. :)

I'm stopping by today to share with you the two products that I've marked down to half price for The Teaching Tribune's Two for Tuesday.  Both are card sorting activities with bonus worksheets - one is an old favourite that has been a best seller, and the second is a new one that I'm super excited about!

Sort it Out! Letters Words and Sentences is a really engaging way to teach a very important skill.  With this pack, kidlets will sort cards as either letters, words or sentences - perfect for the pocket chart! - and 'show what they know' with either a cut and paste or written worksheet.  The words and sentences are taken mostly from the Dolch lists so your little learners can decode them.  Once we've done this activity as a whole class and then in small groups, I pop it in the 'fast finishers' basket and it works as a great task to review this skill.

  

Grab it today for only $1.50!

My newest product, You've Got Mail, is a medial vowel sorting activity with a cute envelope and post box theme.  

It's got three worksheets as part of the pack - kidlets can colour, write or match to show the correct medial vowel.  Only $1.50 today!

Don't forget to pop over and visit The Teaching Tribune to check out all the other awesome products on sale today.  I've grabbed a few amazing bargains with this linky - can't wait to stock up my cart with some more!

Two for Tuesday!

How great are holidays! Tonight I'm staying up late to watch a movie! It's the small things. :) Stopping past real quick to share a few products in my store that I've discounted by 50% for The Teaching Tribune's Two for Tuesday!  They would have to be the bargain of the century - $1.25 each!!

First up is my newest product - a letter recognition card game called Beep! Beep!  This super cute game is perfect for your kidlets who need a little extra practice in fluently identifying lower and uppercase letters.  (If you've purchased the bundle of reading fluency games, this one will be added to that very soon!).

Sticking with the theme of lower and uppercase letter recognition I've put my A-Z Three Piece Puzzles on sale too!  

Although it's technically a third product, I marked the Queensland Print puzzles down too. :)

Back to movie watching for me!  Be sure to check out The Teaching Tribune for some more bargains. Happy shopping friends. :)

TpT {loves} Teachers! Teacher Appreciation Sale Time!

It's that time of year again!  TpT is having a sale!  Stock up your wishlist and get ready to buy up big on 6th & 7th May.  My store will be 20% off during this time, and with the promo code TPTXO you can grab an additional discount when you check out!  

You can pop over to visit my products here - with those discounts some of them will be as cheap as chips!  If you are a Prep/Kinder teacher and need some colourful and fun activities that your kidlets can work on independently during group work or Daily 5 time be sure to check out my sight word card games and sorting activities for syllables,  letters/words/sentences and number of phonemes.  My favourite product is still Playdough Mats Numbers 1-10 with picture clue directions! One of the first in my store and still my best seller. :)

Don't forget to leave feedback on products you buy from any store - you earn TpT credits that you can redeem on your next purchase!

Time for me to make another coffee and spend an hour or so window shopping on TpT... Can't wait for the sale to begin!

Lauren

Five for Friday (with a classroom tour)!

First week of the school year = done! Five days without kidlets should have been enough time to get everything ready and organised... but meetings, catch up chats and general procrastination meant that Friday afternoon saw me madly rushing to make sure that my classroom was set up ready for next week.   I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs (for the first time in ages!) to share some random moments from my week back at school with Five for Friday.

1. After moving all of the furniture into piles in the middle of the room for the carpets to be cleaned over the holidays, it took me a while this week to decide where I wanted everything to go.  It was tempting to set the room up just the same as it was last year - but changing the layout and look of the classroom always helps me to feel excited about the new school year.  I don't think I've ever shared photos of my room before (apart from the odd one here and there of specific areas) so I took a few snaps before I left yesterday.  Please excuse the bare pinboards that are waiting to be covered with art and crafts when the kidlets arrive!

This is my main teaching area.  The kidlets sit on the coloured mat, and the board above the whiteboard is home to the calendar (free on TpT), birthdays, rules and soon will have our monster manners (from Growing Kinders pack, also a freebie!).  The Share Chair lives in the corner to the right, and that's the Writing Corner to the left.

Storage shelves - the glass panel looks into my office.  The yellow sheets on the window are sticker charts. :)

Small group table and reading corner.  The white door leads out to the foyer.  

 Looking back to the desk area.  From the left - home corner against the wall (goes around the corner too), Creation Station (those white baskets won't stay there!), door to the outdoor area, smart board, door to the TA office, kids' lockers.

Almost the whole room, looking this time from the back door.  Word wall on the purple board. The door on the right leads into the kitchen.

2. iPad storage has always been a bug bear of mine. Previously I had just piled them on the shelf, but they always looked messy which annoyed me.  Turns out that one of the file storage racks (I call them toaster racks) I had sitting around was the perfect solution! I'd seen this idea somewhere, probably Pinterest, and am so glad I remembered to try it out.  It's super easy to plug the chargers in when they're stored like this, too!

3. After my first year of using the peg chart as a behaviour management strategy, I made my 'Super Kid Hall of Fame' poster to display the pegs of the sweeties who earned themselves 2 jewels during 2013.   I make it very, very tricky to earn a jewel so they are a super special reward.  I'm hoping that the chance of appearing in the 2014 Hall of Fame will be a great motivator for this year's Preppies. :)

4. Bargain of the week - $1 Jump Frogs to use in fine motor activities!  These froggies are perfect for little fingers to play with.  Either have them jump the frogs onto the plate that comes in the pack, or create paper/card 'ponds' with letters, numbers or words on them and have the kidlets read whatever their frog lands on.  They look easy, but some children really struggle with using their pointer finger to make the frog jump. (Aussie friends can find them at Big W.)

 5. To celebrate the beginning of our school year, I'm having a sale in my TpT store!  Everything is 20% off until Monday night.  Pop on over to grab a bargain!

Well folks, that's all from me.  Happy Australia Day weekend everyone! :)

Lauren