Five for Friday... Gratitude after a great day. :)

Another Friday... another chance to reflect on the collection of random moments that combined to make a busy week. Thanks to Doodle Bugs for hosting! I had a great day today... maybe the best I've had all year with my tricky bunch of kidlets.  I am feeling very thankful, so my Friday Five has a theme of 'gratitude'. :)

All year I had been wanting to make some 'Whisper Phones' for my kidlets to use during their 'Read to Self' time.  I'd looked into buying the parts at my local hardware store and there was never a week that I could spare the money (who knew plumbing pipes were so expensive?!).  I ended up putting a note on my foyer noticeboard, asking if any dads/grandads/uncles were plumbers, because I had a project I needed help with.  Last Friday, one of my mums said that her brother was a plumber.  I explained the idea of 'Whisper Phones' and showed her a photo, asking her to see if her brother had some pipe offcuts I could maybe use.  On Tuesday morning, this is what she brought in:

Not only had she shown her brother the photo, but he had glued together a set of 10 made from brand new pipes!  I was just amazed and so thankful. :)  A bit of rainbow duct tape later and the kidlets are using them every day to listen to their reading.

Today I am grateful for generous people.

In our Literacy groups this week our phonics revision activity involved searching in rainbow rice for magnetic letters.  

When they found one, kidlets would say the letter name, it's sound/s and name some words with that sound at the beginning, in the middle or at the end.  They would then write the letter underneath the matching picture on their worksheet.  

The beautiful rainbow rice was made last week by on of my parent helpers, and the sensory table was given to me after it was replaced in the Library.  They had been using the centre container to store pencils and didn't even know that it was a supposed to be used as a sensory table (meanwhile I had been coveting it for ages)! :)

Today I am grateful for lovely Mummies who give up their time to help (and also those who allow me to publish photos of their adorable kidlets!), and for working at a school that provides wonderful resources for me to use to help my kids learn.

I jumped on to TpT last night and was prompted to take their survey. One of the questions asked something along the lines of "How has TpT impacted your teaching and the way your children learn?".  It really got me thinking... I stumbled upon the world of teacher bloggers when I was having a year off, working in Canada (selling jewellery) and desperately missing my classroom life.  I jumped on the blogging bandwagon and quickly became obsessed with pinning and reading blogs (as well as writing my own).  Through this, a door opened to, like, a BILLION teaching ideas that I'm sure I would have never come across (see #1 and #2 of this post, for example).  My teaching has been impacted in a huge way - I am constantly inspired and searching for the best way for my kidlets to learn a concept or skill in a way that is engaging for them - and I am proud of the resources I have created as a result.

In my fine motor groups this week I used Link It Up... the precious kidlet in the photo on the left is my bounciest boy and he was engaged for almost 20 minutes (!!) with this activity. This, my friends, is a miracle.

We played Shark! this week in guided reading and it made me so happy to hear the giggles and shouts of  "shark attack!" as each group played.  Mostly though, it warmed my heart to see the looks of pride in my kidlets' faces as they read the CVC words by themselves.

Today I am thankful for inspiration from the teaching community.

When I got home this afternoon there was the most gorgeous bunch of flowers waiting for me on the doorstep!

Today I am thankful that somebody loves me.

It's almost the end of term here - 2 more weeks and we will be halfway through the year!  I love my kidlets, but man-oh-man they are tiring.  :)  It's also report card season... and I have nothing nice to say about them!  I am exhausted...

...but tomorrow I can sleep in!  No alarm, nowhere to be, nothing (well... apart from housework) to do. I saw this picture this week and it made me wonder if Sleeping Beauty was a teacher?

Today I am thankful for silent Saturday mornings.

Well friends, that's all from me.  Today's Five for Friday was really therapeutic for me, so if you've stuck with me to the end, thank you. :)  I really appreciate the lovely friends I've made through the blogosphere. 

Happy weekend!

Lauren