The Pout Pout Fish!

Hi all!  Have you missed me?  I've been a very slack blogger lately and I do apologise (if you follow me on Facebook you would have seen the giveaway I'm running to make up for my lack of posts!).  I'm here today to share with you a cute craft and some writing my kidlets did last week after we read 'The Pout Pout Fish'!

If you don't read this book to your class - you should!  It's a gorgeous story about a fish who blubs about spreading the dreary wearies, all because he thinks he is a Pout Pout Fish. All of a sudden he realises that maybe he was a Smooch Smooch Fish all along - so he changes his game to start spreading the cheery cheeries instead. :)

We made a simple paper craft using this template from TpT.  I used light blue card and also gave the kidlets some navy circle cut outs to embellish their Pout Pout Fish with.  They are proudly displayed around the room with the very cute writing that we worked on to tell about times that we spread the dreary wearies and the cheery cheeries!

I spread the dreary wearies when people be mean to me.

I spread the cheery cheeries when people be nice to me.

I spread the dreary wearies when people ignore me.

I spread the cheery cheeries when I get special treats.

I spread the dreary wearies when the next day is Monday.

I spread the cheery cheeries when it is my birthday.

I hope you are having a wonderful week with your kidlets!  

Five for Fraturday... Better late than never!

Friends, I am exhausted!  I had the seemingly brilliant idea of tackling a couple of DIY furniture projects today and it was tougher than I thought!  I'll have to come back in a few days and share some photos of my handiwork, but for now it's time for Five for Friday!

1. The phonics program I use in my classroom introduces only phonemes (sounds) in Term 1, with the graphemes (letters) that represent them taught for the rest of the year.  I'm so impressed with the phonemic awareness that my kidlets have this year - they can segment, blend and isolate sounds like champs!  As we revisit each phoneme this term we'll also discover which letter/s are used to represent each sound.  This week was m and short a, so we made monsters and alligators!

To make the alligators I gave the kidlets strips of paper and an example that my TA had made.  They had to figure out how to cut/assemble the paper to make the alligator.  Everyone was successful... although some became more frustrated than others. The occasional problem solving lesson now and then is handy for them. :)

We completed the monsters as a directed drawing activity, and then painted them with watercolours.  I love how each little monster reflects the personality of whoever drew it.  Directed drawing is so great for setting kidlets up for success while allowing them to express their own creativity!

2.  Every second Tuesday we spend half an hour in the Kitchen Garden.  The kidlets plant, weed, water, harvest and cook all sorts of fruits and veggies.  This week they made corn fritters with beetroot cream. Makes my heart so happy to see them learning such important life skills.

3. Group work was back in full swing this week after our Easter break!  The kidlets worked so beautifully in their teams that I was able to stay with my Guided Reading group the whole time.  Perfect for teaching, not so perfect for taking photos as I rush around to check on them. I snapped only a few...

Sight word work was a choice between magnetic letters, writing on the whiteboards or typing words, but these clever cats set their equipment up as an office so they could do all 3 options at once!

Happy teacher moment - one of my reluctant writers had this at the end of group time one day.  She's written 'It is 8 more sleeps'.  Not all sight words, but who can concentrate on them when your birthday is so close! :)

Now that we're working on graphemes it's time to break out the creative handwriting activities.  Shaving cream letters were a hit!

4. During outside time on Friday I asked these two where they were off to:

Their answer? "We're taking our baby to the Blues Festival!"  Oh... of course!

5.  I shared this on my Facebook page earlier this week.  It was saved on my desktop and I've taken to looking at it at least once each day just for a giggle!

Well folks, that's it from me.  I've got a big night of folding laundry ahead of me... doesn't that sound fun? ;)

Lauren

Five for Friday! 01/11/13

Another Friday... another five random moments to share!  Link up with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs to join in on the fun.

1. We finished up our Science work on living and non-living things this week, and 'The Lorax' was the prompt for our Writing Project during group time as we thought about how to care for the environment.  We made these gorgeous paper plate Lorax faces to remind us that unless someone like us cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not! 

2. On Monday we start our new unit - all about CHRISTMAS! I'm super excited - I l.o.v.e Christmas! This afternoon I stayed back to get some decorations up in my classroom, and I can't wait for the kidlets to arrive on Monday so I can see their faces when they see all the sparkles!  All of our special Christmas stories are under the tree ready to read.

Even our cheeky Reading Corner owls have decorated for the Christmas season! :)

3. During our outside play time today we had water play.  The kidlets all arrived at school in their togs and had lots of fun running in the sprinklers, splashing each other and sitting in the toy boats full of water.  A perfect Queensland morning in the sun!  This was my favourite photo - hats pegged to the gate to dry. :)

4. Finally wore this coral necklace out after owning it for ages and not being brave enough to wear it. Does anyone else leave stuff that they love to gather dust, or is that just me??

5. It's almost the end of our school year and I am struggling when that 5am alarm goes in the morning.  I love this quote - it's perfect for me this week!

Happy Friday friends!  This tired teacher is off to bed.  :)

Lauren

Descriptive Rainbow Name-bows!

Evening all!  What's with terrible TV tonight?  I'm watching Big Bang repeats but think I might have to give up and go to bed!  Before I do, I wanted to share with you an adaptation of an activity originally Reagan's.

As soon as I saw the beautiful 'Rainbow Name-bows' that Reagan had made with her class I knew I wanted to make some with my kidlets, too. Hers were made after the children had written an acrostic poem about themselves which I thought might have been a little bit tricky, so my Preppies wrote words to describe themselves instead.  

We worked in our small groups to make a list of words - funny, pretty, fast, brother, smart, tall, etc. I then helped with the correct spelling, and the words were copied onto the coloured strips with black texta.  Some kidlets traced over the words after I'd written them in pencil on the strips, and some only had 2 or 3 words on their list to begin with.  Learning to write is tricky! :)

These colourful guys have been hanging in my room since early in Term 2, and I was so sad to take them down today to make room for something new.  The kidlets, however, were super excited to take them home and hand them in their bedrooms!

I may have used a little creative license when writing my Name-bow! :)

I just love seeing ideas that I know will inspire my Preppies to write, especially ones that turn out to be so cute!

Lauren

X and Y!

So I think we're in the middle of the longest week E-V-E-R! I have been busy with professional development seminars that had me out of the classroom for most of Monday and Tuesday so I was glad to get back to my kidlets today and get stuck into our work!

Our phonics focus this week were the letters X and Y - in Letterland that's Yellow Yo-Yo Man and Fix It Max.  After we introduce each new sound and talk about some words where we can find them, we jump straight into a fun craft to match.  All well and good... until I came to X and Y. I was really struggling to find something fun and creative for the kidlets to make for these letters - is it just me or does everyone find them tricky?  I thought I might share what I eventually came up with just in case it might help others who were stuck like me! (These are just my spin on ideas that have been around for a while!)

X = X-Rays!

We traced around the kids' hands with white chalk on black paper.  They then used craft glue to stick cotton tips onto their hands as bones.

Y = Yaks!

I saw something similar to this after I googled, but I can't find my way back to that page!  The kids cut an uppercase Y out of brown card and glued on the horns, mouth and eyes.  I just drew a template for all the pieces, except the eyes that we punched using 2 different sized circles.  We drew nostrils and a mouth on with markers.  

Hopefully this post is inspiring for anyone who was stuck for ideas like I was!  If you have any other clever ideas leave me a comment with your suggestion for others to borrow. :)

Lauren

Five for Friday! 26/04/13

*Sorry my blog is a bit wonky looking... I fiddled with the template and design and ruined it!  Don't worry though... my Canadian boy is working on fixing it!*

Go on, link up with Doodle Bugs - you know you want to!

1. My Preppies' favourite activity this term has been 'Sound Box Hop' - otherwise known as Elkonin boxes made of electrical tape on the carpet!  We hop, step and jump our way through CVC words to streeeeetch them out and hear the individual sounds.  Sometimes we just jump into one box to show if a particular sound is at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a word.  Lots of fun and awesome for those sweeties who can't sit still!

2.  This week we learnt about the letter 'l' and made cute ladybugs on leaves, using a few paper circles and a black marker.  I love how they turned out (but please ignore the gross powerpoint panel right in the middle of the pinboard!).

3.  Inspired by Reagan's 2D desserts, we made a simple version to revise 2D shape names. This was such a simple and effective idea - the kidlets had lots of fun building their ice creams!

4.  I arrived home on Tuesday afternoon to this box on my doorstep...

...and I opened it to find this gorgeous Cyclamen in a cute watering can pot.  Organised by my Canadian lovebird to go in my new 'garden' on the patio. <3

5. I went to see 'Iron Man 3' tonight... if you like movies where almost everything in them gets blown up, then you should go and see it too!

Happy weekend everyone! 

Lauren