So… I’ve been busy. How about you? (Freebie and Linky at the end!)

Can’t believe it’s already March 11th!

Here in Melbourne we’re having a public holiday (Woohoo! I needed the sleep-in this morning!) so I’m making the most of my Monday off.

I’ve missed a few bits and pieces over the weekend – my ISP decided to to ‘maintenance’ that went 2.5 days over schedule, leaving my internet-less until yesterday evening. (Insert sad face here.) But I’m back now and I’ve got a few bits and pieces to share with you!

While I’ve been doing a lot of 1-10 number work with my Preps (aka Kinders!), my lovely First Graders have been doing lots and lots of work with numbers to 100 and beyond. The last few weeks we’ve been practising skip-counting and recognising the patterns and numbers that appear.

Hence, I’ve been busy making some simple games that students can play (click on pictures to view at TpT):

Both games have multiple purposes:

• Pull cards out, read numbers, determine if it’s part of the skip-counting pattern in focus (use sorting mats to help categorise the numbers).
• Add in the JIVE or CLUCK cards – when a student pulls these out they must return all their cards to the container.

All you need for these games is a container to store the game cards in (I found some cute little gift boxes in my local dollar store) and to print and laminate the pieces. If you need a title for your container, I just printed out the front cover at a reduced size and used tape to secure it to the container.

I have at least 1 more game coming in the series (Shoes Come in Twos) – and possibly a fourth (Bees Fly in Threes) for those interested – so be on the lookout for them, hopefully by the end of the week.

Each game is only $1.00 in both my TeachersPayTeachers and TeachersNotebook stores.

And now for a freebie: MEOW! Book Response Activities for Cool Cats

My kiddos (the Little Smarties) are now officially obsessed with Pete the Cat and Splat the Cat. We’re re-reading the books regularly – which is fantastic. I came up with some generic, cat-inspired book response sheets for them to use when responding to the texts.

You can grab them on TpT for FREE by clicking the image below. I’d love to hear your feedback!

And finally, I’m joining up with Latoya Reed from Flying into First Grade for her first linky party!

This week it’s all about using your initials to share things you love, so here we go!

I’m a Spring baby, born in September (yes, I’m in the Southern Hemisphere, folks!). I love Spring – it’s pretty much my favourite season – the wet season and cold weather of Winter starts to fade away and beautiful cool, sunny days start appearing.

I’m a sucker for anything lemon-flavoured – lemonade, lemon soda, lemon juice, lemon ice-cubes. I’m even one of those weird people who’ll eat little bits of lemon. It also smells beautiful!

As for the lipstick – prior to January this year I never wore lipstick, but I bought some MAC lipsticks while in the U.S. ($15 people! They’re $35 here!) and have fallen in love! My favs are Ruby Woo, Vegas Volt and Chatterbox!

When I started teaching four years ago I was head-over-heels in love with being a Prep (Kinder) teacher. Now I’ve been a Prep/Grade 1 teacher for over 12 months and I am enjoying it. (I still would love to go back into a straight Prep class, but my confidence has grown as a Grad1 teacher!)

And that’s all from me today, folks!

Enjoy the start of your week!