Quick Tip

Wow – it’s been a while since I got around to an actual post. It’s been busy in my part of the world recently.

First up, a small request – my Assistant Principal (AP) has recently discovered Pinterest and likes to tease me about the fact that I have so many more followers than him! He’s awesome, and teachers ICT at my school and so has begun collecting cool ICT-based resources. He’d love some followers – click here if you’ll help him out!

Now, I’m joining up with Diving into Second Grade and Hippo Hooray for Second Grade for their Quick Tips linky!

My tip is actually a very recent organisation tool that I’ve been putting together to store resources for my Preps and Grade 1s.

Use bead boxes to story alphabet resources!

It’s a great way to keep things sorted and in their place. In the picture above you can see my little ‘trinkets’ – tiny things of all shapes and sizes sorted alphabetically and ready for use!

I’ve also got magnetic letters sorted in these containers, as well as magnetic sight words.

(And… not only is it nice and tidy, but it helps the kiddos pack up, too!)

I’m slowly organising all my materials, but this is what I’ve got so far!

– flat magnetic letters

– alphabet objects

– sight words (need to pick up another box to put words r-z in)

– big magnetic letters (vowels in the bead box and consonants all in a tub)

So… that’s my quick tip for this week. I hope that some of you find it useful!

Enjoy your weekend!

Hello friends!

What a CRAZY week it has been! Here in Melbourne we’re in the middle of writing our mid-year reports. (And when I say ‘reports’ I really mean over-long essays about each student!)

I actually don’t have an issue writing reports – I’ve always found them fairly easy to write and once I developed my system I was good to go. I’m finished… just waiting for them to be proof read by my Prin, who does a fab job!

So… I’m starting this weekend in a BRILLIANT frame of mind. No reports for me!

Thus, in my joyous state I bring you my…

On Mother’s Day my parents and I went to the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery. It was my first visit there and it was pretty amazing. Great location, beautiful views (despite the dreary weather) and AMAZING chocolate designs. I snapped these really cool chocolate frogs for Mel (From the Pond) because I saw them and thought of her! The single frog is about 40-50cm tall!

And the best part? They have FREE chocolate tastings. Essentially all you can eat. 3 big bowls of milk, dark and white chocolate buds – and they’re pretty amazing. 🙂

Dad and I took Mum to Savoia for High Tea on Mother’s Day. Another gorgeous location, totally hidden away and just beautiful. Lovely food and tea, too!

My class’ term topic is Sustainability – and we’ve just planted our veggie patch!

We plotted and planner together on the IWB and then went outside and planted our seedlings in the box that’s all our own! (We have 4 planter boxes in our school and our Prep and Prep/1 classes have taken them all over. Because they’ve been a little neglected!)

We planted spinach, fennel, broccoli, celery, lettuce, beetroot, carrots, purple carrots and parsnips! And students have their own teams (eg. Team Spinach, Team Fennel, etc) and are responsible for their vegetables. They were SO great. We can’t wait to watch them grow.

We’re finishing up our persuasive writing (well, my Grade 1s are!) and they spent Wednesday trying to persuade me to let them make ice-cream in a bag next week!

We’ve been doing addition in Grade 1 and I’ve got a few little dears who really don’t understand the concept so we spent some time building addition problems with unifix blocks and discussing the different ways to make the same number. I think I got through to one… perhaps not the other so much, but we’ll keep persevering. The majority of my kiddos were adding 3 or more numbers and having a grand old time. ❤

And finally, I’m joining Jean’s (from Diving Into Second Grade) Quick Tip linky party. I actually have a tip to share!

I store my counting charts in a file stand right near where I teach whole group activities. (I’m not fortunate enough to have a classroom big enough to have a small group work table – most of our small group work is done on the floor – so I have to story things on top of cupboards and bookshelves!)

I use these ALL the time – we count on them, write on them, find patterns, play games, etc – and I have LOTs of them, so this is a great way to keep them handy, organised and ready for use!

Happy weekend, my friends! 🙂