In the Garden

I just finished my last blog post, but feel motivated to continue writing!

This term, we have been learning about 'The Garden' - all about bugs and plants. My kiddos have loved it! Especially since we get to use scientific vocabulary! 'thorax' 'abdomen' etc.

This theme has been one of the most fun I have done - I have loved seeing my class get so excited about their learning - observing their seeds grow, using a magnifying glass to watch ants. Amazing!

A view of my classroom at the moment - each table has a different insect above it which helps with classroom management - e.g. "Ants - you can get your book out now"

Close up of part of our theme board

The back wall has some of our work from Science and Maths, as well as our word wall. The maths board has some pizzas we made to develop of cutting a shape in half. The kids pick up halving shapes pretty quickly so I introduced halving amounts - the majority picked this concept up immediately and we made some bugs with spots (I just noticed the green bug had a spot fall off! Oops!)

Our spotty bugs!

This term it was SSO week - I have three SSOs that work in my classroom - I made them some gifts that I had seen on pintrest - super cute! I love pintrest!

Earlier this month I ordered a classroom organiser from "Lakeshore Learning'. I was soooooo excited about it having seen it all over pintrest and other teacher's blogs. I live in Australia and we don't have Lakeshore stores here - so I had to order it online (it ended up being REALLY expensive - almost 3x the price it is in USA! oh well). I am able to organise my week (sometimes fortnight) by having the resources I need for each lesson in the coloured box. I used to have a folder in my filing cabinet - but this is so much cuter!

The last thing I have to show you is the dragonfly craft we did the other day - I'm really happy with the way they turned out! I'm also really impressed with how well the kiddos did working independently on their dragonfly!

I think that'll do for now!

Blogging catch up!

I've been thinking a lot about blogging lately - I can't seem to do it regularly enough!! I really enjoy reading other blogs, however I find that what I have to say isn't very interesting!

I thought I would start adding photos of my classroom and activities we do - maybe then I will stay motivated to keep blogging on a regular basis! We have iPads in our classroom, and I often take photos of what we do - what better way to share than over the internet!

It has been FOREVER since I last posted, so I might do a big share of what's been going on!

Last term in my class, our theme was "Dr Seuss". I chose this as I found many of my little cherubs were really struggling with the concept of rhyme. We read a different book each week, then completed some activities around the book. The kids picked up rhyming SO QUICKLY! They really enjoyed the silly words and stories of Dr Seuss. I would read a passage and stop just before the rhyming word - having them put one in. This showed me if they could produce a rhyme on their own and hey presto! They sure could! I found the activities that accompanied many of the books on TPT. Thank you to the creators! I don't know what I would do without teacherspayteachers!

Below is a photo of my classroom with some of our work up on the board.

We also had Sports Day last term. Our Sports Day starts after recess - so I needed an activity to fill in the morning (I had a class of very excited 5 & 6 year olds!). We started off our morning normally - I then read them a book I found in our school library Sports Day by Nick Butterworth & Mick Inkpen.

It is a cute little story about a school's sports day - we talked about the concept of winning and losing and trying our best. Then we made these CUTE Sports Day people using a template I made up. Aren't they just precious?!

 

I think I'll leave this post here for now!