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Showing posts from 2011

Story Stones

I spend hours on end, reading other people's blogs and being inspired by their brilliant ideas. Recently, I came across Story Stones TWICE in one day, on Red Bird Crafts  and on Fairy Dust Teaching . Fate, I decided, was telling me that Story Stones must be made . Fate was right. A pleasant trip to the beach followed, with a couple of zip-loc plastic bags stowed in my handbag (I always keep zip-loc bags in my handbag, just in case I can gather something for my classroom from nature). I collected a set of small, flattish beach pebbles to create my Story Stones. Once home, they were washed and dried, just in case of nasties or grit, which would prevent the smooth finish I wanted. I printed off a series of stock clip-art from Microsoft Word. They have some awesome clip-art, and to begin with I started with some standard fairy-tale characters- princes, princesses, etc, plus a few animal characters too. Each character was then carefully cut out and matched to an appropriately sized/

Handy Dandy Glue Pots

Crafting almost always requires glue. Hot glue, paste, PVA... we school teachers love them all. However, they can be a messy wee substance to manage. So here is a teeny tiny tip for keeping your PVA manageable... milk bottle tops! Milk bottle tops are plentiful, free and don't take up much storage space. They are easy to collect, and are darn useful. When using them as mini glue pots, I like them because they don't hold much (less waste), you can throw them out after one use (easy clean-up), and they are easy to prepare, so you can have many of them scattered around the room if necessary. In the photo, I have used cotton wool buds (new ones) as glue applicators, and found them really good. In the past, I have also used scraps of cardboard, strips cut from ice-cream container lids... almost anything, except paintbrushes. Glue tends to ruin paintbrushes very quickly.

Fathers Day Craft

Yay! I love Fathers Day! Another occasion to get out the crafty materials and create cutesy little crafts with my little lovelies. I'm probably going to repeat myself endlessly here, but.... there is a BIG place for crafts in the classroom. Cutting and sticking skills are pretty shocking these days (yes, I am old), even in my nine year old students. Pride in presentation is also something that is often lacking, and little craft projects are just PERFECT for this! For Fathers Day this year, we followed the crafty theme of popsicle stick photo frames (as seen on Mothers Day). This time the frame said "My Dad is a star", rather than the jigsaw decorations. I set my Fathers Day gear up with three tasks... a card, a 'greatest dad in the world' certificate, and the craft table. The craft is a compulsory activity, while the other two are optional. However, there is the expectation that the children will spend the entire lesson MAKING, rather than talking or mucking aro

Place Value Charts

Its been a while since I last updated this blog, so I am going to do a bit of an 'idea vomit', as I have been stockpiling ideas and just haven't gotten around to getting them up online lately. In Math we have been looking at place value a fair bit lately, developing their number knowledge. We have been using a lot of concrete materials- beans, iceblock sticks, unifix cubes, money etc. I am now trying to link the more abstract with the concrete- using place value 'house charts', where the children need to image the materials and quickly tell me how many tens/ones are in a number. Quite frankly, my slow brain does not generate numbers fast enough. The poor thing finds it hard enough to make my body breathe, talk and eat, without generating random numbers for the children to computate. After a while I realised I was using the same digits over and over, and completely forgetting digits like '7'. Poor 7. In the interest of using completely random two digit num

Sight Word "Go Fish"

Recently I had the sweetest student teacher in my class. It was a thought provoking experience- it certainly makes you aware of your own little idiocyncrasies and question why yourself about your teaching and learning program. It also means that for a block of time (in this case, one week), you have a student teacher in full control of your class. So all of a sudden you have time to GET THINGS DONE (of course I was still busy supporting them in their new role etc, but it is nowhere as full on as fulltime teaching). It was a bit of a shock to the system initially. There are so many things to get done that I didn't quite know where to start. However, after 5 minutes the shock wore off and my hands and mind were racing. I have been meaning to create some more learning activities for my two dyslexic students, and here was the perfect opportunity. First stop- Adrian Bruce. Adrian runs an amazing website dedicated to free, printable learning games and activities. If you haven't

Sitting Pretty

We don't have a couch in our class this year. When I moved into the new (but oh so very old) classroom at the start of the year, there was no couch available. And I am yet to source one myself (still looking). I miss the couch, its a lovely place for the children to snuggle with a book, to rest if feeling unwell or to perch on as a privilege. In the past I would have a quick lie down on our class couch before a late night meeting or in an odd lunch break if feeling unwell. Classroom couches are often saggy baggy and wrinkly (much like me), and usually have ripped covers and horrific stains (seriously.... where did those off putting marks come from?) Last year I managed to pick up some throw cushions for our class couch for the bargain price of $1 each from Habitat for Humanity. They were quite big, nice and comfy and an uninspiring beige color. A run through the washing machine with half a bottle of disinfectant and they were good to go.... but really really boring. Of cou

Mothers Day Crafts

I make it my personal mission to make sure that craft projects are completed to commemorate all possible occasions in my classroom. We celebrated Mothers Day on the 8th of May this year in NZ, and this was the perfect time to craft our little hearts out. Mothers Day crafts have two pre-requisites: 1. They must look homemade 2. They must be darned cute. I found this craft somewhere on the internet. I am sure it was www.activityvillage.co.uk, but I can't find the link anywhere. If this is your original craft idea, please leave a link to the reference in the comments section! This photo frame is cute as a button, costs very little and is perfect for recycling jigsaw puzzles that are missing pieces. Note: the little scrap of paper says "I love you to pieces".... so, so, so cute! First, take your popsicle sticks. Each student will need four popsicle sticks to make the frame for their photograph. Lay them out so they make a square (or other shape), and hot glue at the co

Hanging Displays

I luuuuuuurve dangling displays from the ceiling. If you don't need to duck as you walk through a classroom, then there is something wrong with the classroom- or you are really short. Hanging displays maximizes the space that you have- because lets face it- the wall space in classrooms is pitiful. I have a series of writing exemplars hanging in the classroom, and have just finished a set of 'childrens rights and responsibilities' mini posters to hang along the window. I'm sure there is many other uses, and we could all have dangly bits everywhere very soon! So here we go- easy peasy hanging displays :) These work best with firm materials- laminated paper or cardboard is perfect. Just punch a holes top and tail of each step of your hanging displays. Attach to each other with paper clips. Plastic coated ones paper clips are great- they don't scratch your hard work and they look better :). Paper clips mean that they swing in the breeze, and hang nicely. They

Tinny McTinTins

I am an avid lover of the "free" concept. If not free, then it must be as close to free as possible in order to warm my heart completely. If I can find something that is 'free' AND 'pretty' then I am on cloud nine for several days. These tins really tick my boxes. They are recycled tin cans donated by a commercial kitchen (thank you mummy), covered in the prettiest paper that I can possibly find and then coated in decoupage finish. Marae kitchens are also a great source of the big tins. First, find yourself a collection of empty, clean tin cans. The ones that I use were once 2kg tins of fruit, so there is no staining on the inside.  The 2kg cans are ideal for class or group sets of equipment. However the average family does not eat 2kgs of tinned fruit very often, so also try to collect other sizes- kidney beans, pineapple, condensed milk, and single serve beetroot also make great tins for covering and give a variety of sizes. The labels remove really easi

Free, Printable Bookplates

Teachers spend ridiculous amounts of money on resources for school. With most resources I just name on the front cover with a black permanent marker, so everyone can see that it is mine at a glance. One particular vice of mine is to purchase beautiful, beautiful picture books. And when I spend all that money on a new picture book I want to keep it in pristine condition and ensure that it comes back to me if it is borrowed. There is something about a bookplate that makes a book really special. Try going to http://www.myhomelibrary.org/bookplates.html for the cutest printable bookplates to put inside your favorite books. The artwork on each book plate is divine, and the plates come in both color and black and white. Happy printing!

Mrs Pancake

I love this website, and not just for the pancakes. I love it for its aboslute, unequivocal awesomeness (I hope I used 'unequivocal' correctly, i've always wanted to use it in a sentence). www.mrspancake.com , home of the most beautiful printables you can possibly find on the internets. And they are free (although the website creators do accept kind donations). Fire up the color printer and the laminator people, because you are going to be here a while.

Easter Crafts

Easter is really really close now and I am getting extremely excited. It could be the crazy sugar highs that are hitting me in that direction, but I think that it is mainly the Easter sales that I get excited about (and the copious amounts of chocolate, but that is another blog altogether). Last year in the Easter sales I picked up an Easter egg mould for $1 from Spotlight. Totally exciting, this bad boy means I can mould 12 (half) eggs at a time. So as we approached Easter this year I started wracking my brain for a little moulded craft idea for my class to complete. I came up with Easter plaster of paris magnets.   Having only one mould and 25 students, I decided that I would mould and dry the eggs myself. This turns the activity into a definite craft rather than art activity, but was very managable and easy to complete in a short space of time. I also wanted the magnets to be an Easter gift to my students, rather than several weeks of tedious work. I made up 31 eggs, which gave m