The Destitute Teacher

So at my current school we begin each year with a mini 'about me' unit. We look at our community, our rules etc... and usually link Math in through Stats or Measurement. This means by the time they get to me, they have already charted their heights, eye colours, fav food, etc before. Been there, done that, Miss. We want something different. Yesterday I gave each child a handful of pom poms each. You want to get a child interested in Math? Try pom poms. Totally focussed and on task, we set about sorting the pom poms into categories. Most children went for the standard- colour sorting- to begin with. Then we began to talk about other ways to classify our pom poms; size and sparkly v.s. non-sparkly were other popular possibilities. At this point, I want to say that I needed to model the sorting on the board- identifying common attributes and sorting data was the focus of the lesson. I made a mental note to glue some pom poms onto magnets for future lessons. Today I gave th...

This year's goal is to re-vamp my reading tumble activities. Last year I spent a lot of time seeking out and making resources for independent Math activities/ tubs, and poor old reading got the short stick. One very successful tub I have had in my reading tumble is the box of 'Mini Books'. We all love mini things... mini mars bars and mini bottles of liquor that you get on a plane are personal favourites. The kids have really enjoyed having 'Mini Books' as a reading task, so over the summer holidays I have added to the resource and spent some time repairing older books. All the books in the tub were sourced from op-shops for a minimal cost (mostly 10- 50 cents each). There is a good stock of books published by Ladybird in their small format, but also a range of books that seem to have been from Happy Meals, or given out at B.P. petrol stations. Either way, a fabulous source of engaging reading material! I fully recommend a strip of clear packing tape along ...

We are hammering away at our skip counting sequences at the moment. So when my husband went fishing a couple of weekends ago, I found it the perfect opportunity to make a couple of skip counting activities for the classroom, using my favorite math manipulative- milk bottle tops! To begin with, I took an A3 sheet of colored paper and traced around a bottle top multiple times, to create one long, windy snake. I filled it in with permanent marker and drew on a head and snaky tongue. I then wrote the skip counting in fives sequence that I wanted to re-inforce on each body segment. This took a surprisingly long time, so I was on the hunt for a quicker way. So I cut some chux cloth and glue it onto the back of a milk bottle cap, creating a simple stamp. I then chose white paint to stamp my second snake, to create a skip counting sequence in twos.  By the time I finished the second snake, I was totally sick of serpents. So my final game is a flowering vine, with petals stamped wit...

I love celebrating Easter with my little darlings! Normally Easter heralds the beginning of the school holidays here in NZ, however this year we are starting with a 12 week term, so we qualify for an Easter break! This year I am teaching year twos, so we did the usual routine on the Thursday before Easter.... Easter poems, Easter Math games (into their group boxes), Easter baskets and some Easter printables which were available as a fast finisher activity (dot to dots, spot the differences, find a word and an Easter themed boggle). Our boggle activity was vastly popular, as the prize offered up was some glittery eggs and little fluffy chicks (both available from Spotlight). I buy them after Easter each year, when then are marked down to ridiculously cheap prices and pop them in my cupboard for the following Easter. This year I made my class an Easter themed bean bag throw activity for Math. It began with 10 circular bean bags, decorated to look like bunnies (inspired by this blog h...

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...