The Destitute Teacher

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Toddler Play- Pom Poms

Suited for: ages 1+ (adult supervision required for any children who are putting items in their mouths) Equipment: iceblock maker (approx $2 from Kmart) and pom poms (from dollar shop) Great for reinforcing pincer grip, language (e.g. 'in', 'out', 'on top', 'under', 'sparkly', 'scratchy', 'fluffy'), early 1:1 skills I'm trying to find little activities to set up for Miss One in the afternoons. She has a little lull in energy around 3.30pm and this activity was a perfect quiet time, 1 on 1 activity that kept us both occupied for a surprising length of time! Yesterday we had played with the iceblock maker set and spent ages putting the plastic sleeves in the trays, fitting on the lids, taking it all apart and swapping lids around etc. Miss One also discovered that the sleeves stack inside each other so we made towers as well. Today I added some silver sparkly pom poms to the mix. Pom poms are a great sensory material, and the

B2SS- Pens and Pencils

Todays focus is pens and pencils. Of course you may have this set up at home already, and if you do, then congrats... no need to spend! However, here is a really basic kit that can be put together so cheaply. If you are buying everything on the list, the maximum outlay will be around $10. At the very minimum, having HB pencils and a sharpener available will set your child up for learning. Here is a 'stationery list' to help you get set up... 1. HB Pencils... have a couple of pencils set aside per child. Avoid cheap pencils as the lead inside them is usually broken and they are terrible to sharpen. 2. Pencil Sharpener. A nice metal sharpener will live longer than a plastic one. 3. Eraser- buy a quality one, rather than a novelty eraser. 4. Chalk. Great for practicing writing or basic facts on the concrete outside. 5. Colored Pencils- avoid the dollar shop version as they are terrible to sharpen and don't really color in well. Invest in a good/ branded set. 6. Felt Tipped Pe

Back to School Sales

The back to school sales are rolling out... love this time of year! Its an expensive time for families with school aged children, but this year I would like to encourage a little extra spending, if you can stretch to it. Stationery is really affordable at this time of year (e.g. notebooks go from $1.50 each to 5cents each), making it a great time to put together a 'lockdown kit' just in case of further lockdowns this year. There is so much uncertainty around Covid. but having a little kit put together could potentially be massive for encouraging your child's home learning. I am planning on putting together some ways to help your child with learning at home, and there is no better place to begin than with getting set up! The following couple of posts will focus on shopping smart to ensure you are well set up. Disclaimer- I mainly shop for stationery from Kmart or The Warehouse. I don't advise buying dollar shop/ bargain pencils or pens, they are so rubbish that it is wo

Christmas Feels Part One

I love celebrating Christmas with my class, and last year was the first year in a while that I had a whole class who celebrate Christmas too! In the term three school holidays I put together a Christmas kit of activities that I could whip out in the last week of school... and I was so glad that I did! The students loved the new activities and were highly engaged in them- surprising as the end of the year can be so rough on tempers. It also meant that I could work through the classroom and pack away our usual classroom resources/ activities for the end of the year. The extra time to do this was invaluable! In the kit was a couple of activities I would put out before school/ Discovery time or throughout the day, a set of Literacy based activities and a set of Maths activities. This post focusses on the before school activities... below are links to all the resources! I wish I could find my photos, but I will try take some more for you. I've tried to keep costs to a minimum but I did

Skip Counting Madness

I have absolutely loved exploring the collaborative teaching pedagogy so far this year. It has been a great challenge, and has got me thinking about my classroom in a different way. At the moment we are working from our old single cell classrooms, with students moving between each classroom for workshops and independent work (we have called the independent work 'stations', but I think it is sometimes referred to as 'tubs'). This means that we can give each classroom a learning focus, and students know what they are learning about before they decide to move to that classroom. We have started with Math, and this week the activities in my class have focused on increasing our skills in skip counting. There are a range of activities to reinforce skip counting skills at a range of levels- everything from skip counting in 2's, 5's and 10's with numbers to 1000 to introducing skip counting sequences in 3's and 9's (for some reason, the children wanted to l

Domino War

Countdown supermarkets in NZ recently had a promotion. For every $20 spent they would give you one 'free' collectible domino. So I put the word out to friends and family. I put it in my class newsletter, on Facebook, everywhere I could think... I would trade handmade goods for dominoes. Due to the generosity of my friends and family I had a surprisingly large collection of dominoes by the end of the promotion. So now I am putting together some Math resources for my classroom that use dominoes as the main material. I am sure that I have come across the idea of Domino War somewhere in the wilds of the internet, but when I went to print it out for my classroom, do you think I could find a source? No way Jose. Tried and tested, this game is much loved by my year 2 students at the moment. The craze of the promotion may be contributing, but they are enjoying this relatively fast paced game. The idea is quite simple. First, turn all the dominoes so that the dots are facing do