The Destitute Teacher

Today we had such an awesome art lesson that I have come home on a Friday afternoon to blog about it. Yes, it was that awesome. And simple. And easy. Let's not forget effective. Craft foam prints were made this afternoon, and the over all effect is just stunning. The photos do not do the prints justice. I purchased a packet of A4 craft foam from the local dollar shop. There were four sheets in the pack, two thick and two thin. I've put the thin pieces aside for another day, and we used the thickest available. This meant that our prints were lovely and clear and the foam did not rip. I cut each sheet into 4 (A6 size?) to make it go a little further. The students used ball point pens to 'draw' their image onto the foam. It didn't matter if the pen didn't work... we just needed a good, clear indentation in the foam. Today the children had 'free choice' on what (school appropriate) pictures they wanted to draw. They went to town on it. ...

As mentioned in the post before, this term we have an Arts focus. So I inquired of my students... what area/media would you like to focus on? 21 lovely littlies all put their hands up and said... knitting. Now I love crochet, do knit some times and am an avid crafter. I must admit I was thrilled that they want to tackle knitting, and immediately began to plan the unit. I plan to integrate content on primary/ secondary colors, brights v.s. pastels, and how our color choices suit our purpose. I hope that we will get to start off with making some small finger puppets as a learn to knit project. Teaching 21 six and seven year olds to knit is quite daunting, but i'm hoping that we will get to the dizzying heights of yarn-bombing before the term is through. Perhaps a little too ambitious. I decided that inspiration was key, and so have set about yarn bombing our own classroom with hand-crocheted items.  Rainbow bunting now hangs along our back wall. The wall is divi...

This term we have an arts focus, and I am almost beside myself with excitement. I have such large ambition for our artwork, and so little time... we need to get started! Last week we were lucky to begin our art unit with a trip to the local art gallery. This was a truly fantastic visit. We we guided around the gallery by the world's most amazing educator (I spent my time rhapsodising over her behaviour management and questioning skills), and then got to make our own artwork. The gallery provided some lovely heavy-weight watercolour paper. We did a very quick and simple line drawing of a local mountain/ocean scene. The painting was then completed with a lovely set of watercolours.... you know the kind that are a dry block on the palette and then you add water and it works? They came out just gorgeous. I love the way the watercolours have those swishes of colour through them... even the least artistic of us all had spectacular results! I mounted them on black paper a...

A while back we did a short unit on pattern making. I was absolutely blown away by some of the patterns that the students made, and just had to share them with you here! Color patterns with buttons (some children used them to make repeating patterns with size e.g. small/big/small/big) Number patterns with dice. Color patterns with Jovi's. Creative patterns with classroom equipment. Increasing patterns with unifix cubes. Unfortunately I can't find a photo, but one student made number patterns using playing cards as well. Love the affordability of these manipulatives!

One of my Math groups is currently learning to join and separate sets. This has been a long and drawn out process for them, as it has been addressed in many formats over their schooling history. My challenge was to find equipment that would capture their interest and imaginations. I wanted them to be enthusiastic about Math! To want to do Math in their spare time! One student is a little girl who loves sparkly, fluffy things. You know the type, I bet you have one in your own class right now. During a standard trip to the dollar shop I found some awesome plastic crystals. I think that they are used as decorative centerpieces, and in vases etc. I snapped up two packets (in green and blue, that way they can be used for pattern activities later). The crystals became 'diamonds' and are stored with some pictures of pirate treasure boxes, and my students LOVE them! Especially if I use a pirate voice when making the questions! Since taking this photo, I found that these guys...

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...

Although this post is has "St Patricks Day" in the title, the content is totally adaptable to any themed holiday or occasion- as you will soon see! In NZ, Valentines Day occurs fairly quick into the school year. I usually take the opportunity to pop some Valentines themed board games into the Math group boxes for the children to play as part of their rotation tasks. Last year I made up a set of 'tic tac toe' for each group box. The sets had a coloured game board (glued onto card) and 6 felt hearts of one colour, 6 of another colour. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I forgot about the games, and they were in the group boxes for the entire year. However, am excited that every set survived! I credit it to the fact that each heart was a double layer of felt blanket stitched together- very durable. However, this year I was less organised and just cut out single layered felt hearts. My plan is to stitch them together before next Valentines Day. No doubt it w...

My class absolutely LOVES raiding my big pointers. Unfortunately sometimes they can be a little hard on them, especially the more fragile fairy wands etc.  So I have made a bunch of mini pointers for the children to use when reading. They went wild for them! This set is inexpensive, quick to make and an easy craft activity. You could even have your students make their own!  The wands are simply large popsicle sticks with a decoration hot glued to one end. I am hoping that the decoration focusses the eye, helps the children with their tracking and makes their reading just a little bit special and exciting. I used a range of decorations- googly eyes, wooden shapes, felt shapes, sparkly decorations, Christmas decals, foam shapes, pom poms, ribbon flowers, fabric flowers. The craft aisle of the dollar shop or your local emporium should provide plenty materials to work with.  They are stored in a condensed milk tin. I used PVA glue to cover it with yellow paper an...

Shifting classrooms always requires a scramble to inventory current equipment and to replace those old regulars that you use a lot. I know that almost every classroom must need counters at some point in time! Having a range of alternatives can often pique children's interest, but can be a budgetary stretch at the same time. Here are 10 alternatives that I have rustled up with a minimum cost. 1. Smooth stones come ready made and freely available from your local beach or stony river. Small pebbles are perfect as game tokens, or collected for use in Math lessons. They look great with stickers and glitter glued on and are REALLY durable. However, they can be heavy when stored en masse. 2. Wooden shapes are available in packs of 12-20 from your local dollar shop. These are particularly awesome to use for number stories (i.e. 6 bumble bees were sitting on a flower and 3 flew back to the hive, how many were left?). They are more durable than paper cut outs, intriguing and reasonabl...