The Destitute Teacher

I don't have a teachers desk in my class. The desk I had took up far too much space and was always a mess. So it went to another classroom. Often I regret it, but mostly I rejoice at the extra space. Now I no longer tell children to 'put it on my desk' to deal with later... things get done immediately. Less mess, less stress. I need a place to keep my stickers and stamps though. I recently cut up and cleaned a couple of recycled milk bottles. I chopped off the tops and added a gorgeous little strip of fabric tape and some labels. These are now pinned on the wall next to my IWB. You might notice that I keep my smelly stickers in ziploc bags. This keeps them smellier for longer. As I took this picture it made me think of the red spotty tin that sits at the top of the teachers workstation. I have a series of decorative tins along the top- one for felts, one for permanent markers etc. The red spotty tin is specifically for WHITEBOARD markers. That way my students are able t...

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...

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...

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.