Money Activities and Centres

Sorry again for lack of posting. I am right into report card mode now. We have moderation next week, so I've got some marking to catch up on and it's keeping me very busy. I did make some time to make some money activities though since I had a couple of requests. 

 

 

They are on sale now for the next few days. I'll be back on the weekend with hopefully more (interesting, class-related) things to post!

Keep Your Dear Teacher Happy poster

What a blah week! Sorry I haven't posted. There's no reason why I haven't. I've just been bludging! Going to bed early AND sleeping in kind of thing!

I've never really looked at the Top 100 on TpT before - I'm not up there with the big sellers, so there's no point. But like I said, I've been bludging so I haven't been creating anything new and have been buying instead. So I looked on the TpT 100 Highest Rated Products for last week looking for some new buys, and I saw one of mine! Talk about excited!

 

I know it's for the product I had listed as a freebie for the Teacher Appreciation Jackpot so it doesn't really count, but I'm still happy about it! Thanks to those who left feedback after you downloaded it for free!

A little while ago, I was talking about behaviour management. Somebody suggested that I should try Whole Brain Teaching. I wasn't sure that it was my thing but jumped on it and gave it a go when we came back for second term. Wow! How simple! How effective!

I found these posters at The Polka Dot Patch that I display on the board near my whole class carpet area. I also made up a "Keep your dear teacher happy" rule because I thought that encompasses anything they might get up to!  You can download it here in google docs. 

We recite the rules in the morning and after both breaks. We use the actions from 3rd Grade Thoughts when reciting the rules. 

I also use Class/Yes, but that's it. I don't need to use the scoreboard or anything else (yet!). I can't believe last term I was pulling my hair out and now everything is so good. 

These rules have really worked a treat. It's so easy if someone is calling out to say "Rule Number 4" and the class just automatically repeats the rule back. One, it stops the student from calling out, and two, it also seems to refocus the class. Love it!

Hopefully I'll be back soon with some new freebies for you.

EDIT: Head on over to Think, Wonder,Teach for a WBT linky party! I can't wait to check out all the links!

T.I.M.E. Guided Math and THANKS!

Wow, thanks to everyone who left me comments about my Short and Long Vowel dominoes. It was downloaded about 4500 times! A big, big thank you to those who left feedback in my store! And to those who offered freebies - your generosity is sooo appreciated!

Just letting you know that it is now back to normal pricing but if you missed out on getting it for free, you can still grab it for 20% off + use the code TAD12 to get an extra 10% off the discounted price. 

I don't really have anything for you today except to let you know that I've finally gotten around to uploading my T.I.M.E. math board that I shared about here. 

 

Like everything else in my store, it is 20% off at the moment!

Ok, I better actually get something to ready for school tomorrow! I have my student teacher starting full-time tomorrow, so I've got to be at the top of my game! :)

Word Wall Linky

I'm linking up with Jen R. over at The Teachers' Cauldron and April over at Wolfelicious. Like Jen, I've also had problems with my Word Wall this year. 

It started off like this:

This was at the start of the year, before the kids even arrived. It took up the top half of my two whiteboards. I didn't like it. I really needed that space for other things so over the recent holidays I moved it to my windows (unlike Jen, I don't even have cabinets to put it on! I sure would love me  some cabinets or even a cupboard....). This is what it looks like now. 

On the back of each word wall letter is a students' name (you can kinda see the reflection through the paper. I've typed their name on paper, glued it to the coloured paper and laminated it). I had each student do a little self-portrait or other drawing when they came back from holidays and I attached it below their name facing out. As you walk towards the classroom, it's really nice to see the bright drawings! There is a missing piece of paper for Q but I've done that up for a new student who arrived before the holidays.

I like the position of the Word Wall now because all students can see it, which they couldn't before because of the glare on the whiteboards. Secondly, there is no glare now because the Word Wall is on the windows that caused it! I also like how each letter is separated, making words easy to find.

At my school, we have HF words that each grade is expected to learn. The first words that go up are always the names of my students, but after that I started reviewing Grade 1 words and then start on  Grade 2 words. We play games with the Word Wall to help us learn the words that are on there.  I use activities and games from this book the most.

I store my cards for each term in these nifty little expanding folders. They are only about 24cm x 15cm so are a good size for the word cards. I have one in a different colour for each term and I label each divider with a week number (Week 1, Week 2 etc). I got them at Big W for a couple of bucks each.

Do you have a Word Wall? Why not link up with Jen R. from The Teachers' Cauldron and April over at Wolfelicious . Visit both for lots of ideas.

Daily 5 Write About Reading

Thanks everyone for your feedback on my Multiplication Madness freebie! I'm glad so many people could use it.

This is the first post in my Daily 5 series - doesn't that sound all fancy! Basically, I'm just going to take some photos and write about what I put in my Daily 5 tubs that I wrote about here (so not that fancy at all!)

You may have read before that I do Write About Reading instead of Work on Writing because I do writing and spelling separately from the Daily 5. When we do the Daily 5, I want my students to really focus on reading. I also wanted to have a set time when they worked on responding to texts we have read as a class and during guided reading. 

Each week, I have some type of response required from each of my 5 guided reading groups. Since I am doing running records this week (a school requirement that we do formal running records each term in order to set individualised reading goals), I am not taking guided reading groups so I have no photos. The responses vary depending on the text, the reading level, our class comprehension focus and the needs of the students in each group. For example, when we worked on retelling as a class focus, my lower groups did a simple BME by drawing pictures, others may do a story board with pictures and sentences and others may do a Story Map to identify the Characters, Setting, Problem and Solution along with the main events.

Most weeks I also have a reading response that I want the whole class to complete. We have been working very hard on our Stereotyping English unit. We've created Character Profiles and compared stereotypical characters to those found in texts such as The Paper Bag Princess and Emily and the Dragon.

So this week, after modelling and shared writing activities, I asked students to compare the dragon or Princess Elizabeth from The Paper Bag Princess to a stereotypical dragon or princess in a Venn diagram. Therefore in the tub this week, I have copies of the text, a Venn diagram sheet and clipboards so students can get comfy around the room (I find it funny that they'll even clip the sheet to the clipboard and go sit at their desk....)

 

They can also use the charts we've created on Prince Ronald from the same text to help them if needed. 

The Character Profile above is based on what we visualise when we think about "Princes".  Below is the same chart (Appearance, Qualities, Thoughts, Actions) for Prince Ronald from the book and the comparison Venn diagram.

 

I also had a question about something I mentioned in a previous post. I said we'd done a Hot Potato Tree Map.  A Hot Potato is just a variant of the Graffiti Wall. Basically I printed out a tree map for each group - one for Dragons, Princes, Princesses, Mum and Dads. The groups had about 2-3 minutes to write anything they could on the tree map. The tree map then rotates around the groups with each group reading through and adding more ideas until they get theirs back (I actually rotated the kids around, but both ways work).

I knew they'd be repeats and spelling mistakes so I collected them up after we went through them and wrote them on coloured paper to put up for future reference (handwriting is not my speciality!). 

I like to use Hot Potato strategy when I introduce a topic to find out what they already know or think (like above) or at the end of the unit to review a topic. You can do it for anything (not just Tree Maps).

50 page freebie - Multiplication Madness

I was ecstatic the other day when I noticed I reached 500 followers! To thank all of you, here is a freebie for multiplication.

It has 8 different activities and centres/centers for beginners. 

I hope it's a useful supplement to your existing materials. It's available on TpT.

If you download, I'd appreciate it if you left feedback!

It is ANZAC Day today. Our ANZAC Day ceremony at school was really good yesterday. The Senior Choir sang BEAUTIFULLY! Watching the videos, listening to the music, laying the wreaths and listening to current and ex-servicemen really brought it home to my littlies. Some Year 2s read a poem extremely well - they were getting compliments from everyone! My class was very solemn throughout - except for one who thought his shoes were WAY more interesting than what anyone else had to say....

Freebies and Daily 5 CAFE pack

Since my post with photos of my Daily 5 and Guided Math set-up, I've had some email requests to share my files on TpT. Ask and ye shall receive! I've just added my Daily 5 posters, CAFE posters, Daily 5 I Can type charts, rotation/center labels and other bulletin board bits and pieces to Teachers Notebook. About 63 pages of bulletin board goodness!

      

       

The Math Set will be up soon. 

For those who like the polka-dotty theme, I have also done up time and boggle pieces. These are not my original ideas!

The clock numbers I first saw on Amy's blog, but  she got her inspiration from Kris at I {Heart} Teaching. I have these up in my room at the moment and they look great with all the other polky dottiness I have going on! I'll get a pic on Monday. 

I'm not sure who started the Boggle craze! There are soooo many great pins on Pinterest that I'm not sure who posted it first. So thank you all for the idea! Again, I just wanted some pieces with polka dots. 

You can grab both these freebies here in Google Docs.

I'm about to take my son to his footy match. There's an hour of training before the game (in addition to his 2 hours of training twice during the week). I really dislike games that are in the middle of the day - talk about a waste of time (my pet hate!). You can't really do anything beforehand, and the day is over once they finish! Of course, I don't mind doing it and I love watching him play, but I don't know how people with more than one child cope with all the running around after school and on weekends. My hat goes off to you!