Let's have Five for Friday

A link up with Doodlebugs with Five for Friday.

Here are my 5 moments of randomness this week.

My TA made this display for me. I asked for a seaside from the past. I got actual sand on my wall. Amazing. Love it!

I started some reading journals a few weeks ago as part of my Challenge Area and they are very popular! Look at this lovely independent writing.

My craft club made some fossil dinosaur pictures this week. An excellent use for the huuuuge box of art straws in my cupboard!

I found these at my local savers store, I couldn't resist buying them, but need to come up with a genuine educational idea to use them!

Have you checked out The Teaching Tribune's Summer Bloggin' linky? I joined in for Two For Tuesday. Today it's Free Font Friday! I've already grabbed the free font and I'll be checking back to see what other great freebies I can get. 

Take a challenge

The Challenge Area is a very popular spot in my classroom so thought I would blog a little about it and what I do there.

Basically its for my fast finishers, who have completed their classwork before the end of the lesson. I try and make them quite practical activities that the children can complete independently so that myself and my assistant can continue with our guided work with the slower workers. The children always have the opportunity to go into the book corner instead.

I like to put out a mixture of activities, usually making sure that there is a balance of reading, writing and maths. I will often put something they have already done in a lesson there as a reinforcement of previous learning. I do give them an explanation and demonstration of anything new.

Most things stay in the Challenge Area for about 2 weeks, but I swop themed activities in for a shorter period if appropriate. I also make sure that there is a mixture of old and new activities so they have some they are familiar with as well as new ones to try.

Some of my (and their!) favourites have been:

Word sort (from Doodle Bugs Teaching)

Colour by number - they also loved a Chinese New Year lantern version I found (forgot to take pictures of it)

Valentine's themed sentences

Alphabet puzzle 

120-square puzzle (template from First Grade Blue Skies)

Lollypop word sort (in my TpT store!)

Popcorn words (soon to be in my store as am trialing it with my class at the moment!)

Back to work... sigh

So we went back to school after the Christmas break this week. Despite the time going so quickly for me, it was great (mostly!) to get back into the swing of things in class. Here are the highlights of my week in another 'Five for Friday' (despite it being Saturday!) link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching.

1

I started off this week with reading 'Squirrel's New Year's Resolution' and then using a freebie from An Educator's Life called 'New Year, New Me' which was just the sort of fun, but meaningful activity to spend Monday morning doing with some excitable 5 year olds! I hung the finished mobiles across the back of my classroom. I have also referred to their resolutions multiple times over the week for behaviour management!

2

I also added the 'New Year totals' freebie from Kathy Romano and Christina Murphy to my Challenge Area along with the 'Word Sort' that I bought from Doodle Bugs Teaching way back during the Cyber Monday sale! These activities, along with some recount holiday writing scaffolds, are the 'challenges' that the quick finishers may choose from. They can also go to the book corner if they prefer. The Challenge Area is also available during free choice time, so that my slow finishers can also access them.

3

For my extra-curricular Crafty Kids club, I used this great 'New Year Craftivity' from A Cupcake for the Teacher. These were absolutely gorgeous when the whole group were wearing them (sorry can't post photo!)

4

Multilink Maths! Using multilink cubes to help decide if numbers are odd or even. 

5

I have a Reading Roundabout session where I split the class into small groups and they take it turns reading with me or my assistant. The independent groups do different reading based activities, this week one of them used the great 'Roll and read tricky words' that I got from Primary Classroom Resources, although I adapted it into a game that can be replayed by using counters rather than colouring the sheet.

I seem to have used most of my 5 to prove how much of my classroom teaching is now affected by resources and ideas I've found off teaching blogs! Loving this addiction of mine!!