Well another 6 months have passed without me managing to post even a throwback... no excuses apart from Life!
Updates from 2016...
* I changed year groups to teach Nursery (Pre-K to the non-UK based world?)
* Teaching 3 year olds is a whole new world for me, how can one year smaller make such a difference?!
* I moved flat (again!) which makes 4 moves in 5 years (twice country) but hoping to stay in this flat for a couple of years at least as I've made it quite homely now.
Will hopefully post early in the New Year with some resolutions both professionally and personally!
As I begin the Spring term with my tinies today, I am sharing a throwback post from 2014 highlighting some of the activities I like to do in early January. I've updated the links to the resources if you want to try any of them this year...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Original Post - 11th January 2014
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!!
How is it the start of another year already? Time flies (especially when you manage to post as infrequently as I do!!) Today I am joining Mrs Beattie's Classroom for a review of 2015.
I don't have a top 10 blog posts, because let's be honest, I only posted 20 times in total last year. Which compared to 84 in 2014, really seems quite pathetic! My top viewed post though was CNY Freebie where I shared some ideas and resources for the Chinese New Year festival (coming up on February 8th 2016), the freebie is still available should you wish to use it this year!
The biggest blogging milestone was reaching 100 posts in April, something that seemed a very distant goal when I started blogging just over 2 years ago (incidentally I missed my 2 year blogiversary back in November). It was of course a Currently, my most prolific link up party.
I am frankly amazed that I have any followers left after the shocking irregularity of blog posts in 2015, but my page views are slowly increasing, I hope to reach 10,000 in January 2016! Again, another number that seemed impossibly far away when I started.
I do have blogging goals for 2016, starting with a minimum of 2 blog posts a month. I also need to get back into creating things for TpT as I find it so useful in my teaching practice that I want to share my own resources more.
This review has been rather short, however that is probably an accurate reflection of my blogging achievements in 2015! If you have more to say, please head over to Mrs Beattie's Classroom and link up!
Really quite late to the party this month, but I've been having a difficult few weeks with decisions and life planning to do, but the good news is, I finally know what is happening and I'm very happy about it. More information to follow!
Listening - to Casualty, a programme I haven't watched in years, so slightly confused with the characters!
Loving - that I have the ability to sunbathe in January and I definitely took advantage of that yesterday
Thinking - at last I know what I'm doing this year, such a weight off my shoulders!
Wanting - to sleep later than 5am for once, this week jet-lag from my Christmas trip back to the UK has really affected me
Needing - to do housework, I'm constantly behind on it, it seems
Yes - change job (ahhhhhh, scary times ahead!)
Maybe - do my planning more than a day in advance lol
& Wish - do some regular exercise (this really is quite unlikely to happen)
Please visit Oh' Boy 4th Grade and link up if you haven't already (and you probably have as I'm nearly 2 weeks late!) I'm number 326, oh dear!
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!!
Happy New Year! I hope that 2014 brings you all everything you could wish for.
As part of starting Step 1 of my New Year's Resolutions I am putting some resources into my TpT store. These first few are not very seasonal, but they are tried and tested from my classroom and my children certainly enjoyed them!
They are also all free for a limited time offer! So please come along and download them. I would really appreciate comments and constructive criticism.
To use, you cut out the cards and divide them amongst a small group or pair (after we did it as part of a class activity, individuals also choose to do independently during Challenge Time). They work together to solve each number sentence and find which card goes next. I used them for a week on money, linking to finding change and recapping the recent work on subtraction. I then left two sets (one easier, one harder) in the Challenge Area for children to do independently for the next week.
I came across this website the other day called Teach Thought and they had a great article all about the best free iPad apps to use in the classroom. As we have a bank of iPads in my school and I rarely use them for anything other than photo-taking its inspired me to try some of these out with my class in the new term.
I also want to create a 'Top 10' or at least 'Top 5' educational apps to send home to the parents to use at home if I can, any suggestions?
And finally, a link up to Oh' Boy 4th Grade again with another Currently (linking up for December was the start of attracting readers to my little blog!)
Listening - 'Magic' by B.o.B. - Such a feel-good song, it always has me dancing around the room.
Loving - The cooler temperatures, especially because I get to use a whole different seasonal wardrobe!
Thinking - I can't believe how quickly the holidays seem to be flying past! It is only a few days until its time to head back to reality and school.
Needing - I have loads of resources that I would like to add to my TpT store, but since I've only ever used them in my classroom, the clipart I used was rather random. I need to go through it all (I imagine a VERY slow process) and put in stuff that I have actually bought/got a licence for!
Memory - My favourite memory for this Christmas was the mountain of yummy food that I have eaten.
So the Christmas fuss is dying down and I'm beginning to think it might be time to do some work! However, much more fun is writing another blog post...
Just thought I would share a craft photo, although this wasn't for school! These were the Christmas cards I made for my family this year. Something very relaxing about cross-stitching, I really must find the time to do it a bit more (although when, as teachers, do we ever have time to do anything?!)
I think I may be addicted to link ups... today's is with Brandi from A Peach for the Teach and is about resolutions.
Personal- fairly obvious one to put and not one I'm a general fan of starting in January (not a good way to kick off those post-Christmas blues), but my level of fitness is just plain ridiculous right now! So I'm determined to do something. I have access to amazing sports facilities and I'm simply not using them... but from January I will be!
Professional - In order to have more time to blog/make resources/actually have some free time, I want to get more organised with my weekly planning ahead of the weekend before I teach it!
Classroom - In previous classrooms, I used to have multiple interactive displays. My current layout is very much not ideal for this, but its a great independent learning/assessment tool so I need to do some thinking and get them into my room!
Blog/TpT - Blog is ticking along nicely (over a whole month of posts now!), so my focus is going to be starting my TpT store with some resources. This weekend I'm going to be working on the first ones hopefully!
Just-for-fun- I want to go wake-boarding again (will help with the exercise too!) as I used to go fairly regularly and was actually getting ok (I'm far off 'good') at it!
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