Ready to read?

Let me start by saying that my class this year are gorgeous and I'll be genuinely gutted to say goodbye at the end of this term. However, they are super active and I'm trying to get them more interested in reading.

An amazing find is the website Epic Books.

It has a huge online library of e-books, which you can search by topic, series and age range. I especially love the 'read-to-me' section that has saved my teaching voice! Although I don't use this feature, you can also assign reading to students and have class reading competitions.

p.s. this isn't a sponsored post, I just love this website!

January's Bookshelf

One of the (many!) blogs I follow is Lucky to be in First and last week she wrote a post talking about what she has read in January. I thought I would 'magpie' this idea as I'm an avid reader, both with my class and personally and share some of the books I've been reading in the month of January (and I'm going to be super strict and not include what I've already finished in February!) So though not strictly a 'teaching' post, here are some of my recommended reads from January (maybe you can enjoy them on half-term!)

(I should mention here that I have no affiliate links to Amazon!)

'A Man Called Ove' by Fredrik Blackman

I read this for my book club and really enjoyed it! Very similar style of writing to The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared, I was in tears by the ending. It took a while to get into as frankly all that happened was Ove complaining about everything, but after a couple of chapters I was hooked.

'The Stranger in my Home' by Adele Parks

Reminded me of Gone Girl or Girl on a Train with the twist and suspense. Not as scary as I first thought, but an interesting read and thought provoking situation. 

'Six of Crows' and 'Crooked Kingdom' by Leigh Bardugo

These books are for fans of George RR Martin or Sarah J Maas. Epic fantasy series (there is a another trilogy set in the same world). Each chapter is told from the viewpoint of one of the six main characters whilst still following a main storyline. 

'Feversong' by Karen Marie Morning

Another fantasy book, and the conclusion of the Fever series. I have been hooked by MacKayla and Barrons' adventures since Darkfever and have had this on my wishlist for months. I have ended up with more questions than answers though with the ending, so hopefully the spin off series might resolve some of those!

I've had plenty of time to read this month as I've just had my half-term break (tomorrow is the beginning of a long stretch until Easter break!) and I should return to school rested and rejuvenated! And maybe even inspired to blog some more! Why not head over to Lucky to be in First and see her January bookshelf for more ideas?

Book Talk Tuesday

For today's link up with Mrs Jump's Book Talk Tuesday, I've chosen not a book I've used in the classroom but one I bought just yesterday for a present as it's the summer holidays after all! This is an absolutely adorable book called 'Buster's Farm'.

Buster's Farm is by Rod Campbell, the author of Dear Zoo (another favourite for my classroom) and apparently there are other Buster books available. This one is a touch and feel and has very cute pictures so hopefully will be well received by the baby I shall be meeting for the first time on Friday (let's hope her mother, a teacher friend of mine, doesn't read this before!) I love touch and feel books for babies and the reviews on Amazon claim this one is quite sturdy!

Why don't you head over to Mrs Jump's Class to find some other great book recommendations?

My Weird School - Must Read Monday

To be honest I was in two minds about recommending these books, however, due to the fact that both my class last year and this year have adored the series, I am going to.

The My Weird School series is by Dan Gutman and is about the adventures of A.J. and his classmates in Second Grade at Ella Mentary School. A.J. is your typically naughty, boisterous boy and frequently gets himself and his friends in trouble. The language can be a bit rude for my taste, but I edit out the words I don't like as I read aloud! The series is perfect though for introducing chapter books to children, which is why I've used them for the last couple of years. 

Some favourites of my class include:

Please head over to Teaching Maddeness for more suggestions of great books to read!

I appreciate myself!

Teacher Appreciation Week isn't really a big thing over here, but having read about it on so many blogs recently and of course, having joined in with the TpT sale especially for Teacher's Appreciation Week, I felt I could join in with the actual week. Except I decided to do the appreciating of myself. After all, we all deserve to spoil ourselves now and again! (That was my justification anyway!)

I used this wonderful excuse to make multiple purchases off my TpT wish list (yay for clipart!) which should be making their way into my next creations. I am slightly addicted to Creative Clips Monthly Clubs as its a surprise each week what we will get.

And then the Book Fair visited my school. Well that was just dangerous. I should never be left unsupervised around books. Especially books with a discount. Well let's just say it was my Teachers Appreciation Week gift (gifts!) to myself...

Also due to a technical hitch, the TpT sale has been extended, you still have a few more hours to shop so head on over there quick!

Must Read Monday - Susan Laughs

Even though its Tuesday, its in keeping with my linky party tradition to be a day late! So here is my Must Read for Monday (or Tuesday or any day of the week!).

This is a complete lucky find for me. I literally picked this book up off the library shelf amongst others when restocking my class book corner, then a child chose it for the before lunch story and I was blown away by it!

Susan Laughs is by Jeanne Willis, illustrated by Tony Ross (which I think is what attracted me to the cover). Its a simple story told in rhyming couplets (perfect as our English topic was rhyming poetry) with funny illustrations, however, its the end of the book which made me love it. On the very last page, you realise that Susan is in a wheelchair. When you then go back through the book, you realise that Susan is never unassisted in the pictures, and yet she manages to do everything other children can do. My class were fascinated and the discussion about diversity and differences was phenomenal, especially for a complete random book choice!

I highly recommend this book to all teachers of younger classes, although when I searched online, I also found lesson suggestions for older age groups on the Teaching English website. Also on that website is a whole list of books which promote diversity (my Amazon wish list just got longer!)

Go link up at Teaching Maddeness for more great books!

Storybook Sunday - Leaf Man

Another favourite book of mine, especially when I've taught in Reception (Kindergarten) is Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.

The best part of the book is without doubt the amazingly clever illustrations which are pictures completely made out of leaves.

The children are fascinated working out what they are. And of course, once we are done, we all head outside to look for our very own leaf men! This book is obviously best introduced in autumn. There is also a page at the end which allows the children to identify common leaves.

As I usually do a whole week on leaves and autumn, I often follow up Leaf Man with We're Going on a Leaf Hunt (based on a familiar story!) which is another gorgeous book to read about that time of year.

Go link up with Paula's Place for more great book suggestions on Storybook Sunday!

Must Read Mentor Text - Willy the Wizard

Linking up (a little late) with Collaboration Cuties' Must Read Mentor Text link up.

Just coming to the end of an English unit based around the story 'Willy the Wizard' by former Children's Laureate, Anthony Browne. The children love this unit every year (possibly because its an incredibly boy friendly book, even with my two-thirds girls class!) so thought I would share some of my favourite activities I do over the unit. 

Synopsis

Willy the Chimp loves football, but doesn't have any boots. One day he meets a mysterious stranger who gives him some 'magic' boots. Willy is fantastic! But on the day of the match, he forgets the boots, will he still be able to play as well?

Lessons

Verbs

Look at all the different words for Willy's football skills. Get out onto the playground with some footballs, show off our mad football skills, then write as many verbs to describe what we have been doing as possible on post-its.

Similes

Using different pictures of the setting (my favourite is the one of the old pie factory) get the children to create simple similes to describe what they can see. Once they get the structure of a simile, they all have really interesting views for comparison.

Story map

Draw a story map of the main events from the book. Orally rehearse this together along with actions to help them learn the structure of the story. Then help them change character/setting/events to map out their own imitated version of the story.

Must Read Mentor Text - The Great Pet Sale

This link up with Collaboration Cuties has a different focus each week, this week's being Maths and I've chosen one of my most useful books for Maths teaching. 'The Great Pet Sale' by Mick Inkpen. 

Synopsis

The little boy goes to the Pet Shop and looks at all the different animals he could by for different prices (in English pence) all the while being distracted by a rat who desperately wants to be bought. Each page has a lift-the-flap, great for younger readers and ends with a pull-out page to reveal the twist!

Lesson Plan

I start by sharing the book as normal, predicting the content from the cover/title. Relating to their own lives (Have you ever been to a pet shop? What can you buy there? etc) and then read the story. I usually point to each pet as I read as some of the animals are quite unusual. After a brief response to the story (likes/dislikes, events, characters), I focus on various pages asking children to read the price tags in the pictures. 

This leads onto a discussion about money and paying for things in a shop.

I set up a class role play pet shop. I tie price tags (differentiated) around stuffed toys necks and split the class into groups to 'buy' different pets they like with their pennies. We practice one-to-one counting out of the pennies for the different amounts. For higher ability children I ask them to buy two pets and add together the price tags to calculate the amount they need to give the 'shopkeeper' (me initially, but I allow the children to swop into this role). 

Later in the week, I give them cards with pet pictures and varying prices on to use for addition where they record their number sentences in their books. Can also be extended to subtraction and taking away with to work out change. 

Go link up (admittedly I'm linking on the last day of this theme, but at least I made it there before the subject changed!)

Gong xi fa chai (early!)

This topic probably ties with Christmas as one of my favourite topics to do with children in every part of the world I've taught in! I'm going to be teaching this for the 2 weeks leading up to the celebration and using some of the following 8 suggestions (8 because its a lucky number for Chinese!)

1. See-through lanterns for the windows made using tissue paper on tracing paper.

Fun Lesson Plans

2. Teaching ordinal numbers with the help of this video from the British Council called The Great Race. There is also another helpful video on that website called 'My favourite day - Chinese New Year' if you are looking for some simple background to the festival.

3. Last year I used a craft kit to make these lanterns with the children, but this year I may need to try and make my own since my school did not order another kit!

4. The children always love a bit of Chinese calligraphy. I give them some simple Chinese characters to copy such as numbers to 10. 

5. Chinese New Year cards. No picture of this as since the Zodiac year changes each year, I have to come up with something original. This year will be the Year of the Horse, so something horse-related I guess! Look out for pictures in a future blog post.

6. Always a popular end of unit event is to have the children all dress up either in Chinese cheong-sam or simply red (a lucky colour!) and then we taste some Chinese food. Remember if you are buying one for you, long ones are for married women, knee-length for unmarried.

7. Another one for improving gross motor skills is to have them take part in some traditional ribbon dancing. I tie long (1.5m) bits of ribbon to pieces of dowling wood and have the children attempt to copy youtube videos like the one below! 

8. Flicking through Bloglovin' and found this post from Clever Classroom about books she recommends for Chinese New Year. Some of my personal recommendations would include.

Let me know if you try out any of these too and Xin Nian Kuai Le!