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!

Top Ten Tips

Forgive me for the constant link ups that seem to be the only times I've managed to post recently! But I see one and then I can't resist! Today's is with Love, Laughter and Learning in Prep with some tips for those just embarking on their teaching careers (let's not ask how long ago that was for me!)

1. Top Tip for Classroom Organisation

Label everything and remember to file (or bin!) everything and anything that you aren't using that week. A messy desk and classroom lowers efficiency and productiveness. Plus if the children get trained where everything goes, you have to tidy up less! 

2. Top Tip for Behaviour Management

I've always used the Happy/Sad face idea for my tinies. Everyone starts with their name on the happy face. And telling them that moving them onto the sad face has made you sad by their behaviour. I think of it as a warning stage before the whole consequences of the whole school system. 

3. Top Tip for Being a Team Player

Pull your own weight. Share resources and ideas you have with your fellow staff and they will share with you. Remember they are likely to have more ideas to fall back on, but that doesn't mean you can't come up with some great inspirations too. Looking on teaching blogs helps!

4. Top Tip for Time Management

Write to-do lists, whether on paper or on your computer, make sure you write things down. Especially deadlines! I have a star system on Sticky Notes on my laptop where the closer to needing to be done, the more stars! And nothing so satisfying as being able to cross stuff off.

5. Top Tip for Engaging Students

Have a 'hook-in' to get their attention right at the start. This can be as simple as using a great context to set your learning objective around or an interactive, practical game or even a quick ICT link with a game or video on the board. 

6. Top Tip for Getting Along with Parents

Be polite, even if they are not. Answer any queries promptly and explained in parent-speak, not teacher-speak (think child-speak with slightly longer words). And write thank you cards for Christmas/end of year gifts!

7. Top Tip for Teacher Fashion

Wear whatever is comfortable and machine washable! Black trousers are great, but invest in a few 'power outfits' for those parent-teacher meetings (I do this to make myself look more grown up as I have the mixed blessing of looking about 10 years younger than my actual age)

8. Top Tip for Bargain Hunting

My most recent tip for this would be checking out the freebies available from teaching blogs! A great place to start is the weekly Freebie Friday link up hosted by Teaching Blog Addicts, but also keep an eye on your favourite bloggers for flash deals on TpT. 

9. Top Tip for Eating Well at School

East breakfast! But also have some 'healthy' snacks squirrelled away in a drawer for when the munchies hit, I personally like cereal bars and my personal favourite (which I beg everyone visiting me to bring a box from the UK) Belvita! 

10. Top Tip for Staying Sane

Have a social life outside of teaching. By all means be friends with teachers from other schools and your colleagues, but have time with friends where you are not 'talking shop' all the time. But equally, have someone unconnected with your school life who you can moan too and say all the unprofessional things you can't to your colleagues (obviously you must trust this person implicitly!). 

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!!

New Year, new products

Happy New Year wallpapers

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.