Today I'm Thankful For

Today's Monday Meet Me from The Teaching Tribune is entitled 'Things I'm Thankful For'. Perfect link up for me!

I am thankful that the holidays are nearly here, only 4 teaching days left!

I am thankful that my housing situation has finally been sorted out and I got the keys yesterday to my lovely new flat!

And finally I am thankful that all my current class have progressed loads over the year and I can send them off to Year 2 ready and excited (I will miss them... though maybe not until after a few weeks of the summer holidays!)

Five for (almost still) Friday

It seems like a while since I've managed to be organised enough to link up for Doodlebugs' Five for Friday, but I've pulled together a couple of random bits from my week!

1

I was given this game to use in my classroom. My kidlets absolutely adore it (I think the novelty hasn't worn off yet!). It's great for fine motor control and even basic strategy. And will be even better at the beginning of the year for my new ones.

2

I had the beebots out in Maths last week, a great interactive way of teaching direction and turning (why do they still not know their left from their right?!) and will definitely be featuring more in my lessons next year when I have to teach basic programming as part of the curriculum change!

3

I grabbed another great freebie from The Teaching Tribune's Free Font Friday. I wish I was talented enough to create my own fonts!

4

Packing officially starts today for my house move... I've timed this perfectly with the end of term, its not like school is manic and I'll have plenty of time to have a relaxing move right?!?!?

5

Only 1 more week in school, then I can stop dying with jealously reading about everyone's summers and actually enjoy my own!! 

Springy Spiders - Tried and True Thursday

I've not done very well with linking up for Week 4 of Summer Bloggin' with The Teaching Tribune but I would like to share a quick post today for Tried and True Thursday.

Many years ago, I was at a car boot sale and I came across a Early Learning Centre game called Springy Spiders. Inside were four colourful spiders on elastic and some bugs with numbers on. The numbers only go up to 6, but it was the spiders I was more interested in.

Over the years, I've made several different sets of bugs to use with the spiders. Tricky words, the alphabet, numbers, cvc words, initial sound pictures, the possibilities are endless! All you have to do is attach a small circle of velcro (the hooks side) to the top of each bug and then the spiders can stick to them as they bounce! 

As it takes a while to play whole class, I usually have a couple of bugs on the go at once. A great starter, review or independent activity. Unfortunately my google search has not come up with any obvious places to buy the spiders now, but I think ebay may still sell some. 

I've got mail

So on Monday I was VERY excited to find out that I had not one, but two packages waiting for me after work (and its not even my birthday yet!) It's taken me until today to blog about it, but better late than never!

The first was from a local bookshop with a couple of teaching books I'd seen on sale, some summer reading for me!

But the second... was my SLANT box!!!

Now if you haven't heard of SLANT box, I highly recommend you head over to Lessons With Coffee as the June/July sign ups are still open until Sunday. SLANT boxes are 'spreading love across the nation' for teachers and I participated for the first time in May. I loved getting to know my partners and sent off my box to His and Her Hobbies a few weeks ago. And now mine from Miss Maths Dork has arrived!

Inside was...

Some super cute earrings, maths themed, how appropriate!

Some lovely pastel pens in all my favourite colours (can't wait to try these out)

And a personalised drinking cup in pink!

Thank you so much Jamie, I love it all!!

I'm taking a break from the next SLANT box because of moving house/spending the summer abroad, but I'll definitely be signing up again!

Just a quickie!

Am in full report-writing swing and haven't been able to sit down for a proper blog post this week yet (have a great one half-written!!) but I just wanted to pop by and join in for The Teaching Tribune's Summer Bloggin' link up because Tuesday's are a deal day and I wanted to let you all know which two products of mine I've put on sale for this week.

First up is a capital and lowercase letter matching game. Popular with my class, particularly useful for practising with those struggling with remembering what different capitals look like.

And also on sale is a recent addition to my TpT store, another set of tricky words, but with a cute chameleon theme. This is a combined set of all the tricky words covered in the UK Letters and Sounds programme, plus some blank cards for your words!

Click on the images to grab these for 50% off! 

On a side note, not sure I'll be able to join in next week's Two for Tuesday sale as all the rest of my products are either free or too cheap to be able to discount by 50% according to TpT! Hmm... where can I find some time to make some more products?!