I've moved!

I relocated from sub tropical Brisbane to Melbourne where I am now teaching a class of Prep/ Foundation year students who are mostly 5 years old. This year is referred to as Kindergarten in the USA. My new blog is a collection of engaging literacy and numeracy games suitable for this year level.

Prep Wonderful

Time

Teaching how to tell time can be difficult for teachers and learning how to tell time can be confusing for students.  Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs has a list of wonderful resources for teachers to use.  It's for students to learn how to tell time, no matter what age and ability.  Thanks to Lulu Chen for this link.

A few more Maths links:

This fun space invader game starts at level 1 but then becomes trickier. Click on this blue hyper link Fun School Space Invaders

This site is a must. There are no fancy graphics but it allows students to show their working on the page which is great for regrouping (carrying tens). Click on this link: Learn4good

Click on this link if you're looking for a challenge: Magic Square

These links and more can be found at ICT Magic.

Week 6

http://www.ictgames.com/hickory4.html Click on the blue hyperlink to find a fun game. Click on the correct clock to leave the mouse a piece of cheese.

http://www.learningbox.com/Base10/BaseTen.html Click on this blue hyperlink to find a MAB game. Click on the small 100 button to make the game more tricky.

Back in ones.http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/spookyseq/spookycb1.html Click on these blue hyperlinks to revise patterns skip counting.

In 3s 
In 5s
In 10s
Back in 10s
Back in 5s
Back in 2s


http://www.ictgames.com/funkymum.html    A fun addition game:

Doubles practise

You can practise your DOUBLES at this website. Click on the blue hyperlink.

Suggested homework links...

Maths:


Click on the DogBone link on the right hand side.
To get started: look at the number provided eg 13. Look at the 100s chart and click on the square where you expect to find number 13.  Try to use strategies to save time.


Click on the Rainbow Pairs link. You will find a game called Number Twins. Choose the number 10 to work on. Click on all the rainbow pairs (2 numbers that add to 10) that are next to each other. The numbers can be separated by spaces. No diagonals allowed.


Go to the Maths Lines link at ABCya. Click on Grade 3. Look for the maths lines game. Choose to add to 10.  Your cannon has a numbered ball eg 3. Aim at any number 7 and shoot it to earn points.


Have fun!

Welcome!

The 2011 Awesome Explorers have all moved up to year 3 and are split between 5 different classes. My new group of 23 students have already been at school for 2 full weeks.

All teachers in Queensland schools now follow the quality C2C curriculum which carefully lays out exactly what teachers will be teaching every lesson in English, Maths and Science. The focus of this blog will therefore shift from from sharing what is happening inside the classroom to that of a being a resource for parents to access elearning links.

Staff and students may no longer access web2 tools at school that collect information outside of Australia. Sites such as Glogster, Twitter, Dropbox, Diigo, Evernote etc are blocked. These measures have been taken to ensure maximum cyber safety for our students. To my knowledge, all classroom blogs in Queensland, using external platforms, now function as a message board for parents and as a collection of resources.

Class teachers and students have the opportunity to blog within Education Queensland's fabulous Learning Place but cannot for obvious reasons make global connections.

I, yet again, have a delightful class and am excited by all the opportunities that 2012 offers. I wish all my regular readers and new readers a wonderful 2012.

Congratulations Joel!

Joel graded to his green belt (4th belt) in jujitsu on Saturday 3 December!

As previously mentioned, please let me know about any other Team 2A achievements that we can share on the blog!

Christmas decoration- amazing stained glass windows

We made our pictures translucent by rubbing oil on the back of them.

Perfectly planned cities

We've been donning our town planning hats as we explored a recent iMaths investigation.

Our perfect towns included features such as emergency services, dog parks, helipads, power lines, movie theatres and railway lines. In Australia, our large cities are almost all near the sea so we included beaches too!

Christmas decoration- Christmas advent chains

These chains hang from bells. There are 25 links and the students are breaking a chain a day so that they can count down to Christmas Day.

Here is a close-up of the poem inside the bell.

Christmas decoration- pine cone angels

Dylan's Mum donated a bag of lovely pine cones. Using one of Mrs Hilliers' many fabulous art ideas we used them to make these angels. They have ribbon wings and little twine (or thin ribbon) arms. The students carefully painted glitter glue splotches to add some festive sparkle.

Show and Share- puppet show!

We had a wonderful week of entertaining Show and Share puppet shows. Yeju made these delightful puppets herself.

Congratulations Amber!

Amber was awarded a medal and a certificate from the Royal Academy of Dance in London for Primary Dance and on the 16/11/2011 she was awarded a distinction with perfect marks for use of space, expression and recall. 

We'd love to celebrate with any other Team 2A  members who have had concerts/ exams/ extra mural/curricular activities. Success includes participating and enjoying yourself so don't feel shy! You don't have to share your results!

Hatching ducklings in the classroom

It takes a brave teacher to hatch chickens or ducklings in a classroom. You have the responsibility of finding good homes for a large number of little lives. Luckily, Catherine knew a family (with a pond) who were looking for ducks...

These little guys go home every night in a large plastic tub (with the floor covered with a layer of straw). You can see what a wonderful wetland they have during the day. When it rains, they make a gorgeous waddling of ducklings as they splash in puddles outside on the school oval. The school has a fabulous vege garden which means, in addition to their regular duck pellets, constant treats are in supply.

An area in the classroom was allocated to the ducklings.

Bags of sand and a swimming tub were brought in.

A brick is a useful stepping stone.

How did a duckling ever manage to fit in there?

The graphing possibilities are endless.

There are milk bottles, filled with water, inside the box barricade to give it stability.

The box barricade is lined with black plastic.

It's exhausting being a duckling! The little coloured stripes help identify which duckling is which.