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I put a spell on you!

15 May 2012

This term I have introduced a formal spelling program with my students. Each week we learn 6 words from a new word family. I usually do 5 simple cvc words and one challenge word, usually a ccvc word. The spelling lists I use are under the word family section in core literacy.
Each day my students complete a look, cover, visualise, write, check. On the 1st day we go through the words and sound them out together p-et makes pet, j-et makes jet etc We then go to our spelling books and circle the 'et' sound in all the words. We have now included an editable 'my spelling words' for you to enter your own spelling words into
To help students practise their spelling words I send them home in their take home folder to read and write every night. Along with this you might like to send home the 'tic, tac, toe spelling homework sheet' where students complete a different spelling activity each night.
As we practise these words we complete different activities during the week - on the current spelling list and revising previous spelling lists. One of our favourites is the 'Speed Reader' activity. Students practise reading the words and are timed 3 times to see if they can improve the speed each time! Download the speed readers under each word family. The 'et' one is available here.
The words that are learnt are also placed onto our 'wonderful word family tree'. This is our next blog post so please check back in a couple of days!
At the end of the week we complete a spelling test using the words. Sometime iI may try to trick them and give them a challenge word at the end which we haven't learnt but use the word family in it. This test I added the word bat to see if the students could transfer their knowledge of the 'at' sound into new words.

'Remember keep calm and pretend it's on the lesson plan'

Top Teacher xx

Hear all about it!!

13 May 2012

I use this activity to assess my students' ability to hear initial sounds. This is the first step in hearing different sounds in words, and is a very important skill to begin reading and writing.

As I place this in my students portfolios and they are A3 size I enlarge the template onto A3 coloured card.

I laminate the image cards, and one at a time show each image to the student. As I show the image (ball for example) I ask them 'What is the first sound you hear in ball?'

If they get they get it right I place a sticker into that box (you could also stamp it or just tick the box).

'Remember keep calm and pretend it's on the lesson plan!'

Top Teacher xx

Mother's day Madness!

11 May 2012

Today was filled with lots of Mother's Day activities

that well and truly kept us busy and on our toes!

On the agenda was Mothers' Day cards,questionnaires,

flower bouquets and love heart cookies!

First we made our Mother's Day flower bouquet using handprints and our photos.

Using a paper cup we painted it and then when dry decorated it with ribbon, gems, buttons and sequins.
Paint both of your students hands and make prints. Cut up one pipecleaner into thirds for each student.
We took each child's photo and glued it into a tulip template which the students had cut out. We attached the tulip, and both hand prints to a piece of pipecleaner. We then pressed them into a small ball of blu-tack. Inside the cup we loosley scrunched up one piece of newspaper so it was level with the top of the cup.
To finish we placed the ball of blu-tack with the flowers into the cup and filled the top with green tissue paper behind and in front to make it stand up properly and stay in shape. unfortunately we cannot show the child's photo inside the tulip but they were very cute!

We completed hand print cards and a mother's day questionnaire

We folded A4 card in half and on the fold we printed the student's handprint. When it was dry we cut around it and inbetween the thumb and pointer finger to make a heart shape when opened up.

When opened up we wrote to our mums on their other side.

Using this mother's day questionnaire template, I asked the students the questions and recorded their answers. (I reduced my template to A5)

We placed both items together onto black A4 card to give to their mums!

The best part of the day was creating hear shaped mother's day shortbread cookies

Using this simple short bread recipe we made cookies using heart shaped cutters.

We decorated them with pink icing and sprinkles.

We tested them before we gave them to our Mums and they were super delicious!!

Top Teacher wishes everyone a Happy Mother's Day!

'Remember keep calm and pretend it's on the lesson plan!'

Top Teacher xx

Our Heroes!

10 May 2012

In Australia we have just celebrated ANZAC Day and we know the US is soon to be celebrating Memorial Day. We remember all the of the brave soldiers who have and are fighting for our country.

My kids enjoyed reading the story 'My Grandad Marches on ANZAC Day', and watching a video showing pictures of soldiers in the uniforms from WW1 all the way up people marching in the ANZAC Parade today.

We talked about what a soldier does and qualities they possess. We all agreed the soldiers were very brave and helped to make Australia the best country in the world(in our opinion anyway!). Students were asked to write one thing to describe a soldier. (Template here)

We then made our own soldier to go with our writing. I created this simple soldier template for students to cut out and put together. They cut out the body, arms, legs and hat out in brown card and then they got to choose the colour face of their soldier.

We sponge painted the uniform with brown and green paint, and added wiggly eyes, a nose and mouth to the face. Then we added the Australian flag.

It is said ANZAC biscuits were sent by anxious wives and mothers to soldiers fighting in the war. We made our own ANZAC Day biscuits and they were very yummy!! This a link to the recipe we used.

'Remember keep calm and pretend it's on the lesson plan'

Top Teacher xx

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