Back to School! - And a couple of FREEBIES!

Hello out there! Wow, it feels like it has been AGES since my last post! So let's kick off the term with a look at what we have been up to in Prep C this week, and with a few FREEBIES!

Every morning in Prep, we start off with Circle Time, and I decided to kick the term off with a good dose of kindness!

We began the week by reading 'Have You Filled a Bucket Today?' by Carol McCloud. We created an anchor chart together using a FREEBIE from Scholastic and some bucket pictures I found online. You can download these by clicking the link below. We also talked about ways we were kind to people on the holidays and recorded them on a mind map on the board. We referred to this throughout the day.

Another day we read 'Pig the Pug' by Aaron Blabey and brainstormed all the ways we share in the classroom.

Finally on Friday we watched an online reading of the beautiful story 'Chrysanthemum' by Kevin Henkes and completed an adorable activity I found on Pinterest by 'Keepin' it Kool in Kinderland.' I showed the children a large red heart cut out of cardboard and explained that this was Chrysanthemum's heart - full and happy. Throughout the story we folded it over and over again each time the other mice hurt her feelings. At the end we unfolded it and talked about how even though she felt better and her heart was back in the right shape, we could still see the creases from where she was hurt. We stuck a poem in the centre and hung it up on the wall as a reminder to think before we speak. You can grab this FREEBIE and read more about Khrys' lesson by clicking the link below.

FREEBIE Link to Bucket Filler Anchor Chart - Scholastic 

FREEBIE Link to Heart Poem - Keepin' it Kool in Kinderland

Our sound of the week this week was the 'Long U' sound. As a class we built an anchor chart of the sound, completed a spelling sort and even made our own unicorns after reading a class favourite 'Thelma the Unicorn' by Aaron Blabey!

We made did puzzles, built words and completed a handwriting sheet in our rotations.

If you click on the image below you will find a document with some FREEBIES to teach this sound in your own classroom - including the template for the adorable unicorn craft! Just add some foil for the horn and hooves, and coloured paper strips for the mane and tail.

We reviewed our phonics skills with these super fun letter punch cards from Doodle Bugs Teaching, and Syllable Fluency and Fitness by Tickled Pink in Primary. $2 hole punches from Kmart and it was well worth the little mess they made!

For number sense in maths this term we are focusing on how to show numbers in different ways. On Wednesday we completed an 'All about the number... 8' activity on the whiteboard, then later in the week we worked on tally marks in particular. We worked together to play 'Puppy Pick and Match' and matched tally mark bones to puppies. This was such a favourite that I left them out for the kiddies to play with during free choice math groups. Afterwards, we played another Fluency and Fitness game from Tickled Pink in Primary for number sense using tally marks. We sat on the carpet and write each number we saw on whiteboards and at the end completed the fun fitness activities - and LOVED IT!

If you click on the image below I have also shared my 'Puppy Pick and Match' activity for you all!

Finally, we also kicked off our new Health unit this week. We will be learning all about being safe in different places and situations throughout the term. This week we started by reading 'Monkey Needs to Listen - A book about paying attention' by Sue Graves from the 'Behaviour Matters' collection.

(Can I just say - this collection of books is AMAZING!!! I purchased the set through Scholastic Book Club and I can tell you now, they were well worth the investment! This particular book I have read 4 or 5 times with this class alone and they still love to hear it. And a heads up, if you have the new TBS Book Club catalogue, you will find them in there. I highly recommend them. If you want to check out the other titles just search 'Behaviour Matters Books' in Google and you will find them.)

Anyway, back to our unit. Before our story we looked at our own classroom rules and discussed how we have rules for lots of reasons - getting along, working, playing and most importantly, for safety. After we read our story, we talked about how when Monkey made the choice not to listen, he put himself in danger and spoiled a very fun activity for all of his friends. We then completed a sort of safe and unsafe choices we can make in the classroom which I then turned into an anchor chart to display and refer to throughout the term. At the end of the lesson, the children drew a picture of themselves doing something safe in the classroom. This was a great way to start back at school after 2 weeks off to review our classroom rules, and recover WHY it is important that we follow them.

If you click on the image below, you will also find a document with this safe/unsafe choices sort for you to use in your own classroom.

Well it has been a long short first week back and I am now off to do some well-earned relaxing!

How was your week?