Phonics Charts

I was looking for some sound charts and was even thinking I might make some myself. 

Then I found these FANTASTIC Phonics charts on Amy Lemon's Blog.

She has made charts for the alphabet as well as digraphs.

They are SO cute and they are FREE!!

She posted them 2 years ago
I can't believe I have never seen them before.
 

They would make a great display for your classroom.

 

If you haven't seen them, you should check them out. You won't be disappointed. 

Go to Amy's blog HERE

I Spy With My Little Eye

Eye spy is such a fun game to reinforce sounds with your little ones. 

My Eye Spy sounds activities can be done for morning work as a class or your little ones can complete a worksheet individually.

I have made a worksheet for each letter of the alphabet as well as a fun graph activity and revision sheets for your little ones to do.

If you are interested, these activities are available at TPT HERE. 

Happy teaching.

What have we been doing?

I didn't realise it was so long since I blogged. 

My oh my time slips by so quickly when you are on Kindergarten or does it pass by slowly? Mmm..

I am always glad when Term 1 is over.

The beginning of Kindergarten is such a busy time. 

I have a lovely class and I am really enjoying teaching them. 

They have been working so well but oh boy I am 'zapped' by the end of the day.

We have been super busy and I have lots to share with you.

I thought I might share our valentines activities first. 
I know it was 2 weeks ago but our room looks bright and cheerful with our colourful hearts.

We have been doing a Colours Unit so we did some fun activities for Valentines Day that fitted in perfectly.

I made this pocket chart and emergent reader called 'Hearty Fun' .
I forgot to take photos  but here is a peek at the activity.

We also did these cute hearts and writing activity. 

These activities are available at TPT HERE.

Maybe for next year!
 

Happy teaching!

It's a Giveaway

Shanyn from 

Coffee, Kids and Compulsive Lists 

has got 500 followers and to celebrate she is having a giveaway.

She is a teacher from down here in OZ and she has some great ideas.

 Shanyn is offering a lucky winner the choice of three products from her store.

So pop on over to her blog 

Coffee, Kids and Compulsive Lists 

 and check it out.

Happy Teaching

High Fequency Word Bingo

There are some great sites for interactive games but one that I particularly like is
 ICT Games.

One of the games is called 
High Frequency Word Bingo.

It's great for an interactive whiteboard but you could do it using the computer. 

There are different levels of difficulty and the bingo sheets are available for you to download 

and copy.

My little ones love this game. I usually do this as a whole class.

It has a button to 'push' and then the words roll until it stops at one.
You are able to check the words used when someone calls bingo.   

If you haven't seen this game, you should check it out. 

HERE

I know you will love it and so will your students.

 

Fun with Penguins

I think children and adults love penguins. 

They are so cute and fascinating.

A number of years ago my hubby and I went down to Melbourne to Phillip Island to see the fairy penguins coming back from their day at sea. 

Watching the penguins come onto the beach was so interesting. At dusk the penguins would start coming in on the waves. There would be a group of about 20 to 30 penguins and they would ride the waves in.  
Once on the beach, they seemed to know if all the group was there. If it wasn't, they would go back into the surf and a few minutes later they would come back onto the sand.

This routine could happen several times before they would be ready to head up the beach to the sand dunes and to their burrows.

Once the group was assembled they would waddle up into the sand hills to their hungry chicks.

 The chicks were eagerly waiting in their burrow, it was the cutest sight. 
Sometimes the chicks would come out of their burrows and harass the penguins as they came past as if to say...

"Are you my mother?"

 There were several groups of penguins all along the beach coming in from a day at sea and as the night fell the beach was full of fairy penguins. It was a wonderful sight.

If you get the chance you should visit the little fairy penguins at Phillip Island, you won't be disappointed.

   

I worried for the chicks whose parents did not return. 

I know, I am one big 'softy'.

Anyway.... 

 

My class learned about penguins and my little ones were like sponges and soaked it all up. 

Before we started the unit we talked about what we know about penguins.

 

We made a Penguin Facts book and I was so impressed with my students' writing. 

As we learned new information we completed pages in the book.

 

We also did a penguin Glyph.

 We talked about the food that penguins eat and what animals are predators of penguins.

We did a penguin food chain in our journals...

 We also did some measuring. 

We estimated whether we would be taller, shorter or the same height as the emperor penguin.

 Of course we had to check our estimate.

I have a life size blow-up emperor penguin so we were able to compare our size next to the 'real' thing! Well sort of the real thing.

The emperor penguin is rather huge.

We also made a little reader , The Itty Bitty Penguin.

I did a pocket chart activity and then my little ones made their own book to take home.

 My little ones had a lot of fun learning about penguins and so did I!!

We did lots of other literacy and maths activities.

 

I finally put all my activities together and it is available on TPT HERE 

Happy teaching.

 

 

Pink!

Have you read the story Pink! by Lynne Rickards to your students?

In the story, we meet Patrick, a little penguin who wakes up one morning to find his world has been turned upside down. He’s turned pink! Patrick leaves his home and friends to find where he fits in but at the end, he realises that his friends still like him no matter what he looks like.

We also read  It's Okay to be Different by Todd Parr.

Both these books are great books to talk about diversity with your students.

We did a penguin craftivity and wrote about:

It's Okay to be Different

It is important for students to realise that it’s okay if they are different and they’ll still be accepted and have friends. 

We also wrote about 'What is a friend?'

You can download a copy of this writing sheet HERE

I have put a mini unit together with activities to go with the story 'Pink!'

The unit will help your students accept who they are and realise 
it IS okay to be different!

 

The Pink penguin craftivity and other activities are available 
at TPT HERE

Happy teaching

Gone Fishing ~ Maths Game Freebie

Here is a maths game I know your little ones will love. There are 3 variations of the activity so you can cater for the different levels in your classroom.

I have also included black and white copies if you prefer to save on ink.

 

You can download this for free from TPT HERE.

Happy teaching

Happy New Year

It's hard  to believe another year is over.

My New Year's Eve was very exciting. 

We have friends who have an apartment on Sydney Harbour. 

We went to Sydney and stayed with them for the night and had a party. 

 Here is my hubby with some of the guests at the party.  
Don't you love the crazy glasses and hat!

 

Instead of fighting the crowds that gather to watch the fireworks, we had the best view ever from their balcony.

Sydney is famous for its New Year's Eve fireworks. 

 I took some photos of the fireworks but my photos did not turn out very well. 

I found this photo on google and this is what we could see from our friend's balcony.

It was   S-P-E-C-T-A-C-U-L-U-A-R!!

2012 was a new adventure for me . Instead of blog stalking, I took the plunge and became a blogger myself. It has been an exciting journey and I love all the new friends that I have made. 

Blogging has certainly made me a better  teacher. 

I get so many new and wonderful ideas from teachers all around the world and of course the winners are the children I teach.



To celebrate the new year, I am having a SALE.

 Graphics by Hope King
 

To all my friends I send you my love and wish you a year full of  love, laughter and good health. 
 

Fun in the Snow.

It is Summer down here in Australia and we are having great weather. 

I love the warm weather but I also like it when it's cold. 

We had a lot of fun when it was winter doing lots of fun snowman activities.

Here is a peek at what we did.

 We did a snowman glyph.

My little ones did such a great job.

We wrote about our snowman.

We labeled a snowman.

We also read 

Snowmen at Night and Snowmen All Year 
by Caralyn Buehner

We did a fun craftivity about Snowmen at Night and did a writing activity
If I were a snowman at night. . .
 

We read some poems and also did this snowman poetry craftivity.

We did lots of other activities. 
Here is a preview of the activities. 

 

All these activities are available at TPT HERE

Happy teaching