Five For Friday

So it is Friday again - love, love, love Fridays! One of my most favourite things about Friday is the 'Five for Friday' link up! Oh yeah, nothing better than looking back over the week to find 5 random, nutty things I have done. And trust me, there is a lot to pick from, because at this fabulous stage of my life, I am embracing being a a random-kind-of-girl.

1. 

Fridays are super. No more needs to be said about that one, I have decided. 

Keepin' it clean and simple.

2. 

Buttons. Told you. Just call me Mrs Random. They are bright. They are cute. They are just so damn handy. Electric - I know. Stay tuned for exciting news about buttons. 

3. 

2 best mates, eating apples on the lounge. Not a care in the world. I feel better about the next photo, if I show you that we do indeed eat healthy stuff, here at 'The Pond'.

4. 

McFeast is back. Yes, you heard it right here. Me and McFeast go way back, and I have been sad since McDonalds gave it early retirement. I mean, why would you DO that to something so delicious?! I have never understood. 

It is back, and I took to the park to celebrate.

Look, I understand its not the healthiest of relationships, but I live by a 90-10 rule. 90% healthy, 10% trash. 

5.

I haven't just wrapped my mouth around a burger this week. I am putting my money where my mouth is! I tell you I love you, so I am showing you with a few opportunities to win $$ to spend at the upcoming TpT sale! I LOVE sale days and having a gift voucher to spend makes it even better!

Enter the rafflecopter on my post HERE to be in the chance to win a voucher - and stay tuned - there is more fun to come!

Have a great day friends - thanks so much for stopping by!

Are you SALE ready?

You will be hearing a LOT over the next few days, about the HUGE sale at TpT! 

Excitement is building already. I need a plan for these sales, because I get all worked up on sale day and flit from one page to another, in a nervous bundle of energy, and ALWAYS forget half the things I want to buy. 

Here are some tips to help you get prepared and to make the MOST out of the sale! If you are prepared, you can make some very valuable purchases that will change the way you teach, and design, this school year!

OK, let's go!

You have a few days to get your wishlist stocked up. What is a wishlist? As you scroll through the resources listed on TpT, you will see a clickable option called "Add to Wishlist". These items will be added to a virtual list in your account, from which you can easily take items quickly through to the checkout, on sale day. 

If something is on your wishlist, you don't HAVE to purchase it, but it makes it a lot easier to find! I constantly add things to my wish list, almost like a virtual sticky-note service. Its a great way to remind yourself of things you want to take a closer look at, or that you want to snapple up on sale day! 

What?! You don't know how to 'snapple' - I don't really blame you, cause I just made that up. But just imagine the thrill of finding awesome things online + the excitement of a bargain + 2 discounts +  a sneaky grin on your face because you just became an even more brilliant teacher - aha - you getting the picture - now you know how to snapple.

Go through TpT over the next few days and add things to your wish list with abandon. You can then comb through your wish list later on sale day, and decide which items to take through to the checkout!

Sort, baby, sort! USE the awesome sort functions TpT has provided, to find great items that you may never have seen before. I LOVE to search by 'Most Recently Listed' to find things that are hot off the press - particularly clip art sets!

A HUGE favourite of mine, for sale day, is to search by price. I like to buy all the HUGE bundles, ultimate and mega packs, on sale day. They are often the most expensive, but on sale day, they make for particularly VALUABLE purchases! With up to 28% off already discounted bundles, it is most defiantly the time to BUNDLE UP AND SAVE!

When you search by Price Descending, these bundles will pop up on the top of your search result list, so you can easily find them! 

Use multiple sort functions to narrow down what will suit you most. For example, you could search Kindergarten-Math-Games-Price Descending 

Talk to your online friends about what they are purchasing. Take advantage of the very generous 'multiple licenses' that most sellers provide. 

When you add an item to your cart, you can also buy an additional license - so you can share one with a friend, and then split the cost. So if you buy something for $8 and pay a $4 license to share it with one of your teaching colleagues, you can both arrange with one another to pay $6 each! Plus you will be getting the discount on sale day! 

Your friends will have some great ideas about what they are purchasing - you may even decide to snapple something up that you had not thought of before!

Keep a look out on social media over the next few days. A ton of wonderful sellers will be offering you chances to win TpT gift vouchers, or score bonus 'buy one get one free' style deals. Enter as many as you can, and you could WIN vouchers to spend over the sale! Woohoo!!

Starting with me! I am going to give away 10 $10 TpT gift vouchers! All you have to do is enter the rafflecopter below. If you would like an extra chance to win, you can pin something from my store, but a basic entry requires you to do nothing but just visit this page!

Thanks so much for visiting, and don't forget to hurry and go get ready for the sale!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

School Bugs

I saw this adorable book 'School Bugs' yesterday at the shops, and I knew I had to have it. It made me think of the beautiful Kacey over at Doodle Bug Teaching! If I lived closer to her, I would have dropped it over to her house by now, as a gift! 

It is perfect for linking up to Deanna's 'We Love Books" linky! Click on the image below to find more books posts!

I would love to read School Bugs (by David A Carter) at the beginning of the school year. I normally like to read "Who's Behind the Door At School" before exploring the school to see who is REALLY behind the doors! This book follows a similar theme. 

Take a look at that adorable red schoolhouse. Are you as obsessed with children's book illustrations as I am?! The book asks the reader "Who's in the little red schoolhouse?"

And answers, "It's your new buggy classmates and your nice teacher too".... and this pops out.....

Adorable! And no photo will do it justice. I spent a long time looking at all the bugs in this book. It will be a hit with your students - there is so much to see!

The book then travels through different places at school and asks 'who' is hiding.

The reading box, the art box, the math box, sports box, lunch box, history, music and science box! 

Look at these precious spelling bees! 

The book concludes with an amazing playground of bugs! It is truly captivating! 

I think this book makes such a wonderful introduction to the idea of different aspects and people at school. It would make a great catalyst for discussion on being together at school, yet celebrating the diversity of people and subjects. 

Not to mention the delicious illustrations. Yes, I just said delicious to describe bugs. They are ADORABLE! 

Your students will be itching to have a go at drawing some too, I just know it. My daughter was captivated with the fun, bright and whimsical illustrations.

I made this little directed drawing worksheet, should you like to give your students a little guidance with their drawing!

We did one in my new favourite pencils - Micador Colourfun Pencils - they are water-soluble! 

After colouring, you can dab on a little water with a fine brush

to achieve a watercolour effect! Love that too! 

You can grab this worksheet from google drive by clicking

HERE

And also, find more directed drawings in my TpT store! 

Thank you so much for stopping by, and remember to head over to Deanna's blog to find more adorable children's books!

Write the Room - At Your Desk

Do you love 'Write the Room' activities?! I do, and my students certainly always have too. 

I have an idea I want to share with you, that is a twist on your traditional 'WTR'. I am not sure if they are commonly known as 'WTR' - I just made that up. I think it will stick.

If not, I can reuse it as 'Wednesdays Totally Rock'. And they do.

Or even... "What The.....Really?". I use that a lot. 

OK, so,  you may need to modify your usual WTR, to add variety to your lessons, for student mobility issues - or even maybe just because you have tiny, very itty bitty classroom, and you have run out of blue-tac. 

Or maybe, you just need to have a rest from them walking all over the place. You know how it gets?! 

To do a 'Write-The-Room-At-Your-Desk' (let's just call it a WTRAYD) - you need to gather some recording sheets, a mini photo book/album, word cards, a marker and if you love keeping-it-cute - a cute cover page for your book!

Number the pages of your mini photo book with a permanent marker. Mark the pages randomly - that way your students will have to search for the words, rather than write them out in page-turning order. 

Now, after you have written a number, make sure its dry before you turn the page. 

I didn't know to do that, but now I do. 

Now you can slide in, whatever cards you want to use, and switch them out to cater for different needs and levels in your classroom. 

You can use flashcards, word wall cards, picture cards, write-and-wipe cards, sight word cards, number cards - you name it! 

Students will search through the book, instead of around the room, to find their words! 

You may not be bale to have one of these for every student, so it makes a great small-group-activity, a center or even a fast-finisher activity. 

Use your imagination  to make it more challenging for your students. You can use up lots of those sets of flashcards that you never get to use, and reuse old word wall cards that get neglected cause they are not cute. 

You can certainly use this idea to make your own WTRAYD activity set in your classroom, out of materials you have, but if you need a little bit of structure, like me, I have made a packet of printables to help get you started!

Yay, I just love a printable!

It includes some basic and monthly-themed recording sheets and s cute little cover to make it - well, cute.

And it is on sale for today, so head on over to my TpT store if you would like to check it out!

Thank you so much for stopping by, and I hope this idea helps you!

Apple Classroom Art Project

Do you need an apple themed art project idea? Well here is one idea for you! 

Here is how we did it:

1. Start by painting a sheet of newspaper green and another one red. Use thinned paint, or watercolours. I used a nice big fat sponge brush. 

2. Wait for it to dry. Then freehand sketch some apple shapes....

and some leaves, using crayons.

3. Cut out the shapes and experiment with different layering and arrangements on a black card stock background page. Once you have decided - use a glue stick to stick them down. Apply the glue right to the edge of each piece. 

4. Wait for the glue to dry, and then use crayons or oil pastel to add patterned detail to the apples and background. 

I love the effect of water-colour on newspaper and students love seeing how you can turn something old into something bright fun and new!

I have an 'Art Ideas for Kids' pinterest board, if you would like to get some more ideas for fun classroom art lessons. Find and follow my board HERE

If you need more back to school art ideas, I have just finished some 'directed drawing' worksheets. Click on the image below to find this packet in my TpT store! 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Double Apple Number Game Freebie

It is the final 2 days of my Christmas in July sale!

I wanted to finish with a set that I have been tinkering on for about six months! It is my latest 'Ultimate Collection' of number games. 

These games consolidate essential basic number skills - and expose students to numbers up to 30!

For the next 2 days, you can snatch up this set at 50% off! It's a teeny tiny $7.50!

Let's take a closer look!

It includes Blast Off, Addition Zoo and Apple Baskets....

Beep Beep, Crayon Order and Ocean Order....

Sum Power, Double Apple and Frog Bingo...

Cupcake Times, Frog Count, Hop to It.... 

Number Hunt, Candy, Number Detective..... 

Three by Three, Butterfly, Wiggle Worm and Add Loop!

These games will (in total), help your students to:

- Order numbers up to 30 from least to greatest (random selections)
- complete 2 digit addition
- multiply numbers 1-6
- determine greater/less than in numbers 1-30 
- identify number combinations that make 30 (3 numbers)
- subtract 5 from numbers 21-30
- identify and order numbers 1-30 (random starting positions)
- double numbers 8-15
- subtract numbers from 30
- double digit addition
- multiply by 3
- recall addition facts to 25
- model division by sharing into equal groups
- order number
- identity before/after
- identify odd and even numbers
- multiply numbers up to 6 (up to 36)

One of my favourites is Wiggle Worm. Students work toward collecting sections of the worm to make a forward-counting- number-sequence!

Double Apple can be played by 2 or more players. Students will spin a number from 8-15 and double it. 

A worksheet version is also provided, for students to complete as a follow-up or independent game alternative. 

I would love you to try it for FREE! 

It is in Google Drive, and you can download it HERE

To find more fabulous sales, head over to Blog Hoppin' to see who linked up!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today - I will see you very soon!