Classroom Theme



Have you a room theme in your classroom? Last year I created a 'Bus Bee and Butterfly Classroom Labels' pack that will help you create a fun, cohesive but INEXPENSIVE room theme. These pieces are all fully editable - you get the MS Word file (changes sizes and add text) and they only require blackline printing. Just add colour paper to make a statement. I printed some out in three main colours, but you could print each part in a different colour to incorporate a rainbow theme as well. 


Each section (Bee, Bug or Butterfly) contains a huge range of sizes and styles to choose from! You could use all three main styles, or just choose one!


Find it at TpT here! It is on sale for this weekend.


Keeping My Little Butterfly Busy



While all my US friends are enjoying an extended 'Summer Break' from school, here in Australia, we are about to mark our half-way point through the school year with a two week Winter term break. It is chilly, raining and some of us have that half-way-through-the-year depletion of mojo and motivation. 

My daughter's school has a three week break. What joy! Apparently, at the final assembly for the term, she was the  only child in the school to be on the verge of depression at the impending 'holidays'. We love school you see. So being a good mother, I promised her that I would play schools with her. And it was the ONLY way I could get her to stop crying when leaving school on Friday. 

True to form, 8.15am Monday morning, she reminded me. Out came the easel. We dusted her off (she has been packed away for two years after I packed up my real classroom - sniff sniff)... Dear daughter was insistent that we have 'real' school stuff.

A little bit of handwriting got this tired mother off and into the swing of our 'play'. The letter 'c' was decided on. Hey, this is pretend school, we can make the curriculum as we go. The 'c' page featured a very pretty Cinderella - that was reason enough for us. It also led us to read a caterpillar beginning-reader. 


See - I told you - 8.15 am - still in PJs!


'Teacher" was quickly back into her groove and decided we needed to consult some 'fact' books and find out about these caterpillars. These books helped and we also talked about features of non-fiction texts. 


We then drew some pictures to represent the life cycle of the caterpillar we had read about. 


And after consulting the ever-wonderful Pinterest, made a paper plate life cycle.


I devised a quick caterpillar game (hey, I had only had one cup of tea). With two dice, We rolled, added and drew! 


Keeping track of which numbers we had already played (only needing to draw them once). 


It was a very busy morning, and with no classroom management to deal with, I have to say, we got a LOT covered. Although I have to hand it to the home-school mothers out there - you deserve a medal. I am much more 'at home' teaching a tribe! 

And just in case you would like to work on a caterpillar theme one day - download this FREE 'Trace, Shade & Graph' worksheet. I whipped it up ready for our lessons tomorrow! 


Thanks so much for stopping by!

Easy to prepare Number Game

Need an easy-to-prepare number game? This is an oldie but a goodie! It is super-easy to prep and so valuable for early math skills.


Print and copy some hundreds charts. We have some free ones HERE!

Laminate them if possible. Cut them into strips - either vertical or horizontal. Ask your students to place them back into order, after being shuffled.

Have a few copies - each on a different shade of paper. This activity will help familiarise your students with a hundreds chart and number order.

You can also cut them into non-standard strips, so students have a more difficult task of ordering the pieces. 

100 chart freebie

We also have loads of FUN puzzle mats over in our TpT store to make this activity irresistible to your learners, find a more detailed post HERE for more information.


Games in a FLASH - On Chart Paper

I am working (in the classroom) one day a week this year. I am making huge leaps in my professional ability to be flexible and adaptive! Job sharing is quite different to having your own class 5 days a week. Indeed, working one day a week is very different than doing 2 or 3 days. No amount of preparation and communication can make a job share free of hiccups, but if both teachers are flexible and adaptive, it works brilliantly! 

I have to be able to think on my feet quickly and have activity ideas up my sleeve. It is harder than you think, when you are kind-of in someone else's room! 

I purchased an easel pad over the weekend - you may also call this 'chart paper' or something similar. Basically it is just a HUGE sized notepad. I want this to be able to create some small group games (you might call them 'centres', 'centers' or 'groups'). Our students work in small ability-based groups at various times through the day - mainly for reading and number.

I am going to have this pad on hand to whip up some games in a flash! If you know me well, you will notice that I do like carefully prepared, laminated, cute and colourful activities. I am not naive or a super-human however, and sometimes, you just have to make things easy. You also have to be able to respond very quickly to needs and interests in the classroom. Being able to respond to needs in the classroom quickly, means you can have more fluid groupings of students that change daily or weekly. At times, we need to change planned or programmed activities. Enter Mr. Big Notepad. 



I got a Crayola one - $10 at K Mart. My faithful Micador Giant Megacolors work great on this paper.



For this quick game, I drew up a rough table, and chose three letters of the alphabet. Students have to find flashcards that match each letter and place them in the row. Great way to utilise the old flashcards packets you  might have lying around. I have quite a few. 


You could easily do a few pages to make a couple of games. Change the rules and ask students to find the next three letters that come AFTER these in the alphabet. Once they have sorted the cards, you could also ask them to write the sounds or words that contain these sounds, on the chart paper itself. Finish by displaying their work on the board for the rest of the day.


On a side note - I used to store all my games and flashcards in old VHS boxes. I just printed a cover for each box. These keep your games and resources very neat and well protected. I have to admit, I was influenced by the fact that I got 200 for 20c on sale one day!! I now store as much as possible in plastic documents wallets- as they are less cumbersome and can be filed! 


Another game that is easy to prepare is to make a game board from a grid of sounds - in this one, I put initial consonant blends. 

Students take turns to toss a counter (or bottle top) onto the board. All students in the group then  have to write a word into their Busy Book (or on a piece of paper) that contains this sound. 


As I get busier and my own children are creating their own busy lives, I am looking for ideas that make me work smarter in the classroom, not harder. Hopefully I can share some more with you as time goes on, and I would love to hear and see yours as well!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Summer Fun and Play'n'Paste!


My daughter and I had fun road-testing a paper craft newly added to our growing collection. We have a four day weekend here to celebrate the Queen's Birthday weekend. It is cold. My little man is sick. What is there to do but paper craft!?

I have created paper crafts for From the Pond for a long time, but have only recently combined them into a collection. This one is for summer and your students can record their ideas about the season on their bright summer-drink!

We got to pop open a brand new tub of one of my favourite supplies too - good old Clag Paste - perfect for Cut and Paste - it even says so on the tub! 


You can find the Summer Fun craft in our collection at TpT, or on its own.


We also had great fun with another new product - a 'Print, Play and Paste' resource. Combining two of my all time favourites - games and cut/paste!

Print the worksheets. Gather paste, scissors and a die.


Cut out the 'game pieces'


Each game in the set has different instructions - this one is roll and add 2. Once rolled, fill out the key to record learning....


And paste a game piece into position.



Once all pieces are played, a picture will be revealed!


There are 12 printable games in this packet! They are super simple to set up and your students will LOVE them!


Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope you have a great weekend!