Short Vowels in the Mouse House

Practicing short vowels with your students - both articulating them clearly, and 'hearing' (identifying) them - will help so much with early reading and writing skills.



Today I'dm excited to share an engaging activity to help with identifying short vowel sounds in words. 

But there are no cute pictures to cut.

No glue or scissors. 

Just listening with ears. 

Fancy that! 

Mouse House Printable Freebie

If you love a good visual, you can print the little reminder sheet poster from Google Drive HERE

Tell your little learners that they will be listening for the short vowel sound in each word that you say.

Finding words with feature short vowels 

If you're anything like me, and are really thinking about a hot cup of tea and a bathroom break often mentally challenged when trying to quickly select a good variety of interesting and appropriate words for language activities - you may like this little file from my TpT store.

The cover says 'Kindergarten' but it is also good for first and second grade. It contains practical word lists for various phonetic focus categories. You can flip to the page of a sound your are working on, and have a selection of appropriate words at your fingertips!


How to Play the Mouse House Game

So, let's get back to it shall we?
  • Read (from the teacher word book),  or think of some words with a variety of short vowel sounds. 
  • Your students listen to the word, 
  • Your students then show that they can identify the short vowel sound within the word by doing a hand signal to match it.
For short vowel 'a' sound - for example, you may have called out the words 'cat'

Hand signal for Short a Sound

Your students each make a house with one hand, and put the other hand (the mouse) AT the side of the house.

Hand signal for Short e Sound

For words with the 'e' sound - students put their mouse on the EDGE of the house.


Hand signal for Short i Sound

For words with an 'i' sound, students put their mouse IN the mouse house door!


Hand signal for Short o Sound

For words with a short 'o' sound, your students will put their mouse ON the house.


Hand signal for Short u Sound

And under the house for words with a short u sound. 


Getting harder

Start this game by using simple short cvc words, and make it more challenging by adding longer harder words that contain blends, digraphs and tricky sounds (also in the Teacher Word Book)!

Thank you so much for stopping by today - have fun with short vowels! 

short vowel activity for kindergarten


Mother's Day Reader and Card

This little printable reader will help you in lessons about mothers AND farm babies! 

Are You My Mother Emergent Reader

Are You My Mother Emergent Reader

You can download a FREE copy, by clicking on the image below!

Are You My Mother Emergent Reader

If you like this reader, you might like to check out my Readers Ultimate Pack


I created a new Mother's Day card for this year. It is very simple for little people to handle. Just a few cuts, some writing and some gluing and it's done. 

Mothers Day Card for Kindergarten

Your students will just need to get all their 'bits' cut out....

Mothers Day Card for Kindergarten

write some words to describe their mother...

Mothers Day Card for Kindergarten

and glue some petals over - finishing with a 'my mom is" (or "my mum is") flower center (or flower centre) - notice how 'global' I can be with multiple spellings ;)

And voila, a pretty Flip the Flap Flower Card

Mothers Day Card for Kindergarten


Thank you so much for stopping by today - have fun planning your Mother's Day things!

Bunny Kids Art



Today I want to share an 'Easter Bunny' artwork that my daughter completed today. She is on Autumn school break and it is raining! Great - (insert happy happy joy joy smile here)!


Start by cutting a basic bunny shape out. We just freehand drew this one. I showed my daughter how to draw it up from the bottom edge of the paper, so we achieved a nice flat line on the base.


Cut it out and place it down on your artwork page. And then splatter paint all over. We used a dot painter - you could also use finger prints or a cotton ball to get the dabbed effect. We did blue and green for the sky and grass.



Then lift your bunny template away and you have a white space left that will be the Easter Bunny. Wait for it to dry, and then draw in the details with a black and pink marker. Too. Easy.


Now for some other projects to fill in the next 13.75 days!

Thanks for stopping by to see this artwork! Find more over on my Pinterest board.

Student Names in the Classroom

The idea I want to share with you is one that I use in Kindergarten, particularly in the first half of the year.

It will help your students to:
  • recognise their name
  • learn to write their name properly

and it will help YOU to manage the classroom. All your worksheets will be accounted for, and you will not need to plan any additional 'name writing lessons'.

This came about because here in Australia, our students must learn to write in a very particular handwriting style - it is part of our curriculum. Our students come to us from preschool or home and have often just learnt to write their name, in their personal 'signature' kind of way. We need to work on getting them to change it to a neat 'handwriting' style. Some students may not even know how to write their name at all and need to get the basics of letter formation.

It also came about because I was quickly getting tired of always reminding my class at the time to "write your name on the back of the sheet". "Turn over, and write your name on the back of the sheet". Turn it over. You, at the back, yes you. Turn it over. On the back. Your name. Write your name. YOUR name. The one on your desk. You can just copy it. Here. There. Look, that is your name. Write it. Here, on your sheet. It goes there. Yes you can. Just try. Ok. Just write the first letter. On the back......Pick up your pencil.....arggghhhhhhhh"

OK, so you get the picture. Now - repeat that ten times.

I decided to make a class set of traceable name sheets. I just opened an MS Word document and typed my students names out in a tracing font. One name per page. I typed each name so it was on the top right hand corner of the page. Then I printed them out.



I kept the 'class set' of traceable name sheets in my teacher-bag in my teacher-bible organiser type folder book that I use every day.

Whenever I made a copy of ANYTHING for my students - worksheets, notes, homework etc. I would first photocopy the set, then put the whole set back through the copier and photocopy their names onto the BACK of the sheets.

So, a worksheet would have their work on one side, and their name to trace on the back.


When it came time to hand out the sheets, I could hold them up and get each child to recognise their own name. They first trace their name on the back, before doing their work.

Much easier! My sanity was saved! The children were learning the correct formation and handwriting style EVERY time we did a sheet of they got a note to take home.

A bonus was that any student that was away also had their work labelled already, to catch up later in the week.

Simple. Easy. But this will make a HUGE difference to your week and your students' learning.

Australian Classroom Alphabet Name Tags and Alphabet Charts

We would love to share with you today some fast-prep name tags for your student desks. We had these available on our very first website and would love to offer them to you here! Just print, write your student names and secure to your desks. Use them for name identification, counting and alphabet games too!
 

1,2,3 eyes to me!



I currently teach one day a week in a First Grade classroom full of delightful, wonderful, clever, funny and interesting children. I do earn my money for the day though! It is taking me a while to build a solid relationship with my class and establish a classroom culture. It will happen though! I have to focus a lot more on classroom management and behaviour, simply because the children do not know me as well as they would if I was there 5 days a week. 

I use LOTS of little snappy ways to get their attention and focus, without having to 'use a big voice'. It can get boring using the same techniques all the time, so I am constantly looking for new ideas. I like to have a 'visual' to go with my strategies, and am currently compiling a little pack of them. Here is a simple one. Just say "123, eyes to me", and the kids can chant back "eyes to you, that's what we do"! 

You can print this visual and display it in the classroom, or near your main teaching area, to help you remember. Just click on one of these images to download from Google Drive!

Thanks for stopping by friends!

Show Me the Alphabet!

Hi friends! I just listed my 600th resource on TpT and its FREE! Don't even begin to ask me how the '600' happened... as I don't quite know myself. 

This freebie is part of a larger packet called "Show Me the Alphabet".

You can download the freebie and get a feel for the resource. It will help you introduce letters of the alphabet to your students and it takes a similar format to many of my other booklets, where students can complete a page per day for the week. 


On the first page, students finger trace and colour the letter and pictures.



On the next day, students can trace the lower case letter on two lines and colour the pictures. There is a new 'letter a' picture on each page. 


On the next page, students track then trace letter a in lower and upper case, before cutting and pasting the letter tiles into position. 



Students draw a picture of something starting with a on the 'draw' page!


And finish by writing an a on each apple on the final page. 

Grab this FREE 'Show Me a" file at TpT, by clicking on the image below.

If you would like the whole set of Alphabet books, the growing file is on SALE for the next 24 hours - find it by clicking on the image below!




Thanks so much for stopping by and helping me to celebrate 600! 

10 Chicks



Here is a fun math center or small-group game to play with your students. It will help them become familiar with using a ten frame and get them practising addition and subtraction. All you need is an egg carton, fluffy spring chicks, and a copy of the worksheet. Students will also need a paper clip and pencil to 'spin' on the worksheet.

The egg carton becomes a ten frame by cutting two sections off. I painted my egg carton green to make a garden! Start with 5 chicks in the ten frame to commence the game.

Your students will spin and identify the instruction they need to carry out - either +1, +2, +3 or -1, -or -3.

Students then model this using the chicks in their garden (ten frame).


Students can record their adding and subtracting on their worksheet. If a student gets to exactly 10 chicks, they may be declared the winner!


You can download the worksheet from Google Drive by clicking on the image below:


If you need more Ten Frame Activities, look no further than my "Ton of Tens" resource pack. I just updated it! It now includes 180 (up from 100) game combinations.


There are 15 ten frame 'themes' that you can combine with 12 different games to get your students learning and loving ten frames!



For example, combine the garden cards with the "Make It" game to create a game for your students called "Make Ten Gardens" - or combine it with the "Snap Snap" cards to have a game of "Make it Snap Snap"! Use seasonal and theme based tokens and counters to make the game more exciting for your students also!


Click on the image below to find 'Ton'o'Tens' in my TpT store!


Thanks so much for stopping by!