Sunday 31 March 2013

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Remember the Humpty Dumpty pieces from last week's Five for Friday?

Well, the kids have finished putting them together with some concertina folded legs, arms, cute hats and bow ties - and they look pretty amazing!

I am really loving the uniqueness of each one.  While same same art has it's place in teaching the process and following instructions, I have to say I prefer the students' personalities to shine out and show their different creative and imaginative skills. 

They're hanging up in our classroom now, next to our sheep, and there has been a lot of comments from the parents about how great they look. 


To make your own with your childen you need to:

- prepare some 'bricks'.  I measured the paper and planned the rectangles to fit three across and the squares to fit six across to make it work out easily without gaps.

- get your child to build a wall on their piece of paper.

- get your child to draw a Humpty Dumpty.  We practiced first on mini whiteboards, mainly to make sure we ended up with an oval of relatively large size, although as you can see  we still ended up with some small ones.

- cut around your child's Humpty or get them to do it if they are capable.

- decide what you are going to use for arms, legs, hat and bow tie.  You could do the same as us or something different, it really is up to you!




Really, the best part that makes the whole thing to awesome is the child's drawn Humpty Dumpty.  Imagine them looking back at that in 20 years time!

  


Sunday 24 March 2013

Book Love #1

I am a big fan of picture books, along with all other Early Childhood teachers that I know.  I love seeing the different books you guys use for your lessons or just to read to the students. 

I thought I'd share a great Easter book I found at a second hand bookshop a couple of years ago.  I've always found Easter books have been hard to find, although there are a few more coming out now.


The version I found, for just $10, is a lovely hardcover, lift the flap with metallic art works.  The animals are searching for a golden egg and throughout the rhyming story they find a lot of different metallic sparkling eggs hiding behind things.  Perfect for a colour reinforcement activity as well for your young ones and a nice rhyming story is always a popular capitivator, at least for my students.




Aren't the illustrations adorable as well?




Do you have a favourite Easter story book?  I'd love to hear what it is!

Saturday 23 March 2013

Five for Friday

It's my first time to join in with Five on Friday, a perfect week to do so with Easter on its way.  Our class has been doing Nursery Rhymes at the moment, which works great with Easter.


Little Bo Peep's sheep.  The kids cut out the oval body shape themselves and we used a mix of shaving cream and PVA glue to get the wool-like appearance.  My EA and I had a great time looking at how the students had placed the legs, head and eyes and the different sheep personalities that shined out from their placements.


 My Easter Roll and Cover game met with great success, the kids loved it and begged to play it again next week.


 We made walls out of squares and rectangles...

...and drew Humpty Dumpty's body ready to put together with hat, bow tie, arms and legs and seat him on his wall next week.  I can't wait to see and show you all the finished product!

And finally, my favourite Easter craft project - Easter foil eggs.  We cut an egg template from cereal boxes and cover with alfoil.  The students paint the foil and while the paint is still wet, use a cotton bud to draw patterns on their eggs.  We have been practicing zig zags, bumpy lines, squiggles and straight lines as a pre writing activity so it was lovely to see the students put them into play here.






Monday 4 March 2013

Easter already?!

While hot cross buns have been available in the shops since January here in Australia, Easter has still managed to creep up on me.  It's been written on my term planner since the beginning of term but somehow, Week 5 is already here and that means Easter is just a couple of weeks away. 

Today is a Public Holiday in Western Australia and seeing as I only work Monday, Wednesday and Thursday that means I am in the middle of a five day weekend.  Ahh yes, it has been bliss.  Up until today I've very much just been lazing about, with a bit of retail therapy thrown in on Saturday.  Today however, it is school work and house work day.  I use one to procrastinate from the other and that way I at least get something productive done.  Clearly, it's not much of a house work day because I've put together two new Easter games for my TPT store.  Both for Math Centres.  I'm looking forward to printing and laminating them this week ready to use soon!



This first one is a subitising activity.  Subitising is big in Australia but I'm not sure about other countries so I'll quickly tell you that subitising is the ability to see 'how many' of an object there are without the need to count.  For example, on a dice - we all recognise the dot pattern without having to count.    Obviously however, young students don't so this game is for them.  Over here, this is considered a very important numeracy skill to learn.  As you can see on the eggs, the dots are set out in different patterns to challenge the students.  Click on the picture to go to my TPT store.


This second product is used with a dice or two and has two different game boards.  One has numerals 1-6 and is used with one dice and the other has numerals 2-12 and is used with two die.  Students have to match the number to the sum on the die and cover them as they appear.  Click on the picture for more info.



I'd love to know what activities are your favourites to use each Easter in your Math and Literacy Centres!