My Back to School Plans and an AMAZING offer!

I start my 2014 school year on Tuesday. I'm really excited to meet my new kids and get to know them.

I've been very busy putting my classroom together and planning our first week. I have the same room this year and have been trying to change it up a bit from last year (more for me than the kids). I will come back with some snaps of my 2014 room and my first day during the we but for today I thought I would share some of the reading and writing activities that we will be doing in our first week.

I want to get straight into some writing and reading activities on the first day! It's a great way to see where the kids are at with their basic skills. After creating some class rules together, I want us to talk about and create our own Star Jars from A Cupcake for the Teacher. We will talk about ways to earn stars in our class jar (I'm hoping they mention the class rules that they would have just created!!).

During fruit break, we will read the first story in Millie Starts School by Jane Godwin.

My teaching partner actually found this book in the library and it is just so sweet! I teach second grade but I know I have some anxious ones coming to me on Tuesday. This is perfect to talk through those feelings of coming into a new classroom and meeting new friends. The best part is that this book actually has four stories about Millie.

We will be writing about our first day of second grade and creating these ADORABLE school kids by Mel at From the Pond.

 

I'm going to take photos of the kids' faces and somehow strategically paste them on the heads.

I will also be using my Building Better Sentences worksheets over the first week to see what my new class know about writing sentences.

My class last year were addicted to these in their rotations! They loved seeing what the picture stimulus was going to be each day.

If you like the look of my Building Better Sentences worksheets then you are going to love this amazing deal over at Educents!  I have teamed up with 17 other amazing sellers to load your classrooms with 27 outstanding resources for writing!  I've included my bundled sets of Building Better Sentences AND Building Complex Sentences

For a limited time it is $29.99 from Educents which is over 71% off!  It also includes these other great products so there is sure to things you love!  (They even have $10 off for first time customers… so it can be even cheaper if you have never bought anything from Educents!) Click on any picture to check out the other amazing products that you will receive!

Now I need your help! I want to give the kids a cute little gift on the first day. I've found a lot of ideas on Pinterest but I would love to hear what you have done for your students!

Sorry!

I have been gone a VERY long time so I feel I first need to apologise...Sorry!

Here in Australia, we are just wrapping up our Summer holiday break. I have actually taken a break from school work these holidays (hence the lack of posts). Instead, I have been incredibly busy planning my wedding. Stressful, but very exciting!

I am going into my classroom this coming week to put everything back together for my new 2014 class. I will be back during the week to post some pics.

For now, however, I wanted to share with you an exciting new product of mine.

I am a very visual person and need to see examples of things before I use or do them so I thought I would share the activity pages for the mini booklets.

The booklets cover the digraphs ch, sh, ph, th, wh and ck. Each booklet has 5 short activities to complete - one for each day of the school week! The same activities repeat in each booklet but, obviously, the digraph changes. Here's what is inside.

All fonts in images below by KG Fonts

 DAY 1

 DAY 2

  DAY3

  DAY 4

  DAY 5 - I noticed a teeny mistake on this page (which has now been corrected)

I've put these on sale for the next 48 hours - 50% off! Click on any picture to head on over to check them out :)