Matt the Bat

You might have noticed, Ive been a bit quiet lately.
School is back for the last term of the year and I haven't had a lot of time to do much personal stuff (excepting a bit of gardening and I have won a cupcake decorating competition since my last post!)

Back to business...
Our school has a huge push on improving oral language and phonological awareness as some of our students enter the school very low and this ultimately affects all learning areas. We have even gone to the extent of employing a speech pathologist at a substantial extra cost to the school, such are the needs of students. We are lucky enough to have one of the best in the business!
http://www.pelicantalk.com/

Anyway, the children I work with for reading intervention have loved hanging out with 'Word Bird' and 'I Spy' the monster because it is about talking and playing oral games with words. They are practising phonological elements and they don't even know it!

Last week, our 'speechy' heard about the creatures I'd made and bought and she came to me today with a little gift...

Meet 'Matt the Rhyming Bat'! I just love him! I've already carried him around school all day and have used him with heaps of kids on yard duty. Matt is very shy and only pops out when you say two rhyming words. If you say lots of rhyming words, he might flap his wings or give the kids a little batty kiss on the cheek. SO FLAPPIN' CUTE! 

I'm off to make some sound word family cards... but more about that later!

I Spy With My BIG Eye...

FINALLY FINISHED MY I SPY PACKET!

Sorry for shouting but I'm pretty happy about it.

This little monster is what inspired it all.

 

 

I found him at the dollar store and KNEW I could do something fun in the classroom with him. He is about the size of a basketball.

 

My step kids used to play 'I Spy' all of the time in the car (as most children do) but the youngest thought it was sooo funny if he changed the words to 'I spy with my BIG eye...'

The monster's big eye is just perfect (you could get students to make their own I Spy monsters with pom poms and goggle eyes).

 

The packet has pages for all letters of the alphabet, with 4 pieces of clip art and letters to scaffold students when guessing what the monster is spying. It requires the students to orally break words (of up to four sounds) and write the letters beside the clip art. There are also 4 spaces on each page for words around the room which start with the letter they are working on.

 

I had to make the clip art myself because I realised I hadn't bought any yet! Here are a few. I wonder if you can guess which letter they represent? Hehe!

 

Each letter slide comes in colour, greyscale or black line master. It has instructions and an answer sheet... just in case.

I did have loads of fun making it but I'm not sure if I should add it to teacherspayteachers.com or what I should charge or ANYTHING!

 

Any help or comments would be much appreciated.

 

 

 



Need a holiday, holiday!

So here's what I've been up to for the past few days.

I started doing the 'Values Pack' and found that it was such a HUGE undertaking that I thought I'd make a cute little 'Initial Letter Pack' to let the creative juices flow and so I didn't get bogged down in doing the values stuff.

I started. Did the template page and made a funky dotty border. At this point I realised I had no loyalty-free clip art. "No problem! I'll make my own!" I thought. Just under a hundred images down and 2/3rds of the way through after 4 days *SIGH* (I have been also adding black line and grey scale images to the sets and the worksheets because I know some people prefer it that way... so it is really JUST UNDER 300 IMAGES! EEP!) Still a little work to do but I hope to have it done by tomorrow... maybe.

Hubby decided to move our entire veggie patch and hot house construction to the other side of the yard where it will get more sun. The thing is the size of a double garage and all under netting. We aren't done yet but we are having a red hot go at getting it moved before it gets too hot for growing veggies.

Today I had a message from an ex-teacher from our school. She will be running 'Puppets and Play' at our school this term (like a playgroup but promoting literacy through puppet play). She needed a Very Hungry Caterpillar puppet for the first session next week. Unfortunately our Foundation level teacher had that resource last and wasn't answering her phone (too busy enjoying her break like a sane teacher!) Anyway, there was no puppet to be found in the time frame (we are in a quite remote town and although we do have eBay, there is no way it would reach us in time). Luckily I have a sewing machine and hot glue! I made it this afternoon.

 

He starts off looking like a regular caterpillar.

 

 

Crawls into his cocoon (chrysalis?)...

 

 

Turn him inside out as you pull off the cocoon and he is a beautiful butterfly!

Hehe! I had so much fun.