Thankyou, Ipad and freebie!

What an amazing sale for Cyber Monday and Tuesday. A BIG THANKYOU to everyone who supported my store! Not only have I now reached and surpassed my end of year goal but I have also reached my goal for buying an Ipad! I was sure I wasn't going to be able to get it until next year, but I am the proud owner right now! Here it is, I'm just a tad excited!

Just ignore the bags under my eyes, it's been a long week! And I still have camp next week!

So a huge THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU to each and everyone of you who have purchased something from me, now I have an Ipad to show for it and way too much clipart! TpT really does change lives!

So now I need some advice from you all - I have some apps already loaded for the classroom and now plan to go through my pinterest board to see everything I pinned for "when I get an Ipad", but do you use an app that you absolutely love? I am especially looking for great Listen to Reading books for Grades 3/4 children.

If you haven't popped over to my store recently, I recently uploaded this freebie of game pieces (pawn and bishop) and dice for use in your resources. Click on the picture below to download the pack.

P.S. Funny Story! I had a first today, we had a HOT day timetable at lunchtime! It was too hot to let the children go outside so we stayed in all lunch and played games. Since today was my yard duty day it worked out perfectly! NOT looking forward to Summer at all! Does anyone have any snow they can send over? Or at least cold thoughts?

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Can't wait for the Sales! What about you?

I am so excited for the Teachers Pay Teachers sales that start on Monday (US time). I don't know about you, but my wish list is getting bigger and bigger all the time. I really shouldn't go on pinterest, I shouldn't, but I just find so many great things there! I love a great sale so will definitely be spending up big! (Shhh, don't tell, but I have already been over to KPM Doodles and Scrappin Doodles to make GREAT use of their sales!) I'm will actually be surprised if a) my computer doesn't crash with all my new downloads (you can never have too much clipart), or b) I don't run out of internet usage by Wednesday! I will just have to download at school I think!

I will be offering the full 20% discount, plus the 10% from Teachers Pay Teachers with the use of the code CMT12. Here are some previews of some of my new teaching resources.

 Updated!

And a good old favourite! There is still December to July to be used so this booklet is discounted! 7 months of worksheets for $2! Bargain!

Happy shopping all! Best thing, is that it is from the comfort of your own home!

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BIG Cyber Monday/Tuesday Sales

Teachers Pay Teachers is having big sales for Cyber Monday on BOTH Monday and Tuesday of this week! I don't know about you, but my wishlist is full of resources I want to buy to finish off the year and start to get ready for next year!

I am offering 20% off all my resources and with the additional from Teachers Pay Teachers, you can get 28% off! What a bargain!

Right now I am off to Scrappin Doodles to take use of their huge sales!

Happy shopping everyone!

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Fun Friday - We LOVED Maths today!

We has such a wonderful time in Maths today and I wanted to share! We did our Mental Maths test as usual, it was easy today so the kiddoes completed it quickly and did a great job!

Then...

Earlier in the year, I introduced my class to KUSAC to help them with problem solving.

Then we come back to it whenever we do some problem solving. Today, I cut up some of the cards I had included in this kit and had them sitting on the floor, in "difficulty" groups. Here is how they recorded their problem solving in their book (we only spent about 10 minutes problem solving today).

Loved the strategy on this one.

This boy was so proud of himself for writing down how you could check you answer. Spelling not great, but it was maths!

I LOVED the tree diagram this child did!

You can download this poster and my Problem Solving Made Easy at my TpT Store.

After that, we got started on one of the lovely Brooke from Teachable Moments' games from her booklet...

Every activity I do I have to differentiate, I have a huge range in my classroom, so that is where my dice boxes came in handy! I LOVE my dice box! I was so sad when I went to teach in the USA I had to leave it behind! 

You don't have to have such a big dice box to use this booklet, but it definitely helped for me today!

We played "Roll and Subtract" and "Roll Three and Add" although we changed it. I printed out a few copies and then laminated them so we could use erasable markers.

These children used a 10 sided, counting by 10 dice and a 10 sided dice.

These children used it to help with understanding expanded form. They had a hundreds and thousands dice (they alternated), a 10 sided counting by 10 dice, and a 10 sided dice. This was great practice for these two boys, they needed some consolidation here.

This girl used 4 different dice and practiced expanded form in the 1000's. She wrote straight into her book since here's were a bit more challenging.

This was roll 3 and then she rolled the operations dice to see whether she was adding or subtracting. 

This was a 3 dice, 2 twenty sided dice and a 10 sided counting by 10 dice. 

See what I did with such a great idea. Easily changed it for each child, but simply giving each child the dice and activity they needed! 

Thanks Brooke for this great booklet - you can download it yourself here.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

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Climb to 100

We changed a game and made it our own in my Walk to Maths class and they love it so much, I thought I would share.

I play with a child in the class to start with, all the girls always want me to win, the boys never barack for me! Here it is:

Children have a whiteboard each and whiteboard marker and a deck of cards between the two of them. Then turning over one card at a time, taking turns, children add up the cards as they go as they "Climb" their way to 100. They can use the whiteboard to record their numbers as they go so they don't forget! My class love it! They happily play for 15 minutes!

There is a HUGE sale coming up on Teachers Pay Teachers, so make sure you get your wish list full ready for the big spend on Monday and Tuesday (US time). More details to come on the weekend! I have just posted a HUGE science booklet (at the moment 15 experiments but I'm hoping to increase it!) Here is a sneak peak.... It also includes posters and the Scientific Process.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving everyone in the US for tomorrow. This is the time of year when I really miss my US family - Thanksgiving feels bigger than Christmas some years! This year my Grandma is sick so unfortunately no yummy Grandma made pies for my family. Lucky we all had pie making lessons! Enjoy the food, festivities, family and fun that comes with the day. xx

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Don't miss out!

Don't miss out on your chance to win one of my new booklets. See my last post!

Happy Tuesday/Wednesday everyone!

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NEW Blog Design - excitement plus!!! 15% off!

Another Sunday and I'm doing schoolwork! I can't believe how quickly Sunday comes around! Earlier today I had the best news! It's made my weekend actually!!!!! My NEW BLOG DESIGN is finished and uploaded! I am so excited can you tell at all?!?! Erika and Misty at Honey Bunch Blog Designs have been so fabulous! For about the past month, they have been emailing me different ideas and really listening to what exactly I wanted - and it has come out perfect! What do you think?

I owe a super big thank you to Erika and Misty, they have been so patient with me! I would definitely recommend them (both teachers themselves so even better), head on over to their blog to see more of their great designs!

In other news, I have been working on finishing a few booklets at the moment, so of which I have been working on for a while. I look at my earlier booklets and think, WOW, I could do so much more with them now. Adding my teaching resources to TpT has been an ongoing learning experience for me, and I am definitely getting more professional and precise with everything I do! I just want to go back and redo all those booklets again! If only I knew how to add more time to each day..... Does this happen to anyone else?
Here is some of my new things...

I loved the idea of creating a No Cost Gift for my children to give to their parents this year, so created these cute coupon covers and coupons.

There is lots of variety in this pack to make it suitable for First Grade through to Third Grade. Some of the coupons have ideas already on them, some are left blank for children. Covers say both Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and are blank. Click on the pictures to download!

I have also put together a version of Old Maid, but using Mrs Claus as the card everyone is avoiding! I have included 3 different word sets in this pack, so perfect for differentiation of student ability in your class. I would have used this when I taught First Grade and will be using the harder ones with my Third Grades during December!

Click on the pictures to download. 

I have also uploaded two clipart sets. They are both perfectly computer drawn and very accurate. Living in Australia, sometimes I just want a globe that shows Australia! These globes have 3 different world views. When I am creating work for older children, I am very specific in wanting accurate and less "cartoony" style graphics so I thought these would be perfect! Click on the pictures to download.

If you would like a freebie copy of one of these, please comment below and say which booklet you would like, include your email address, and on Wednesday 21st, I will put your names in a hat and email out one of each item!

I am also having a 15% off sale on Monday and Tuesday of this week - followed by a huge sale next week, so make sure you pop by!

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Clever Teachers!

I love visiting other teacher's classrooms and become inspired by them! I look at something and think "why didn't I think of that" and usually it is something so simple!! Does that ever happen to you? I guess we can't do everything.....

We are lucky at our school to have a graduate MALE teacher - that's right, a new, young male teacher (teaches Grade 4)- he came up with this great idea and didn't mind if I shared! One is to help children edit their own work, the other ensures they have correct presentation when writing. Great writing prompts on tables as reminders! I can imagine just casually putting one in front of a child to remind them to check their work! 

I looked at this and went "I have a few of these stands, I sooo wish I had more" so I guess that means I WILL JUST HAVE to go to IKEA and buy some more such hard work, it is such a terrible place!!!! The best thing is, they are only a couple of dollars each!

What do you think? They fit a 6" by 4" photo or piece of paper (and are double sided). 

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The Things Kids Say....

The weeks are flying by, I can't believe we are up to Week 6 of Term 4! With the day off on Tuesday, a full teaching day with yard duty score, the rest of the week just seemed to fly by. Another teacher crafty day yesterday (we are making so many Christmas goodies, lots of the kids at my school are getting teacher handmade gifts this year from their addicted to pinterest teachers!

This week, we seemed to get a little lost in all the testing we have to do at this time of the year. Anybody else feeling my pain? Anyway, here are a few great comments from my class this week!

One boy was writing in his weekend writing. He had spelt most words correctly and the I came across the word "2wise". I double checked, "2wise", I have never seen twice spelt like that!

Then another boy was sharing this great plane he had made at home (it was huge!). (Background story, this boy has this year carved a gecko, made a titanic and is always building something). Another boy said "You know Jamie's 15 Minute Meals, well you should have Devan's 15 Minutes Crafts" I was having a sip of water at the time and could feel the spray affect about to happen!

But the winner was in a boys weekend writing. He had written:
"On the weekend I went to the beach. When we got there we had a picnic. *"
I was thinking * footnote perhaps? Well yes it was! I headed to the bottom of the page and it said "*This is not the chocolate coated bar this is a picnic with a picnic blanket" and then the story continued to say "We had to drink lots of water because it was 28 degrees Celsius". I guess I had asked for lots of detail and that is what he delivered! Earlier in the year we had read the series of books "My Crazy School Daze books and they always contain footnotes - I guess it stuck for this boy!

And if you are wondering, yes, there are girls in my class too, I just seem to have ended up with two thirds boys and they are the ones that are always talking!

On a side and very sad note. A fabulous and very generous blogger by the name of Teresa at 2nd Grade Pen is unfortunately not well. She was very encouraging to me when I first started on TpT and happily offered lots of advice to build my store to what it is today. This is her TpT store. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family. Cynthia at 2nd Grade Pad and TpT friends have put together an amazing pack you can receive after donating to help Teresa. Please head over to 2nd Grade Pad to read more information about how you can help.

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Giddy Up!

Today is Melbourne Cup Day in Australia (the race that stops the nation) and because I teach in a school that recognises Melbourne Cup as a public holiday, I get a day off! A day off for a horse race, I love the Australian sense of humour! (No really it is a big deal, even Prince Charles has come out this year). Like so many other teachers though, I am sitting here doing schoolwork (catching up on some blog reading is schoolwork right?!?!?) - its a really busy time of the year at the moment, with the year wrapping up - reports, assessments, planning for next year and then comes Christmas (finishing 3 days before Christmas probably isn't going to allow for my usual last minute Chrissy shopping dash)......... Let's all admit it, at the end of the school year we are just trying to keep our heads above water! So a day off is very welcomed!

So it got me thinking, how great would an administration day once a month be - there is so much work we could get done if we could just be in our classroom, uninterrupted, no meetings, for a whole day - LOVE the thought, but doubt it will ever happen!

To other news, my new blog design is taking shape, I am sooooo excited. I had a sneak peak at a couple of images today and I LOVE them! It will be like Christmas has come when it gets uploaded. Honey Bunch Blog Designs has been soooo great!

Happy Tuesday everyone (Monday for some readers!)

P.S. For anyone looking for some horse racing resources, head on over to Mel's at From the Pond!

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Miss Galvin Learns - fabulous giveaway!

Another great Aussie blogger has popped onto the scene and is having a great giveaway! Miss Gavin Learns!

I am donating my Fractions and Decimals pack to the giveaway - there are 12 products in total! Head on over and check it out here. While you are at it, check out her TpT store, she is soooo creative!

Also, in Australia we are seeing how terrible Hurricane Sandy was and I really feel for all of those affected. Laurah from The ESOL ODYSEEY has come up with a fabulous idea to help teachers get back on their feet. I have donated a number of my items from my TpT Store. If you are interested in helping out - head on over to her blog and fill out the google docs form. Very easy and every little donation helps!

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