I'm not quite sure why I'm sat indoors blogging on such a beautiful day - but I guess that's dedication for you! (or madness) ... I thought I'd share some of my phonics/literacy and numeracy things with you.. and a few other little gems!
Phonics/Literacy
Firstly, meet Khyra. I use Khyra in phonics and the kids absolutely ADORE her! Sometimes she's feeling very hungry.. and if the kiddos aren't awake and forget some of their letter sounds she likes to eat them - which they find hillarious!! She also forgets her sounds A LOT so the children often have to help her out - if you don't use a puppet in your teaching, you really should try it.. I literally have hundreds of the cute things; yes you look like a bit of an idiot, but hey - aren't most teachers a little bit crazy?
I thought I'd share my finger spaces with you (I can hear the gasps of horror from some of you already!) - my kids love love love using their finger spaces - and never forget with these around! I have a whole box of them which you can get from ebay or just wait until halloween is upon us - I got the idea from Alistair Bryce-Clegg who is an absolute genius - if you haven't visited his blog before go there NOW.. especially if you are an EYFS guru.
...and no, none of my children have ever had nightmares about these fingers, they love gruesome stuff!
These amazing ipad print outs are from Mrs Gilchrist's Class and you can download them from here- they are super cute and I can't wait to use them in phonics! You can get the children to 'text' practise their word first, and then write it in the box! Adorable!
I also got the idea for this game from Mrs Gilchrist but I made my own - I made a tricky word roll and read game, a few roll and reads using the letters and sounds Phase 2 and 3 suggested words and then a couple of blank ones that I can write my own words in - I'll eventually make some phase 4 and 5 ones, so I'll post them up when they're done. The children have to roll a die and then if they read a word from that column correctly they can place a counter over it, the most counters on the board wins! You can download it here
This is a cute nonsense/real word game that I downloaded from Teachers Pay Teachers (a great site - although lots of stuff is American so phonics things won't follow letters and sounds) This was part of a big literacy pack that cost me $4.50 - I think it has some great games in there.. I'm going to put some fake lemons in to a jug with the words and the children will sort them in to 'sweet' (real) and 'sour' (nonsense) words.. how darling! If you want to buy it then you can get it from here
To make the buried treasure game even more exciting, I made a little treasure chest for the children to put their real word coins in!
These two games are from Adrian Bruce - 4 in a row and Snakes and Ladders - 4 in a row is pretty similar to roll and read except the aim is to get 4 of your counters in a row (obviously) and every one knows how to play snakes and ladders. I left them blank and laminated them so I can just write whichever words I need to recap on there.
I bought a couple of cheap shower curtains from Asda (£1.77 each) and I'm going to write on the various tricky words or other words - and the kiddos can then throw bean bags and read whichever word their bean bag lands on!
These are hedbanz - I got mine from ebay. I'm going to put a word card with a picture clue on each card which then attaches to the hedbanz (like the game of guess who I am) - the other children then sound out that word, and the child wearing the hedbanz has to correctly blend that words together. How sweet.. I'm super excited to play this game with them!! I can also use them for numeracy too - especially shapes - giving property clues for the children to guess which shape they are!! SOOO many possibilities!!
These are some writing sheets I'm going to use in phonics groups - you give them a word and they write it in the first column, then either stamp it, rainbow write it or build it (I bought some alphabet beads for them to use) in the second column - I know lots of them will just love doing this activity! You can get the sheets from here
This is my Reader's Tool Box idea that I stole borrowed from Mrs Gilchrist's Class - you can buy it from Teachers pay Teachers, or you can download my version from here. You'll have to change the font as for some reason Sassoon Primary won't work!! I bought my tool box for the super cheap price of 97p from Wilkinsons! You could even make a couple! I plan to get this out whenever we're struggling with our reading to help us 'fix' the problem.
These are for story retelling and I think these may just be my favourite things of the day! (so many to choose from!) This is the follow the yellow brick road story retelling pack which you can get here.. It is beyond cute!! As an avid Wizard of Oz fan I can't wait to use this in lessons - now if only I could squeeze in a solo rendition of Somewhere over the rainbow...
These ADORABLE little creations are my story retelling ribbons and oh-my-gosh do I love them! You can download the pack on how to use and make them here - I made one to use as a whole class, and four separate ones for each table to have their own.. but I'm hoping to make lots lots more!!! I ordered the ribbon, bows, gems and die cuts from ebay.
These are my light-sabres and fairy wands that I use for those struggling with formation - they LOVE doing light-sabre writing - we practise writing the letters in the air using the Ruth Miskin formation phrases and then when they apply it to their work I can tell them to 'remember their light-sabre/fairy letters'. This was another idea from Alistair. The wands were super cheap, the light-sabres I managed to grab for £4.00 each in the sale at Tesco.
This is my fine motor skills box - I have lots of different things in here to help the children build up the muscles in their hands - stretchy men, wind up toys etc.. the ducks are for the bath, but if you turn them over and get some beads and tweezers the kids can practise placing a bead on each little suction cup - they love playing this game!
Numeracy
I have to admit - my numeracy resource cupboard is looking more than a little bare compared to my literacy one!
This is a number bonds game that I made for my class last year - they love it so much that I'm sure they'll have just as much fun playing this year. You can download it here - I use little spiders that I bought from buysend.com.
Most of the boys in my class are obsessed with super heroes and Asda are selling off these cups, plates and bowls for 50p each so I bought a few and will try and think of a way to incorporate them in to some lessons to hook the boys!
I only have a few numeracy games - I've been searching the net for ages to find some lovely addition/subtraction/doubling etc board games that the kids can just get on with for a small task - but the only place I could find any half decent ones are the dreaded sparklebox which I try to avoid using at all costs - if twinkl or teacher's pet see this PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make some lovely numeracy board games!!
These are my guns - now I know lots of schools ban guns.. and the children in the Early Years are not allowed to play with them, but I do use them in my lessons. I personally believe kids will be kids and like it or not, they will generally all at some point pretend to play with guns, either with toy ones or their hands. So.. I try to channel the use of guns in to a task; I line up some empty plastic bottles with numbers on and they use the water guns to try and shoot them down for number recognition, or shoot the answer for 3+2 etc... they love using them and are always so focused - give it a try.. you might like it!
General Classroom
I thought I'd share this view of my classroom with you - I couldn't take a photograph of it the other day as all of my chairs were stacked on this side of the room.. I bought some wall art stickers from Wilkinsons in the sale for £2.00 and they've brightened up the wall an absolute treat! I also bought the rail and cups from Ikea for around £5.00 for the lot and I've put my whiteboard pens in there for the kiddos to grab when we're doing carpet work! I also purchase these organisers from Tesco today, they were £6.00 something each, and I bought two. I've labelled them with the days of the week so I can put in the work/books etc I need each day.. I plan to fill it up every Friday so I'm organised for the week ahead! I found some pretty little labels on the internet, so if you would like the same ones you can get them here.. I'm sorry I don't know who they belong to - I found them through google images, if they're yours let me know so I can give you a shout out!
I've also labelled my desks.. I have the delight of having the same class I had last year move up with me to Year One, so organisation and seating arrangements have been a dream! I got these from twinkl.. they're super cute!
... and here are my busy bags sitting proudly on the side ready to be used!
Finally... if anyone fancies doing some pen pal work then you can sign up here You can download a penpal pack from Teachers Pay Teachers if you want to use that (there's more info on the link) I've signed up and I'm hoping to be able to write/skype with another class somewhere across the globe! ...after the government have been moaning that Primary children do not know enough geography what a great way to incorporate both Geography AND Literacy!!
That's all for now!
Hi Dani
ReplyDeleteIan looking for your Jolly phonics beginning sounds resources .bu b can't find it on tpt store . please help me , I want to buy the beginning sound work sheets