Top Ten Insta Pics of 2014!

Hello! 

Christmas is finally over and I have found the time to pay some attention to my poor neglected blog. I was so excited when I saw this great linky hosted by Teachery Tidbits:

I set up my blog in May this year and an IG account in the summer when I joined in with the Bloghopin' Scavenger Hunt and I haven't looked back since! It has been such a great way to connect with some amazing teachers and learn so many new things!

With that in mind, it seemed only right to start my Top Ten Insta Pics with 2 of my favourites from the hunt!

One and Two

My favourites are the ones where I got my family involved and these ones bring back happy memories of those sunny days!

Over the summer I enjoyed linking up for Monday Made It each Monday (thank you 4th Grade Frolics!). I made lots of pretty things when I had the time over the break and here are a couple of my favourites (you can find more of my favourite made its for the classroom here and here and by clicking on the pictures below - birthday balloons, baby quilts, vodka gummy bears and more!).

Three and Four

(New teacher survival kits in a jar and a pinboard for my niece)

My next 2 picture are of some displays in my classroom - when learning about WW1 and remembrance day we did a piece of collaborative artwork in class and it looked so good when put together! 

I was also lucky enough to guest blog over at Adventures in Literacy Land and wrote about working walls in literacy - go check out my post!

Five and Six

I loved posting pictures on IG of the crafts we made in the run up to christmas. I squeezed in as much crafting time as possible despite normal classroom pressures and loved what my kids created. Lots of Pinspired crafts and IG meant I could share even when I didn't have time to blog!

Seven and Eight

Make sure you're following my IG account to check out more of the great crafts we produced and pinterest for the original links!

Finally, some of my favourite pictures this year have to be of my gorgeous furry friends! I show a lot of restraint in not posting pictures of them all the time - I try to limit to my absolute favourites and here they are:

Nine and Ten

(And one more for good luck...!)

Thanks for stopping by today and thank you Teachery Tidbits for such a great linky!

Have a great New Year Everyone!

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Sunday Scoop and Working Walls!

Hello! 

I am super excited to be both linking up for The Sunday Scoop with The Teaching Trio AND to tell you that I am a guest blogger over on Adventures in Literacy Land today! I have written a post all about how I use Working Walls in Literacy with a step-by-step explanation! 

Head over to Adventures in Literacy Land to read all about it! You can also grab this great freebie while you are there!

Now to The Sunday Scoop - one of my favourite weekly link-ups!

A fair few Christmas related to-do things on my list - I'm sure I'm not the only one at this time of year! 

What have you got planned in your classroom? I'd love some more craft ideas or to be pointed in the direction of some Christmas Math activities if you know of any great ones!

Make sure you link up your Sunday Scoop too!

Thanks for stopping by today!

December Currently

Hello!

Thank you so much Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for hosting Currently!

I'm a little late but wanted to join in the fun!

Listening: Andrea Bocelli Christmas Songs are very calming and festive to listen too while we work in the classroom now that December has arrived!

Loving: How excited my class were when the came in this morning and saw that I had put the tree and a bit of tinsel up in the classroom! 

Thinking: This is more like panicking! I have not bought one single christmas present yet... Oh No!

Wanting: This one needs no explaining!

Needing: All assessments are due in next Friday. I need a lovely magical fairy to wave her wand and complete all my levelling!

Giving: This links to the thinking/panicking - I'll hopefully be giving presents if I find some time to shop!

Make sure you link up too:

Merry Christmas!

Five for Friday

Hello!

I was all set to write a Five for Friday post last week and had actually remembered to take pictures during the week only to feel rotten by the time I got home after work and then even worse all weekend! I'm just about back to normal now though so I'm happy to be linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for...

I saw that Colleen from Literacy Loving Gals was practising suffixes with magnetic letters and realised the new set I had bought last year were still sitting unused in a drawer in my classroom! I got them out in guided reading the next day and we used them to practise our own spellings. They're in use all the time now for building high frequency words, weekly spellings and simple sentences - they love them!

I finally got round to displaying the collaborative masterpiece my class created for Remembrance Day - We're still learning about WW1 and Remembrance so I have a few more things to add before the unit finishes but I'm pleased with how it looks so far!

I decided to change my vocabulary display to match the season so here is the start of my wintery words display! I've since added a little robin...

I do appreciate that it looks like a shark in disguise though and need to remove that top wing! I've lots of words to add and plan to make glittery snowflakes with the kids on Monday!

As we are promoting collaboration this half term (it was perseverance last half term), I decided to do a STEM challenge and knew exactly where to find inspiration - from lovely Carol at Teachers are Terrific! We had no successful towers but there was great talk, perseverance and collaboration so all was good and the kids had fun (and I ate a lot of marshmallows)!

I have to plan a 2 week unit on the Polar Express this weekend. Believe it or not I had never even read the book until it arrived in my letterbox and I still haven't seen the film (that's on the to do list for tomorrow)! If you have any great ideas for activities which will produce some great writing based on this, please let me know!

I think that's all for today! Don't forget to link up your own Five for Friday and to check out what everyone else has been up to.

Have a great weekend!

T is for...

This week I am going to try and link up with Blog Hoppin' for their Week of Thanks!

Today is the letter T so I am thankful for...

I don't know what I would do without technology in the classroom - I rely on it so much every single day! Without it I wouldn't be able to deliver half my lessons or find all the amazing ideas that I do stalking so many great blogs! 

I am also thankful for my amazing teacher friends at school and those I feel I have made since embarking on my blogging journey!

What are you thankful for?

Pirate Hats for Wordless Wednesday

Hello!

I'm so happy I have found the time to link up with  Miss DeCarbo at Sugar and Spice for Wordless Wednesday today!

As we're doing some work on writing and following instructions, I found what I thought was the simplest little pirate hat to make today... How wrong I was! 

So many tears and maybe three successful hats out of 20!

My question for you is: what little craft activity have you tried that has gone horribly wrong?! 

(After I helped a lot, there were smiling pirates in the room!)

Don't forget to link up for Wordless Wednesday yourself!

Sunday Scoop 16-11-14

Hello!

This weekend has gone by in a flash and it is time to link up with the Teaching Trio for the Sunday Scoop again! 

There is a whole box of marking sitting looking at me too which is a have to that I am in denial about... (and the laundry)! I also hope to catch up with the 30 days of paper challenge (by The Reading Residence) that I started on IG - I managed up to day 10 I think but have fallen terribly behind now. I'm still enjoying looking at all the other papery/stationary pictures though!

Don't forget to link up your Sunday Scoop with the Teaching Trio!