Pinkie Mouse, where are you?

Hello!

It has been a while since I linked up with Mrs Jump's Class for Book Talk Tuesday and I have had the pictures for my post about this book ready for weeks and just never got around to writing about it! (Don't forget to enter my giveaway after reading about this great book!)

It's such a lovely story that I recently discovered and loved sharing with my class. 

This is the tale of a Pinkie Mouse and Pangolin playing hide-and-squeak. 

From the back cover: Pangolin searches for Pinkie Mouse in all the scariest places - and discovers just how brave he really is..."

It's a rhyming story which makes it very easy to read and for the children to listen to and follow. We are introduced to Pangolin who is sensible and does not like being brave.

He sets off to find Pinkie Mouse and finds himself in some tricky situations, ignoring the advice given to him by his family about staying safe!

The page with the elephant's poo was popular with my class!

 At the end, when he still can't find his friend, he plucks up the courage to look inside the crocodile's mouth...

Until he hears...

Pinkie Mouse explain that she had been calling to Pangolin all along but could never make herself heard (and we loved looking back and spotting Pinkie Mouse on each page where Pangolin does something scary). 

She explains that she saw how brave her friend was and hopes that she will be that brave when she is big! 

(I have to admit I almost brushed a little tear away when reading this page!)

There is some information about Pangolins at the end which was a great addition to the book!

I loved this story and think you will too! Don't forget to go and check out the other books being recommended this week in Book Talk Tuesday and don't forget to enter my giveaway below!

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Sunday Scoop and a Giveaway!

Hello!

I'm linking up with the Teaching Trio for The Sunday Scoop again AND am having a giveaway
($10 TpT giftcard and winners choice of 2 products from my store) to celebrate 200 Instagram followers which I would love you to enter at the bottom of this post!

Don't forget to link up your Sunday Scoop and don't forget to enter the giveaway!

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Giveaway Celebration!

Hello!

I am delighted to have reached 200 followers on instagram and am celebrating with a little giveaway!

Thank you to Krista Wallden at Creative Clips for the graphics I've used above!

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Make sure you enter even if you already follow me on Bloglovin'! Thank you for your support!

Five for Friday

It's so nice to be sitting down ready to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday again!

(I'm giving away a $10 TpT giftcard and winners choice of 2 products from my store - you can enter here!)

Week 3 of school is over and I think I've managed to develop a few new good habits this year! Is it 21 or 30 days that it takes to form a habit? Well it's been 24 days (I suppose only 18 teaching days) and I have high hopes that first 2 habits will stay with me:

Marking: I have managed to stay up to date with my marking! Children are self assessing with traffic lights and great comments, responding to my marking therefore making it worthwhile and using the sentence prompts I made to help them!

I have been using this storage to keep worksheets and resources for the week (Mon - Fri) and have been getting everything ready on a Friday before I leave for the coming week! It means so much less work and stress the following Monday and means I'm not running round sorting everything out at the last minute! 

A nice treat on Monday was a team member bringing in yummy cupcakes for us all! Delicious for breakfast and another one to celebrate the end on Monday!

Last week I got the beebots out and we carried on playing with them this week! They children worked in groups to make the little bees move in a square and staircase pattern and then tried to get him follow different straight line patterns they drew for each other! I can't say they were great at it but they definitely enjoyed it and there was some good talk and collaboration (by some groups - maybe half!).

I stopped to look at my displays before going home today and decided this little corner of my reward board is my favourite. When doing a search for class rules for ideas, I saw the STAR rules from Stories by Storie:

I hope it's ok that I adapted them and used them on my tree! Each child decorated a leaf to say they agree with the rules and I added in a few bits to make sure all the rules they came up with for the class were covered!  

Right. I feel better that I have managed to link up for Five for Friday on Friday and am off to see what everyone else has shared today!

Have a great weekend!

Sunday Scoop 21-9-14

I can't believe it has been a whole week since I last posted on my poor neglected blog! By the time I am home of an evening, I have no energy to do anything but sit and watch TV. That has to change and you'll see I plan to link up with Book Talk Tuesday and Wordless Wednesday this week! I must also be better at snapping pictures of what we are up to in the classroom to share on Friday!

Anyway, here is my Sunday Scoop for this week! 

Can't wait to go and see what everyone else is planning this week.

Thanks to the Teaching Trio for the great linky!

Sunday Scoop - 14th September

I loved linking up with the Teaching Trio last week for their new Sunday Scoop linky and I'm joining in again this week to share 3 things I HAVE to do, 2 things I HOPE to do and 1 thing I am HAPPY to do!

I think it is all self-explanatory so I will just leave you with this:

What are your goals for this week? 

First Full Week Done!

Hello!

We started back last Wednesday but this week was the first full week of teaching and I survived! It was actually a really good week and I can't believe it was only the first - my class have settled in really well and have already done some great work!

I'm linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching to share some bits from my week for Five for Friday (Saturday):

My class are already getting used to the no excuses word wall and I have seen them using it when writing and reminding each other to use it when writing! The glare is worse in this picture but I still might redo and not laminate the words soon so they are even easier to see...

I have started to ad bits to our literacy working wall. Some sentences done in shared writing and some questions they would like to ask Billy (from Silly Billy by Anthony Browne) and the answers they think he would give!

I got my new trolley set up so I can wheel it round with me when working at different tables with groups. It has already saved me lots of trips back to my desk/cupboard/equipment trays to get bits I suddenly need. I love it!

I have printed off the level 1 discussion prompts from the Think Talk Teach pack I purchased from the amazing Miss DeCarbo at Sugar and Spice! I plan to cut and laminate this weekend and to start using them next week. To start with I plan to introduce and give children time to think and partner talk before the register each morning or afternoon and then have them share their sentence with the class as I call the register! You can get a copy from her TpT store by clicking on the photo above!

I was delighted with the screen background I made to go on my computer at work using my favourite turquoise and lime green backgrounds and new Melonheadz Nerd Kidlettes. However, when I went to install and get organised at the start of the week I couldn't do it. I spent what seemed like hours trying and became more than a little frustrated! It now turns out I do not have permission to change the background on my computer so I am stuck with black and a jumble of icons until the lovely IT man finds the time to change the settings...I will have to be patient! 

(I used the tutorial and inspiration from Learning in Wonderland to help me make this!)

Thanks for stopping by to read my Five for Friday! Make sure you go and check out what everyone else has been up to!

Sunday Scoop!

Hello!

I love this new linky - The Sunday Scoop hosted by the Teaching Trio! A great little to do list and, as I'm sharing it, hopefully I'll be more motivated to get those 3 'have to do' items done!

I was super organised this summer and got SO much planning done for all subjects except guided reading. It seemed to slip my mind and now I am not ahead of the game in that area and feel I'll be scrabbling around each week trying to get it sorted! I did order a couple of great close reading packs in the big TpT sale, so they should help!

My niece has started reading The Famous Five and is really enjoying them. I have the whole set from when I was her age. I'm going to get them down from the loft and have a quick re-read before I loan them to her! 

I'm getting there with my reward board. I've got most of the bits we need up: class rules; house with most tokens sign; space for the child who will be in celebration assembly that week; class stars (or fish in this case) and praise pad notes for home. I need to add in flowers to show good learning habits and lettering to show what the board is for (and a few more pretty things) and I'll be done!

Well, as it is Sunday evening here, I suppose I should get on with that planning...

Go link up your Sunday Scoop with the Teaching Trio!