Deskmats and Whiz Words

I have been busily preparing for the first day back at school. There always seems so much to do, and a lot of the jobs are fiddly. At least during the holidays I get the chance to play around a bit with these fiddly jobs and as I don't feel so rushed I find it takes all day to get the job done to my expectations.
Today I created files for my deskmats. These placemats are very handy. Last year I used them everyday as part of my morning routine and the students referred to them often during both literacy and numeracy activities. It is very useful to have the help right in front of them.
I have made a simple freebie version with the Whiz Words on a mini-poster. These could be printed two-to-a-page and glued inside a homework or writing book as a quick reference for some of the commonly used words.

My full placemats are available in three different fonts and in two formats. I use Queensland "qcursive" font which is a precursive font with exits and entries. It is great to have a handwriting model on their desks everyday. I also included a copy with a beginners font for younger students and a plain font for people who don't use the Queensland font. The PDF version is simple to print and all the hard work is done for you. If you would like to customise your deskmats, I have also created a PowerPoint version.

Learning through Movement

We all know how hard it is to get kids to sit still for too long so it is great to get fresh ideas for teaching through movement. That's why it is so exciting to be part of the Move to Learn Linky Party at Minds in Bloom!
I am always careful to structure my sessions so we go from the floor to the desks and back again at least a few times so that we can regather and refocus as we need to.
A while ago I made this simple game to reinforce the difference between proper nouns and common nouns with my students.
It is basically a PowerPoint presentation that you play on the IWB or projector and the students bend low for a common noun, and stretch high for a proper noun (as in low for little letter and high for capital letter). Download it for free here.
It is simple to play and is a good brain-break at the same time as reviewing a key concept.

Other games I play with my kids to get them moving while I introduce or consolidate concepts are:
Columns, Rows and Cells: I use this for spreadsheets or tables. Stand tall with arms up high for columns, spread arms out wide for rows, squat (into a little box) for cells.
Head, body, tail spelling: To highlight letter shapes, I spell out a spelling word (usually the children can see the word on the board at the same time) and they stretch up for a "head" letter (such as b, d, k, l, h, f etc), stand normally for a "body" letter (such as a, c, e, o, u, m, n etc) and squat for a "tail" letter (such as g, y, j, p etc).
Obtuse, acute, right: To practise angle words, students make the shapes with their arms as I call out the words.
All of these games can be played quickly as a warm-up, review or brain-break, or as an elimination game, and best of all, they require no special equipment or preparation so you can use them any time.

Check out the other great ideas at the Move to Learn Linky Party

Activities for Guess the Baby

I have made some activities to go with the “Guess the Baby” book. Since I plan to use this book in the same week that I will teach the ‘b’ sound, the first two activities are spelling or phonics focussed.

The third activity links to the Science unit we will be doing on growing and changing.

I have designed the activities to be multipurpose. This way they can be used as a quick activity or a longer one and the lesson can be adapted to meet the needs of the group.

The first activity is really a reading activity. The students drag hidden words onto the screen and read them. You could extend this activity by having students sounding out each word and then putting the sounds back together. The words could also be sorted into alphabetical order, or into groups such as according to the number of syllables.

The second activity focuses on the blends for ‘bl’ and ‘br’. A few of the questions could have more than one answer. This is an opportunity for discussion about having more than one right answer and also building vocabulary since some children may not know words such as “bloom” or “brow”.

The third activity is a sorting activity. There is opportunity for discussion about many of the points, eg: Are these statements true for everyone?

I can only attach the images at this stage since I haven’t set up a way of putting up the files yet. I am working on that next…

BTW... Do you like the pictures? I drew them myself using two different programs and going from one program to the other to get the right type of file. It was a pain but they are done and hopefully next time I will work out a few shortcuts so it won't be so fiddly.