Monday 26 November 2012

Woodlands Junior School Website

Woodlands Junior School is a Primary School in England with a wonderful user friendly website.  Since first using a Smartboard back in 2007, I have frequently called upon this website, for both my own reference and as a great starting spot for many of my topics.  British teachers are well aware of this top notch site, but for those outside of the U.K. this may be new.

The website is divided into subject areas and covers the entire primary range from pre-reading upto Year six (Grade 5). 

I have used this website to teach topics on Non Fiction text - the pages are set up just like a book, with an index down the left side of the page.

I have also used the website as a starting point for online activities from pre reading skills to math on line games.

woodlands-junior.school website

Check it out, I promise you, you won't be disappointed.

CVC free worksheets

I happened upon these great free downloads today from the BBC schools website and wanted to share these links with you.

There are a range of print and do worksheets covering the five vowels and a few other letters of the alphabet.  The sheets also vary from unscrambling words, re-arranging sentences to finding the last sound in a cvc word.  These are great worksheets for both early years teachers (Kindergarden) and home schools.  I like the initial and end sound sheets as they can be used on a cookie tray or magnetic board with magnetic letters to fill in the missing sounds.

For all the cvc links from BBC

This is the 'g' worksheet - get it here g worksheet from BBC


get the 'u' worksheet here.

 

 




Tuesday 6 November 2012

colours and number conservation

A great activity to reinforce colour, number conservation and hand eye co-ordination in one.
 Children were asked to pick a colour leaf and then to roll the dice.  They then had to thread the correct number of reels, buttons etc onto the thread using only the colour on their leaf.

Simple yet effective.

The Scarecrow who didn't scare

As part of our topic on Autumn I have been using the story sack, 'The Scarecrow who didn't Scare'.  This is a great resource and comes with a large stuffed scarecrow, birds, rabbits and mice as well as scarecrow matching cards.  My class are loving this book.

The book lends itself to many cross curricular areas, including pre writing skills.  We divided our whiteboards into 6 sections and as the story was read aloud, children were asked to draw the scarecrows hat, the farmers fields, the corn, seeds, trees etc.  I modeled each picture first and the children copied.  This gave the children the opportunity to practice drawing, straight, curved and wobbly lines.

I also got a great number link to this activity.  Children were asked to pick a number from a bag and then plant the correct number of seeds in the field (i used blue sorting trays for the field).  Children thoroughly enjoyed picking and counting the seeds.  I will definitely use this activity again.