Here are some exciting finds for this week. Clicking on the picture will link you through:
5 Easy Tips for Organic Gardening with Kids
Hello SECA conference attendees! Come and say hi to Chris at the Quality Classrooms booth in Regina.
I have been laminating signs and resources in work and it brought me back to teaching days.
I love laminating resources.
I detest tatty, falling apart resources.
Anything I used year after year, was beautifully encased in plastic, heated, and formed into an everlasting shrine to teaching!
Oh, respect to the laminator!
I have been cleaning and organizing my home office and throwing out old resources I don’t think I will use again and have discovered quite a few plastic encased resources.
Now I am a little more choosy with what I laminate. It has to be something I know I will use a great deal and needs to be laminated. Otherwise I am using these great Write and Wipe Pockets.
I have tried making something like this in the past with plastic pockets but they slip and the maker does not erase very well. These wonderful things on the other hand are great. Included is a dry wipe maker with an eraser tip. You can use: Dry Erase Markers or Wipe Off Crayons, Daisy has used both and enjoyed the process.
So why am I harping on about write and wipe pockets?
I am always looking for opportunities to reduce my green guilt and these make me happy! Yes, I may still laminate, but will use these pockets when ever I can.
How are you choosing to save the world in your classroom?
We are all a little fairy mad here; stories, movies, toys, gardens, pinatas and parties.
Daisy enjoys playing with her fairies and I noticed her telling stories and acting them out. I asked if she would like to make a book to tell one of her stories. The response was one of excitement.
We sat down and discussed the story she would like to tell. I mapped it using a graphic organizer so we had a set story to follow.
Yes, this does seem very organized for a simple story but I wanted to be able to read the story again and again and not cringe. Daisy tends to tell a story one way and then forget what happened and change it for the next retelling. This is a wonderful way to improve and develop story telling skills but in this case we wanted a strong story with a problem to work with.
I helped her identify the characters, setting, problems, event and solution. I used a great Flip Chart which comes with a teacher’s photocopiable book. I have used it when tutoring a grade 7 student and have found it very useful for learning how to structure and plan writing.
We used our plan to tell the story. I wrote the story and photographed…
… while Daisy acted it out with her fairies and various other toys and props we found.
Here the fairies are chilling by the pool. The story was simple but it had a problem to be solved.
This allowed us to finish with a satisfying ending. This picture in particular made Daisy very proud.
The fairies were trapped in the building. Big people had left a bowl of beans out for the fairies but didn’t realize they were trapping the fairies behind the gates. The hummingbird took a message to the fairies chilling by the pool who came back and rescued the trapped fairies. They did this by sprinkling fairy dust on the bowl of beans. Daisy loved the realistic flying bowl of beans (I cropped her hand out of the picture).
The story (Daisy’s story, in her words), photos and a little photo shoot in a fairy costume were made into a beautiful book.
Daisy was very proud to receive her own book ‘Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Dust Rescue” for her birthday. It has been well read and shared already.
This is one of the weirdest food adventures I have tried.
I am not a huge hot dog fan but my kids are. We started with cut veggie dogs (yes I am a rabbit) and whole wheat spaghetti.
I demonstrated how to stab the cut veggie dogs and push the raw spaghetti through the veggie dog. This required reasonable fine motor skills and patience. Daisy got to work making her octopi?
Rose helped (she ate veggie dogs and crunched spaghetti).
Here is our pre-assembled pile.
Here you have it; octopus spaghetti and chick pea sauce.
This was a success for the kids but my husband and I were a wee bit grossed out. It just seemed a little weird. Have you tried this?
Wow, when you see it visually it’s kinda scarey!
Great (and do-able) ideas here for encouraging your preschooler to write
50 screen free activities – good resource as a parent or as a teacher to pass onto parents
Just a quick post today to tell you about a great recipe we tried yesterday.
There is only one photo.. we were too busy eating!
The recipe for Cupcake Pancakes from Mama B is so simple. It may be a good option for kids and dads to make on Sunday.
I made only two changes;
I used 5 duck eggs as they tend to be a wee bit bigger than hen eggs, but much richer.
Our cupcake pancakes needed 17 minutes in our regular oven (not convection).
Here is the recipe just in case you don’t want to click through to Mama B’s blog (her photos are lovely).
What you need:
1. Mix all of your ingredients together. A blender works fabulously.
2. Pour the batter into greased muffin tins. Fill only about halfway.
3. Bake them for 17 minutes at 400 degrees, or until they are golden brown and puffy. Run a knife around the inside of the tin and let the cupcake pancakes cool for a few minutes.
4. Top them with whatever you fancy. We used thawed frozen berries and vanilla yogurt.
I am building up quite a wealth of ideas here on Pinterest.
Can I suggest printing this recipe out for your husband and/or kids. It is much better than cold half buttered toast!
