Good and bad news

I had a bit of a disastrous day. Was writing reports on my laptop and a big white screen appeared. It blocked everything. Tried to start in safe mode etc but sadly it didn't work. Some IT help and the news is my laptop is completely gone. Means I've lost so much work as it was all on it. I know I should back up but difficult as we can only back up to school server or encrypted pen drive. Going to be a challenging start to term 4 tomorrow with new child and no laptop and having lost all my work. Also means I've lost all my blogging and tpt resources too. Most gutted about my Scotland unit as I had spent so long on that. I will start backing up tpt work but sadly too late for some of it.

The good news...well something to make the new term more fun. I decided to get my class a pet furby. I remember the days of a class let and whilst rodents are not possible anymore I still wanted something that had feelings and needed looking after. My class are needing to do a lot of work on friendships especially with new child coming so thought this could be a good way in and also be a good motivator. I'm going to do a lot of my writing linked with it and will create a work pack once done. Half thinking about letting it go home with my star of the week at the weekends but haven't quite decided yet.

Stay tuned

Scotland unit

This is my biggest piece of work so far. Doing Scotland in term 3. I liked doing it last year but there were not many resources to use focusing on the geography side so created my own pack. There are lots of pages with information on the different areas in Scotland, coastlines, rivers, cities etc. There is also a workbook to go with it for students to complete after they've finished each section. Click on the picture to go to TPT. 

Map skills unit

Finally completed my map skills unit. This has 15 pages working on compass skills, grid references, using keys and scales. This will go alongside my landscape unit which I will be doing with my kids looking at the landscape in Scotland. Click on the picture below to go to TPT. 

Making inferences - animal homes

Another thing my kids were finding tricky was making inferences. It was more the understanding that their prior knowledge (schema) helps them make the inferences. I've made these cards which show different animal homes. They have to say what animal they think lives in that home and how they know.

e.g. A spider lives in a web because it uses a web to catch flies.

Fact and Opinion

My kids have been finding fact and opinion really difficult. I made these farm animal themed cards to go alongside Charlotte's Web. There are 24 cards with facts and opinions about cows, pigs, horses, sheep and chickens.

Charlotte's Web Inference Cards

I'm having a weekly reading focus. This week was fact and opinion. It worked really well as did some linked to our topic of Charlotte's Web. We made a fab display together showing facts and opinions about spiders and pigs (photo to follow). My next focus is going to be making inferences. As it is something we have not formally done before I decided to make some fun cards which will be the introduction to making inferences from pictures. This will then lead onto making inferences from texts. They are linked to Charlotte's Web by involving the characters but could easily be used out with this topic. Click on the picture to be taken to TPT.

Creating working learning charts

I've recently started making learning charts with my kids to help and record their learning. Some are done in advance of a lesson but some are done with the class too. Useful to then have on the wall so they can refer back to it.

Been spending tonight doing my first activity in preparation for starting diploma at uni in few weeks. Managed to then side track onto looking at how I do my reading groups. I do a different group on each day so I can spend more time with them - tried it first time this year and find it works well but want to make what the other groups do more structures during that time. Will put up resources once I've gone through it more.