A fun way to teach place value!

I once heard a teacher talking to her students about how numbers are like cakes. They are made up of several ingredients. I really liked this comparison but I took it a step further. I started displaying numbers in a cake form on the board. The ingredients were shown as layers of the cake and the number they made was written in the icing. I explained that it didn't matter which ingredient was added first, you would still make the same cake. The students have a lot of fun making yummy numbers.

Then I invented the cake making place value game. 

Students are given the icing and must find the ingredients. The colour of the completed cake acts like an answer key but doesn't give the answer away. I display the ingredients in two ways, as numbers and as written ones, tens, hundreds and thousands. 

Whiles its quite easy to make your own set of cakes, I do have three version of this game available for purchase.

The original Thousands Place Value Cakes

Hundreds Place Value

and Tens and Ones Cupcake Place Value.

As each part of the cake is symmetrical you always purchase the thousands place value and remove pieces (thousands and hundreds) to simplify the set for younger students.

 Each set  has 24 cakes/cupcakes included. I strongly recommend laminating the set for longevity.

Outline of a lesson:

Expose students to the concept that numbers are made up of ingredients. The ingredients for the number 58 are 50 and 8 or could also be said as 5 tens and 8 ones. Get students to tell you the ingredients for a variety of numbers using the idea of making a cake.

Then use this set for a whole class game where students are given the ‘icing’ (whole number) and must find the ingredients which are spread out on the floor or a table. 

For a follow up lesson get students to make up their own cakes.
The cup cakes can also be used as a group or independent activity and makes for a quick and fun assessment strategy.

Back up

My laptop has spent the entire day trying to update. I have felt very unproductive today.
Fingers crossed my laptop will be okay and it is just a stupidly long update and not that something has gone wrong. Therefore today I would like to remind you to back up your hard drive regularly. It really sucks to lose all your stuff. Trust me, I know.

Word Walls

Word Walls are fantastic environmental print. They help teach spelling, reading and vocabulary. They can also look fantastic. The thing I love most about them is that you can refer students to them rather then spelling the same word over and over again.

When it comes to themed word walls I like to arrange them into fun formats that suit the theme.

Below is my Egyptian pyramid word wall. For older students I get them involved in creating the word wall. They suggest theme words, I write them in pencil and then the student adds a picture and goes over it all in pencil.

I have created a love heart word wall for Valentine's Day. You can download it for free at Teachers Pay Teachers. Click Here

If you like that one try an Easter basket. You can also download that at Teachers Pay Teachers. Click here!

Print, laminate and cut out the 29 pieces and then arrange into the basket on a bulletin board.

Both a coloured and black and white version are included in the downloads. Print on coloured card to save ink.

If printed on A4 paper both will measure approximately 80cm by 90cm.

I have a very special Christmas one coming up for the end of the year. Follow me on Teachers Pay Teacher and/or this blog to be notified when it goes up towards the end of the year.

Maximising Your Planning Time

Today I am going to share with you 10 tips for getting the most out of your planning time. Here in Western Australia we call that time DOTT- Duties Other Than Teaching.

Number 1: Plan for your planning time!

Sounds weird to plan for your planning time but you can get more out of your time if you know what you are going to do. Write a to do list in the build up to your planning time. Write things as you think of them. Try not to waste your planning time writing your to do list.

Number 2: Build a Routine 

Building a routine results in greater productivity. You get into the flow of things and can get into the right frame of mind for that DOTTs activities. I have 4 DOTTs a week. For the first one of the week I get all the resources ready. That includes photocopying, The second I use for preparing for the areas that need extra time. For me that is currently guided reading and Words Their Way prep. The third I dedicate to marking. The last DOTT of the week I use for the planning of the next week. If I get any of these tasks done early I do the other miscellaneous tasks teachers need to do. 

Number 3: Forget the coffee!

I don't personally drink coffee (or tea etc) but I frequently observe other teachers making a drink during their DOTT time. For some this can take up to 15 minutes. Try having water instead. Much quicker to fill up and good to get your creative juices flowing.

Number 4: Cut the chatter!

The funny thing I notice about the people who complain about not having enough time to get everything done is that they are the talkers. They're the ones not in their own classrooms during their DOTT. All teachers need to debrief, relax and socialise but chatting to people can half the amount of DOTT time you have. If you need to see others during you DOTT time plan for it in the last 15 minutes so you are minimising the amount of time it can consume! 

Number 5: Go Digital

It surprises me the amount of teachers that still prefer to hand write their daily work pads. Having a digital timetable  (printed when complete) where all the basic information is already there each week will save you hours in the long run. Copy and paste lesson steps from your advanced planners or plans from previous years.

Number 6: Minimise distractions!

Put your phone away and anything else that you could use to procrastinate. It easier to not jump on Facebook or Pinterest if your phone is not in reach. (Most schools don't allow this anyway but I know we are all guilty of this occasionally....)

Number 7: Reward yourself

It works with our students and it also works with us teachers. Decide the frequency and what the reward will be. On slow days I reward myself with a little break every time I cross something off my to do list. On more productive days the act of getting a lot of work done is enough. Perhaps its a mid session fruit break. Banana is great at helping you focus and think.

Number 8: Don't reinvent the wheel

If planning isn't your forte try purchasing complete units instead.

You can check out my complete units in English, Science, HASS and health here (shameless plug):
Teachers Pay Teachers

Designed By Teachers

Number 9: Be organised!

Have everything you need in easy to access locations. A badly organised desk can waste valuable time.

Number 10: Enjoy what your do!

If you enjoy your job you'll be more productive. Pick themes that interest you. Find activities that you will enjoy. Planning for things you enjoy makes the prep work quicker and easier!

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is just around the corner and today I thought I would share some art and craft activities I have done with my classes over the year.
I always start the session with a discussion about the customs and traditions surrounding the New Year and then show a YouTube video about Nian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uJbp8d_d9c
The Nian tells of a monster that comes to eat people (favouring children) and is frightened away by loud noises (firecrackers, music, banging) and the colour red which is why these form a part of New Year celebrations.

With my grade one class we looked at Chinese blossoms and used strips of brown paper to make the tree then added scrunched up tissue paper for the blossoms. With an older class its great to add a haiku to the picture.

These are egg carton dragons. The students painted a half egg carton then added eyes, wings and crepe paper stripes for tails. This was also with a grade one class so they may not look too much like dragons but a quick google search and you can see what they can potentially look like with an older class. You could provide templates to make the dragons look better but I prefer to allow my students creative freedom.

I wanted to make Chinese lanterns but thought making them out of red paper was a waste (why do you always use up red items in a classroom before any other?) and we could make the task into a more involved activity. I got my students to cover an A4 piece of white card in crayon (most chose to do rainbow) and then paint over it in thick black paint. Once dry they attempted to scratch Chinese writing into their lanterns along with other patterns.

NAPLAN Year 5 Quizzes

I don't believe in teaching to the test. If you teach to a test you are bound to miss deeper learning and key concepts.
I do believe that students should have a good knowledge of what is going to be in a test, be familiar with the test format and have a chance to review.
To cover the above with my year three class I developed a set of 12 quizzes which I give one a week to the students. They cover the concepts covered from that week of learning in NAPLAN format.

Available on Teachers Market Place

This resources has been so successful in my classroom and that of others across Australia that I have finally gotten around to developing the quizzes for year 5 students.

Available on Teachers Market Place

Available on Teachers Market Place

and Teachers Pay Teachers

Drawing Clip Art in PowerPoint

I prefer to make my own clip art and have found PowerPoint to be the easiest to use to create them.

POWERPOINT????? Yep, that's right, you don't need fancy computer software to create simple and cute clip art for any of your projects.

Today I am going to share a few tips with you for getting started.

Step 1: Think of the clip art you wish to make as simple shapes. Start off with the big shapes first.

 Step 2: Change the colour of the fill and border as needed.

Step 2: As your add smaller details you may want to hide parts of the shape. For example, in the picture below the penguins arm is made from an oval but you don't want to see the entire oval. Use the send backwards button to send it behind all the other shapes. You may need to press it a few times as each click will only send it behind one of the shapes behind it.

Step 3: For symmetrical items copy and paste them and then use the flip button.

Step 4: Grouping items can be really useful if you want to use multiple shapes to make one item on your clip art and then flip it or copy that item. Hold down crlt and then click on each of the shapes you would like to group (hint: wait until a little cross appears before clicking to ensure you are selecting the right item other wise you might click the background and have to start again.) Once you have the items selected, right click the new shape and select group and then group again. You can ungroup the shapes at any time if you need to make alterations.

Step 5: You have two options for saving you picture. For the first method go to save as you usually would. Type the file name but before you click save, change the file type to JPEG or PNG. This saves it as a picture. A pop up window will ask you if you want to do all the slides or just that one page.

Step 5b: I prefer saving it as a PNG file which deletes white spaces so you add it into your other products without having to have a border around the picture. While you can use the method above to save it as a PNG file I prefer to group all my shapes involved in the clip art and then right click and save the picture. 

PowerPoint is so easy to create pictures, you don't need to be good at drawing to use it.

Some extra tips:

Hold shift down while clicking and dragging to create shapes to make perfect circles, squares or just to maintain the aspect ratio of something you have already created.

For most of my clip art I add a black border with a line weight of 3 for continuity.