Happy Saturday!

I hope you are all enjoying your time relaxing after a very busy return to Term 2.

Today I have a new product bundle to share with you. As teachers, especially in early years, one of the more difficult parts of our job can be trying to find ways to keep learning sight words and spelling fun and engaging. Enter ‘Everyday No-Prep Spelling’!

In each of these packets I have included 10 black and white activity pages for little ones to practise their spelling lists and sight words.

In each packet there are 4 types of activities. All pages come with space for student names, a Learning Intention in the form of an ‘I can’ statement, and clear directions, all written in Australian foundation fonts.

1: Students will fill the objects with their words in any colour or order they choose (6 in each packet).

2: Students will fill the big shapes with their words (2 in each packet).

3: Students will roll their die and follow the instructions on the activity sheet.

4: Students spin a spinner or paperclip with a pencil and write their spelling words in the matching colour.

You can purchase each packet individually OR all 3 in one BUNDLE.

I hope you enjoy this new addition to my store!

Until next time my friends!

~Nerida~

Hello my teacher friends! I hope that you have all enjoyed a restful break before returning for Term 2.

I am very excited to announce that I have been working very hard on something for quite a while now and I can finally release it!

A few years ago now I released my very first Foundation Science unit and since then they have become one of the most popular items in my store. Now that I am updating resources I thought it necessary to begin updating my science units – and add a new set of companion SCIENCE CENTRES to my store – beginning with my absolute FAVOURITE…

YES! My all-time favourite ‘Exploring Living Things’ has had a facelift and I thought I would take the opportunity to show exactly what is included in my science units!

I began creating these units as a way to help give Foundation teachers access to FUN, ENGAGING and MEANINGFUL activities and resources to teach science to our youngest learners. In each unit you will find 10 detailed, easy to follow lesson plans, along with digital and printable resources to support each lesson, follow-up worksheets, an optional assessment task and criteria sheet, a title page, plus spine inserts for 1 inch and 2 inch binders, and basket or tub labels to keep all your goodies organised!

Lesson Plans

If you have purchased any of my Foundation units before, you will notice that this lesson plan looks a little different. I have updated my lesson plans to a cleaner and more printer-friendly design. The fonts have also been updated!

For each lesson plan I have included a learning intention in the form of an ‘I can…’ statement, the underlying key understandings for the lesson, a list of resources needed for the lesson, a detailed focus lesson and directions for a matching follow-up activity.

Activity Sheets

All the lessons included in my units come with a follow-up activity, usually in the form of an activity sheet. These worksheets have been designed with LITTLE LEARNERS IN MIND! This means they are uncluttered, written in foundation font, and the activities are appropriate for children to complete with little to no support. They all show a learning intention matching the one of the lesson and clear instructions. These worksheets have also been updated to have a cleaner, printer-friendly design. I have included an optional title page also to allow you to create your own student booklets.

Printable and Digital Resources

Included in all of my units are all the digital and printable resources you need to support your teaching of key science concepts! In my ‘Exploring Living Things’ unit, you will find resources like living and non-living sorting cards, pieces to create meaningful anchor chart displays showing real photographs where possible, and activities to explicitly teach key science skills like labelling diagrams and using criteria to make scientific decisions. Above you can see just some of the wonderful experiences you can have with your students in this unit!

Along with printable resources, I have also included custom-made digital books in a PDF format to help teach scientific concepts. In this unit you will find books to teach about plant and animal life-cycles, plant needs and plant features. These books can either be displayed digitally on an Interactive Whiteboard or projector, or alternatively they can be printed in a hard-copy format and even added to the classroom library. These books are presented on a white background for easy printing and the text is shown in foundation font.

Assessment Task

At the end of each unit you will find an assessment task which covers all the key concepts taught throughout the unit. Along with this, there is a simple format criteria sheet to support your marking.

Links to Literacy

I am a strong believer in using good quality literature to teach across all areas of the curriculum – especially science! Each unit will have suggested texts listed in the resources section of some lesson plans. For this unit on exploring living things I have used a variety of different Eric Carle texts to help introduce concepts such as life-cycles, needs and how animals grow and change.

Organising the Unit

I find that most of my units tend to fit into a 1 inch binder. After printing the lesson plans and activity sheets, I laminate the printable resources and organise them into plastic sleeves for each lesson. By laminating the anchor chart pieces I can reuse the same pieces year after year!

Science Centres

NOW for something BRAND NEW…SCIENCE CENTRES!

Last year I dabbled in creating some centres to support my Year 1 Science and Geography units and I knew I just had to create sets for my Foundation Units! So, let’s take a look!

Below you can see each of my 8 Science Centres in action. These centres cover the same skills as those taught in my ‘Exploring Living Things’ unit. They can easily be used as alternate follow-up activities, meaningful work for fast finishers, or just a fun, hands on science exploration lesson!

Each activity comes with a cover page with clear directions and listed additional resources. These activities cover a range of scientific concepts and skills including making observations, creating scientific diagrams, labelling diagrams, making connections and even extending oral language skills through describing animal features.

Organising the Centres

All the centres fit perfectly in A4 plastic document wallets, which will protect the activities and keep them neat and organised. These can then be filed away however you choose, ready to be used again and again.

So there you have it – The first in my updated science units and centres. I am currently working on updating and finalising ‘Investigating the Weather’ and hope to be able to share this one with you soon! As the units are updated, if you already own the original you will be able to access the updated versions for FREE!

If you already on the unit ‘Exploring Living Things’ I encourage you to head over to your ‘My Purchases’ page on TeachersPayTeachers and redownload to access the updated version FOR FREE!

The ‘Exploring Living Things’ Science Centres are now available for purchase in my store. You can check them out by following the link below.

Until next time my friends!

~Nerida~

Hello lovely fellow teachers!

I have been having so much fun updating some of my OLD resources! I chose to start with my alphabet resources aimed at building letter formation since it is still so close to the start of the year (and personally, I use this type of resource in my literacy centres all year round because the kiddies have so much fun playing!)

Before I show you the new looks, I wanted to share a little information about the 3 updates I have made so far. These centres now match completely! The pages are clean and uncluttered to help little eyes focus on the letters themselves. On each letter card, I have added a little animal image and caption relating to the letter (for example, on the letter a card there is an ant, and the caption reads ‘a for ant’. I have kept the little animal picture in the corner consistent across the sets to help build letter sound recognition.

Linking Cube Alphabet

These linking cube alphabets are such a FUN way to develop letter recognition and to sneak in valuable fine motor practise into literacy centres! The kiddies simply connect the blocks together in the pattern shown on the cards. I like to print these cards 2 to a page for half size cards as the kiddies are just using the picture as a guide.

Play Dough Alphabet

Although they are called ‘play dough’ mats, these cards are very flexible and limited only by your imagination! Swap out the play dough for Wikki Stix, kinetic sand, or even counters and marbles! The best part of this? Every time you swap out the materials, it is a completely new game for your kiddies to play and engage with!

Pom-Pom Alphabet

I shared this all-time favourite a few days ago after I updated it but thought I would do so again with the new 2 sets. As I have said before, this is a fabulous alphabet centres, perfect for building fine motor skills! Just add tweezers and you are good to go!

I hope these new centres have given you some inspiration for your own literacy centres! If you are interested in any of the above sets, please follow the links below each cover image to see the current listing on teacherspayteachers.

Until next time my friends!

~Nerida~

Hello friends!

I have been SOOOOO busy completing some BRAND NEW resources for my ‘Hands On Maths’ that I just couldn’t wait to share them with you!

As I mentioned yesterday, I am in the process of updating my store which means that all my new products will have a clean, fresh look. Tonight I have uploaded 4 new products in my ‘Hands On Maths’ series to add some fun to your maths centres this year! Under each cover page I will add a link to the product in my teacherspayteachers store. All of these resources I have added tonight are super simple to play, and require NO CUTTING! That’s right, all you need to do is print and laminate – does it get any better than that? (Well, for your fingers anyway?)

Spin and Cover

This is a super simple activity that makes for a perfect follow-up or informal number recognition assessment task. Students will simply spin the spinner on the mat and place a counter over either a matching number or a non-matching number. There are 10 mats included in this packet – one mat for each number to 10.

Sweet Towers

Towers is an absolute favourite activity of mine, because a) it is so easy to differentiate, and b) it is simple to see who can and cannot (yet) build collections using 1:1 correspondence. Students simply read the numbers shown and build a matching tower of blocks or cubes.

Count and Cover

To play ‘Count and Cover’, all students need to do is count the collections shown on the grid, and cover each with a matching magnet number – Easy peasy! Personally, I love placing anything using magnets on cookie trays because not only are they the perfect size, but they really stick! This set comes with 9 mats, in 3 different differentiated themes: lollies (numbers to 3), ice creams (numbers to 5) and cookies (numbers to 9).

Sweet Dough Mats

These mats are so flexible and can be used in so many ways, with any manipulative you like! Play dough, Wikki Stix, markers, counters, pom-poms – the list is endless! Included in this packet are 3 full sets of number mats to 10 in 3 different themes – donuts, lollies, and cookies.

I am looking forward to adding more centres to this series so keep your eyes peeled!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Nerida~

Hello fellow superheroes!!

I have something pretty exciting to announce. You may have noticed in my latest product that it looks a little different to my other resources…well this is because I have decided to give my store and resources a much-needed face-lift! New logo! New colours! New covers! and… FREE UPDATES!

Starting with a very popular literacy centre – Pom-Pom Alphabet Mats!

As you can see, the product covers have been completely made over, and on each cover you will see the relevant ‘series’ it belongs to. This will match up with the product categories to the left of my store page.

Like I said above, this product is a favourite of early years teachers because it is just perfect for building fine motor muscles in little fingers! Just add some tweezers and VIOLA!

It is also very flexible. You can swap out the pom-poms for any other small manipulative you like including play dough, flat marbles, pebbles, buttons, counters – the options are endless!

If this has peaked your interest, I would LOVE for you to head over to my store and check out the updated listing, just follow the link below!

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Nerida ~

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton