K-3 Teacher Resources
K-3 Teacher Resources Newsletter
May 2009

Welcome to K-3 Teacher Resources 

Tips & Updates Newsletter  No.  22

May  2009
view online

Contents....
*Welcome
*Teaching Ideas Winners
*Teaching Tip
*New Resources
*Free Resource for Newsletter Subscribers
*Resources Coming Soon

*Welcome..

Welcome to JUNE

We hope this finds you and your families safe and well. 

May has been another big month - lots of new resources this month..

We have a lovely new staff member named Lesley who has been an absolute whizz at changing all the fonts for our resources - thanks Lesley and Welcome....

Thank you to all our members who have helped us kick off the NEW Photo Gallery of our resources 'In Action'.   It is sooooo wonderful to see the fabulous ways you are using the resources and even better to know the children are benefiting - we look forward to more photos - Don't forget - send in 4 useable photos of our resources 'in action' and have a year's membership on us....

We have decided to bypass Simplybox as a bookmarking tool as it became a bit cumbersome.  You will now find all the websites we find each day listed in our  'delicious' bookmarking network.  We come across a lot each day so please take a look and add your delicious network to ours if you like.....

My sister is about to embark on her final Teaching Prac. (remember yours!!!!) in year one and she asked me to write a quick rundown of a 'typical day'.  You can take a look at my rundown - but would love to hear some of yours for your year level - you can add your 'typical day rundown' here....

Finally don't forget the best way to stay up to date with new additions to our site is to join our RSS mail - updates  via email whenever someone adds a new teaching idea or a new resource is added.

Enjoy.....

HERE'S TO JUNE !

CHARITY UPDATE - WE HAVE RAISED $240 SO FAR AND RISING - KEEP THOSE TEACHING IDEAS COMING - THANK YOU THAT IS GREAT!

Teachers Zone Update...We now have 632 Zonees.  *****PLEASE JOIN IN - ADD YOUR OWN FILES, PICTURES AND VIEWS ON THE K-3 DISCUSSION FORUMS******

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*Winners - Teaching Ideas Contributions..

It really is so very difficult to choose winners as you have all contributed so many wonderful ideas.   We just want to thank each one of you for your ideas - they have all been so helpful to so many Teachers......

Congratulations to the following winners this month....

Congratulations to Aimee for her winning........

What Happens to Helvetica Hippo?

Congratulations to Kylie for her winning.....(please contact us Kylie)

Jeopardy Phonics Game

You can now view past winners here...

***Please share your ideas - Read others and be in the running to have your Teaching Idea in our next Newsletter, as well as your next Year's Membership for Free.

This month's question...

June 2009

Please share with us how you integrate technology into your program.

Do you use web tools such as 'voicethread', picture sharing, 'skype', 'do you have a class website / blog / wiki, do you use an interactive whiteboard, etc.

View and Submit

*Ways to Keep Track of 'What's New'

SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES AS NEW RESOURCES AND IDEAS ARE ADDED

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*Teaching Tip Time...

Enlarging and Reducing the size of our pages.....

I thought I would just add a few tips for re-sizing our resources.

First of all we realize that printing can get expensive so we do try to keep the colour used on our pages at a reasonable level - still 'colourful' but not so much that your ink cartridges are gobbled up after one print!

Ok, now all of the A4 sized documents can be made smaller quite easily.  We try to place as much as we can onto A4 so that you then have the option to keep it big or make it smaller if you wish.

This is especially useful for the classroom theme word cards, but even resources such as ' measuring volume ',  ' handwriting practice ', and ' counting by tens charts ' for example can be reduced easily - particularly useful for  group work / learning games or individual use.

Here are a few examples....

*Reduce the classroom theme word cards to 4 pages per sheet so that there are 16 words per A4 page - then make multiple copies of these smaller words for literacy games.

*All the theme word cards can be reduced so that the words become as small as 64 words per page and small enough to glue onto pages or into sentences easily....

*A4 Alphabet Poster can be reduced down to A5 size and used to place on desks..or glued in books....

*Handwriting practice cards can be reduced in size as the children gain confidence in their handwriting....

*Concept Books can be reduced in size to make 'mini-books', or a 4 page concept book onto one A4 page...easy for children to write and illustrate then cut and make into a book...

*Reduce the size of the jigsaw puzzle template to 2 pieces per page to make up a smaller size class puzzle project.

TO REDUCE:  On your printer 'properties' settings there should be an option of..  PAGE LAYOUT : 2 in 1   4 in 1   9 in 1   or  16 in 1

This is where you can make more than 1 page print on 1 sheet

Enlarging is a little bit trickier but can be useful.   Unless you have an A3 printer it is difficult to enlarge directly to A3 size with most home printers.  However, this should or might be able to be done at school.

The main resource I would probably enlarge to A3 is the concept books so that a class big book can be made and used for modelling.

The Rhymes and Poems, enlarged to A3 and glued onto a coloured backing card - make great charts for 'big book' work, as well as the clock face template and hundreds chart.

You can also make a 'poster' size with your home computer which involves some cut and pasting but can be worth the effort..

You can find more information HERE about how to enlarge and reduce.

Also just wanted to mention how effective cutting up words can be.

Cut sight words, theme words any word cards into syllables, phonic chunks, or cut the picture off using puzzle cuts and ask the children to put them back together.

Is very effective in focusing on letter chunking and word patterns......

Hope this helps..

Cheers to all
Donna

*New Resource Additions to Membership...

Nursery Rhymes, Poems and Songs

**Kookaburra Song

Classroom Themes Word Cards

**Time

Maths Resources

**Ordinal Numbers Puzzle Chart
**More Printable Math Game Spinners - Addition 8 diff levels...
**Number Maths Games 1-100
**Friends of 10 Chart and Game

Concept Books

**Jack and Jill Concept Book

We have had many members from SA request these words.....

*Resources Coming Soon....Thanks for all your suggestions - we are doing our best to gradually work our way through...thanks for your patience

'Camping' theme words
'Maths' Vocab Words
'A Little Clock' Rhyme
Similes
Praise Charts
cvc words

*Free Resource for Newsletter Subscribers....

NUMBER CARTOONS 1-10

You will need to access your emailed original to download these resources - Thanks

Enjoy and Thanks for subscribing to our Newsletter....

Till next time - Take Care..... Donna

PS ****(DON'T FORGET WITH ALL OF OUR PRINTABLES YOU CAN PRINT THEM ANY SIZE USING THE PAGE ADJUSTMENTS ON YOUR PRINTER - THIS PROVIDES SO MUCH SCOPE FOR SO MANY USES OF ALL OUR PRINTABLES - make them smaller and black and white - ideal for individual student copies as well.)****

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