New Year - new toys (6): a teaching trolley

The last "new toy" blog post is the best one - my teaching trolley! 

Happy New Year to all of you working in schools! I am just as nervous as I was 30 years ago!!!

New Year- new toys (5): clapperboards

These are not new either but I had to buy some because the old one broke after excessive usage by enthusiastic pupils:-) I saw them on Carmen's blog first, follow her for more amazing ideas!

We do lots of role plays in the lessons, I set the scene and give different jobs out: the pupils love to volunteer to be the directors with the clapperboard, hold the spotlights and record the "movie" on the iPad, many times with a green screen in the back. Use big microphones for more drama!

The clapperboards are under £2 on ebay or Amazon. 

New Year - new toys (4): a parachute

I have a very old photocopy called "Parachute games in the primary languages classroom", and every time I tidy my resources, I just look at it and say: one day I will try this, but not now...

This year I am teaching lots of little ones (Reception and Year 1), so I am finally ready to give it a go, even if I have to use a hammer to knock some classroom walls out:-)

I bought my parachute on Amazon, and then another one on a local Facebook selling page, so no excuses for me, I will let you know how I get on.

Have you tried parachute games? Leave a comment if you want to help me out!

New Year- new toys (3): window pens

We used window pens before, they are great to motivate the pupils to write sentences and the window will be a lovely display area. 

It was an expensive activity until I found some very cheap white window pens in a local store last week (the Range), 4 for £1. I tried one and the quality looks OK. I also bought some coloured pens, these were £8.

The one thing I have never tried are window crayons, but now I have a beautiful set of them, too.

 

New Year - new toys (2): syringe pens

I am sick of the missing full stops in my pupils' written work, so I bought some syringe pens online- these will be used by the sentence surgeons who will walk around during the written activity and check the sentences!

New year - new toys! (1): answer buzzers

If you have seen my previous post, you must be thinking that there is something wrong with me for buying new things, but if you look carefully, you will realise that there is a little room left in those boxes!

August is a great month because I don't pay for childcare so I think I am incredibly rich and buy quite a few things for work. I will post a toy each day for a week to celebrate the start of the new year:-)

Toy number one: Answer Buzzers from Amazon - I am planning to use these for quizzes.

Thank you for the idea, Vikki Bruff!

My new classroom

Wrong title... I haven't got one.

But if I had one, I would put all my lovely topic boxes in, I would have a permanent green screen and lots of display boards with the children's work.

I love my job and being a visiting teacher but I am very jealous when I see  all the beautiful new classrooms on Twitter and Facebook at this time of the year.

Comment if you have an empty room in your school, I can move in next week:-)