Learning the Alphabet before starting school

Children’s minds are like little sponges, soaking up anything and everything they are exposed to in the early years. There are so many ways to introduce them to the letters of the alphabet in their leading up to formal schooling. They will, of course do a lot of this in their first term of school, but being familiar with the alphabet will give them that little head start.

Now I’m not suggesting to bombard them with worksheets and make them write their letters ten times over – if you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know that I’m all about play based learning and I have done so many alphabet posts before (just search “alphabet”). I also want to advise you not to put pressure on your child or yourself that they “must know every letter before they start school”. Some children take longer than others, and some will be ready before others. These days there is also a huge age variation among Reception/Prep classes. Some children might be four and a half, some children might be approaching six years of age. Today’s post is more about proving a print rich environment using some of the fantastic products from Bright Star Kids.

This is a sponsored post as part of my Brand Ambassadorship with Bright Star Kids.

Fun and Fabulous Four Seasons Activities

I'm really interested to know, how do you go about teaching the four seasons? Does it come under your Maths curriculum when you are learning about days, weeks, months and time? Or does it come under Science when you're examining the weather, Earth and space? Or maybe it's a little bit of both. Do you do it all in one unit? Or spread it out over the year so your Summer lesson plans take place in the Summer time? I don't think there is a right or wrong approach, I am just genuinely interested! Please let me know via the comments below or over on Instagram.

Anyway, regardless of when and how you teach it, here are some fantastic resources for Junior Primary level you might want to try!

When setting up your classroom at the start of the year, months of the year visuals and birthday charts are always a must have! I love how the seasons are reflected within the months of the year labels, each of which is subtly different to the last, adding a point of interest and discussion. Children can also use these as a stand alone activity where they need to place them in order or group the seasons. The poster below would make a great addition to a class calendar display as well!

Why Pretend Play is so Important

We have had our little play kitchen for three years now and it's still played with regularly by both of the kids. Little Man loves to chop the fruit and make coffees, while Miss M feeds her dolls. Pretend play is such an important part of early childhood development for so many reasons (which I'll get into later in the post).

After a while though, it's always good to change things around and provide different play opportunities. We were lucky enough to be gifted this Large Retro Grocery Store thanks to Tiny Tiny Shop Shop. So we've relocated the play kitchen to another part of the family room to make room for the shop and to provide some new play opportunities. The kids are absolutely loving it and they are surprisingly playing really well together!

Gifted for the purpose of this review. 

Outstanding Oceans: Ideas for Junior Primary

At school this term we are bridging the gap from "Living Things" in the garden, to "Living things under the sea". It's another one of my favourite topics with so much scope across several learning areas - and it's just so pretty! All that blue looks amazing in the classroom (just like my discovery table pictured here).

Here are just a few fun resources from Teach Starter to get the ball rolling if you're keen to try an Ocean unit of work with your Junior Primary class.

This is a sponsored post as part of my Brand Ambassadorship with Teach Starter. 

Learn and Grow with the New Officeworks Range

Don't you just love wandering the aisles of Officeworks? All that pretty colour coded and matching stationery makes me feel like I could be the most organised teacher ever. Miss M shares my love of pretty stationery and is always so excited to simply just buy a new pen or notepad, but Officeworks recently launched their new Learn and Grow range, opening up a whole new world of kid's products and I'm sure it will fast become one of their favourite shops too!

Please note, this is not a sponsored post, although we were lucky enough to be invited to the launch of this new product range which included a very generous goodie bag! I couldn't help but show you some of the products in more detail here on the blog. 

Teacher Carry All Review + GIVEAWAY!

One thing that most teachers have in common is that we seem to cart everything except the kitchen sink to and from school. Folders, planners, student books and papers to mark, picture books, toys, resources, laminating, art supplies, ingredients, materials, storage, not to mention our lunch and drink (because, you know, we need to remember to eat and can't survive on coffee all day!)

I was in desperate need of a new teacher bag, so I was thrilled to recently discover the Teacher Carry All! Keep reading for all the info AND a sneaky giveaway that's happening over on my Instagram RIGHT NOW!

Kindly gifted for the purpose of this review.