Empowering Educators to Ignite Curiosity in Little Learners – Welcome to the Little Learner Hub!
This year seemed to be endless at times but 2023 is almost here so we might as well start getting ready for it! That means it’s time to pick a new 2023 calendar to help you stay organised and keep track of events all year long. Grab your free download here.
World Space Week is a UN-declared celebration of space held annually, every October 4 to 10. It is the largest space event in the world and an ideal time for teachers and educators to use space-based activities to excite students about science and technology.
Una dreams of a life in Space. Life on Earth is just so so-so. But how will she get there? And will she complete her mission to discover life in Space? And did she remember to feed Neil the goldfish?
A funny and factual look at the Sun explains every part of the Sun’s big job: keeping our solar system together, giving Earth day and night, keeping us warm, and more. It gives so much information about Earth and it even explains everything leading up until now. The kids love this book.
Smart Kids Space is an ideal first guide to the wonders of the universe from the Solar System to the Milky Way, from Mars to Mercury, from UFOs to the Space Shuttle – this book has it all…
This book is wonderful because it makes you stop and think about the number of stars vs. something that kids can relate to. It’s great because it compares space to real-life examples.
Kids love Halloween… The costumes, the candy, the spooky stories! The month of October is the perfect opportunity to engage students in writing and get those creative juices flowing.
These Halloween writing activities will help your students create a creepy tale or two.
A school I used to teach at had a Halloween fete every year and one of the sponsors was a real estate company. They would post amazing Haunted House For Sale signs outside the school. It was a perfect opportunity for descriptive writing activities that could engage even the most reluctant writer.
This Julia Donaldson book is one of my year round favourite picture books – especially perfect for Halloween! There are just so many wonderful teaching opportunities in this story. Here are some activities that I have created…
Senses writing is such an effective scaffold to encourage descriptive writing. Students use their senses to imagine what it would be like to trick or treat at a haunted house or meet a monster, a witch or a ghost.
Procedure writing is my favourite to teach. The structure and sequencing skills students learn when writing a procedure are so easily transferrable. October is a great time to hone those procedure writing skills because Halloween procedures can be so much fun, engaging and creative!
How to sneak a monster into school is always a winner! There is a great text that you can buy to go with it here: PROCEDURAL WRITING – How to Sneak your Monster into School
How to make a Jack O’Lantern is fun and can be hands-on. Great for home-school, and family writing fun. Use this YouTube video tutorial to help your students with the steps.
Halloween is full of weird and wonderful creatures and settings that capture the imagination. Have your students draw spooky characters like witches, wizards and goblins then write a description.
The Fire Wombat – Notable for the 2021 CBCA Book of The Year
As the flames of a bushfire approach, one small wombat shelters with other animals in her burrow. But that is just the beginning of their journey to safety.
Based on events witnessed by Australian Children’s Laureate Jackie French during the 2020 fires, and co-created with award-winning illustrator Danny Snell, this is a story of courage, compassion and survival, which saw people across Australia come together to save our wildlife from devastation.
Download the Teacher Notes HERE!
Try it Out
Click here to buy this resource.
As a kindergarten teacher, I understand the importance of creating a safe and welcoming environment for my students, especially on their first day of school. That’s why I love incorporating Audrey Penn’s heartwarming book, “The Kissing Hand,” into my first-day activities. This sweet story not only helps to alleviate separation anxiety but also sets the stage for a day filled with engaging stations and hands-on activities that promote learning, observation, and creativity.
To make the first day of kindergarten both enjoyable and informative, I’ve designed a series of stations inspired by “The Kissing Hand.” These stations serve as a pretest to assess my students’ skills while providing opportunities for observation and engagement. Let’s take a look at the stations I set up:
Shape Match Station: At this station, students match different shapes, such as circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles. This activity not only reinforces shape recognition but also allows me to observe their fine motor skills and attention to detail.
Counting Numbers Cut and Paste Station: In this station, children cut out numbers and paste them in sequential order. This activity helps me assess their number recognition and one-to-one correspondence skills, while also reinforcing the concept of counting.
Line Tracing Station: At this station, students practice tracing lines, enabling me to observe their pencil grip and fine motor skills. This activity is essential for me to gauge their readiness for writing and identify any areas where early intervention may be needed.
Number Trace and Match Station: This station focuses on number recognition and counting. Students trace numbers and match them with corresponding quantities, allowing me to assess their number sense and counting skills.
Lowercase Alphabet Trace Station: Here, students practice tracing lowercase letters. This activity helps develop their letter recognition and prepares them for future reading and writing tasks.
Uppercase Alphabet Trace Station: Similar to the previous station, students trace uppercase letters, further reinforcing their letter recognition and familiarity.
After engaging with the various stations, I dedicate the next session to fostering creativity and creating memorable keepsakes of their first day of kindergarten.
My First Day Crown: During this activity, children create crowns to celebrate their first day of school. They can decorate their crowns with stickers, and drawings fostering a sense of pride and accomplishment.
First Day of School Handprint Keepsake: Using non-toxic paints, students make handprints on a piece of paper, creating a unique keepsake that captures their growth throughout the year. This activity not only promotes self-expression but also offers a tangible memory for children to cherish.
Here’s what some other teachers had to say when they used these activities…
Click here to buy this resource
Ellie’s Dragon – Shortlisted for the 2021 CBCA Book of The Year: Early Childhood.
No friendship is imaginary.
When Ellie is very little, she finds a newborn dragon fresh from the egg on a supermarket shelf, and calls him Scratch. He is quite the sweetest thing she has ever seen! From that day on, Ellie and Scratch do everything together. Ellie’s mum and her teacher can’t see her fiery friend, but all her friends can – and, over the years, Ellie’s dragon grows to be big, house-trained, and very affectionate. And Ellie is growing, too… A moving story about the wonders of imagination and the nature of growing up from one of Australia’s most revered bookmakers.
This story provides excellent opportunities to discuss…. Growing up, imagination, feelings, friendship and family.
Click here to buy this resource.
Anemone is not the Enemy – Shortlisted for the 2021 CBCA Book of The Year: Early Childhood. This quirky and humorous picture book tells the story of a sea anemone who lives alone in a rock pool and desperately wants a friend … The story follows a series of conversations between the anemone and the visitors to the rock pool as the tide goes in and out. A sweet story of friendship dappled with fascinating marine life facts.
This story provides excellent opportunities to discuss…. Friendship-building, feelings, individual differences, strengths and weaknesses, compatibility and loneliness.
Click here to buy this resource.
CBCA 2021 Shortlist – Picture Book of the Year nominee Sing Me the Summer. is the latest from the perfect picture book pairing from Jane Godwin and Alison Lester.
This beautiful story takes the reader on a journey through Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring and back to Summer again. It follows the change of seasons and the change of activities all these changes bring – like playing on the beach, stomping through leaves, bonfires on cold winter nights and playing in long springtime grass.
A wonderful rhyming story packed with teaching and learning opportunities.
Day and night
Seasons
Rhyme
Senses Writing
Download the Sing Me the Summer FREEBIE:
You can buy the full resource here:
Sing Me the Summer Print and Go Worksheets
You can find other book buddy resources in my TPT store:
Not cute. is a funny story about an adorable Quokka who wishes to be described as anything but cute. He would prefer to be dangerous, scary or ferocious. Quokka encounters a number of Australian animals and becomes more and more frustrated at being considered cute. He starts to become angry, aggressive and too big for his boots. Quokka eventually meets an animal who agrees with him and meets an unfortunate fate. The final pages include a quote from Aesop, “The stubborn listen to nobody’s advice and become a victim of their own delusions”, a wonderful prompt to discuss the consequences of one’s actions.
This book is a great starting point for many lessons in the classroom… I recently used it to teach a Dynamic Dialogue lesson and the kids loved it.
The dialogue in the story lends itself to drama. So we acted out the story and interchanged the ‘said’ words from the story, while discussing the meaning of the new vocabulary.
We used Dynamic Dialogue writing prompts to imagine some hilarious conversations between the different animals.
Then, using the book Not Cute. as an example we explored how to use punctuation with direct speech.
To save yourself a heap of time grab my Not Cute. book companion resource here:
Not cute. Print and Go Activities and Worksheets
I created a Dialogue writing prompt freebie that you can use in your classroom:
You can buy the full resource here:
Dynamic Dialogue Writing Prompts
You can find more book buddy resources in my TPT store.
I was first introduced to Newman’s Error Analysis by a numeracy consultant many years ago and it has been the basis of my problem solving teaching ever since. Problem solving is an important way of learning, because it motivates children to connect previous knowledge with new situations and to develop flexibility and creativity in the process.
By consistently using Newman’s Prompts to explicitly scaffold the problem solving process, student’s quickly develop confidence and a range of problem solving strategies.
Newman’s error analysis came from research into language issues in maths in the 1970s. As a result of these studies Anne Newman identified five basic steps students typically work through to solve written word problems:
Newman suggested five prompts to determine where errors may occur in students’ attempts to solve written problems.
Reading 1. Please read the question to me.
Comprehension 2. Tell me what the question is asking you to do.
Transformation 3. Tell me how you are going to find the answer.
Processing Skills 4. Show me what to do to get the answer.
Encoding 5. Now, write down your answer.
I introduce Newman’s Prompts to solve mathematical word problems as soon as my students are able to read basic sentences. Giving students problems with words that they can decode helps to build both their reading and math confidence.
I teach my students the steps with these Newman’s Prompts posters and then they each have a bookmark to remind them.
Here is an example of how I structure the lesson:
I created a freebie that you can use to teach your students using Newman’s Prompts. You can grab it with the link below:
FREEBIE – Newman’s Error Analysis Problem Solving Worksheet
To save yourself a tonne of time… Buy my other Newman’s Prompt resources here:
Newman’s Error Analysis Problem Solving Booklet – Numbers to 20
Newman’s Error Analysis Posters and Bookmarks
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