Im not the creator of these learning styles - there is lots of literature and evidence online about these styles and which are more popular than others. Some literature authors state there are only four main ways; some say seven; I even read somewhere about nine. These seven are ones that I have worked from this year over 2021 and placed my students into. I always ask parents when students start where they think their students might prefer. Download this pdf chart if you feel this might help you unpack the learning styles of your students too! 
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This can be easier said than done as students quite often chop and change in their play during their play. For example, while observing two students play last term, these two started off as parallel play. They were playing with the car toys parallel to each other; with no engagement or interaction with each other. One student then went off to play with the dinosaurs (solitary play) and the other student simply was an onlooker - watched them play but didn't join in. Then one of these students got out the magnetics and they both were then engaged in cooperative play. Students can switch and change where they need to and for the play that benefits them. 
Its definitely something to think about... What type of play are your students engaging with? What type of activities promote which type of play in your classroom? Can you easily spot students that are unoccupied or as an onlooker in play? What could you do for them? Check out some of my other playful learning blog posts or resources below!
Sensory tables are a great way to get hands on activities into your classroom or space! You can target many different areas like touch, messy play, tactile activities, using tools and more! A sensory tables can be lots of fun and using minimal things from around your house! I tend to re-use lots of materials or objects on a rotating system!
Download this freebie ebook below! Sensory Tables - 9 ideas for the Classroom (ebook)
NZ$0.00
Sensory Tables - 9 ideas for the Classroom (ebook) This ebook unpacks how I teach and use a sensory table in my classroom. This will help give you some tips and ideas to how to get one going in your space with 9 examples of sensory prompts or provocations! This shares real-life examples of what I have set up in my classroom. Provocations, resources and ideas that I have trialled in my class. A great light read for anyone looking to get started, find tips or just see it in the classroom. This ebook has 18 pages in it; with links to resources and templates you might like to use in your journey too. Playful Learning in the Classroom (ebook)
NZ$0.00
Playful Learning in the Classroom (ebook) This ebook unpacks how I teach and run playful learning in my classroom. Playbased learning, learning through play, play in the classroom; no matter the name this will help give you some tips and ideas to how to get going. This shares real-life examples of what I have set up in my classroom. Provocations, resources and ideas that I am trialling in my class. A great light read for anyone looking to get started, find tips or just see it in the classroom. This ebook has 36 pages in it; with links to resources and templates you might like to use in your journey too. In my class I have a designated play area. This has been a huge work in progress that has been developed over the last year. It is integrated into learning time through 'playful learning' which is my take on play based or learning through play. Each to your own name - that's what I call it!
Each 2 weeks I change the shop part of my play area. This is a combination of student led and also resource led. If you don't already know I have an addiction to Kmart and the wooden toys! So since finding and purchasing more and more, I have themed the area to match the new toys I come across. These are perfect for your dramatic play area and are available for purchase! Check out my prompts below that I have designed for a play area!  A big part of our 'read to self' and 'read to someone' this year was looking at the ways we can read a book. Students were very aware that they might not be able to read the words, leaving them feeling sad and uninterested in reading. So we spent ALOT of talking about how you can read the pictures to help you make a guess or inference about what the story might be about. This freebie anchor chart might help you and your students remember how they can also read books when completing read to self or read to someone. Download it free below!
I already have free online courses that you can complete here on my online courses site! There are some around Google apps and Seesaw; now adding flipped learning to it! Check out the promo video below showing you what it comes with!
I used key learning examples and activities off teachers pay teachers to support the learning happening alongside syllables. But you can download this poster for free! Click on the pdf below to have this in your classroom too.
My play room has about 1/4 of the classroom space dedicated to it this year. That is due to the importance and also huge set up I now have! The first dramatic play prompt is a sushi shop too which the kids are loving!
If you have any questions about my classroom space for 2021 please let me know and I will get back to you!
 Last year, I came across Calm Space Collective - an Australian brand of amazing calm down tools and kits for the classroom. At this time, we had come back to class after lockdown and emotion support or regulation was a focus for us in our school. I already had a calm down space where students could go to take a breath, focus or have time to reflect on their emotions to support their transition to being ready to learn in class. In my corner, I have prompts, personal calming technique boards and also a box of tools for students to use. This is being added to with each calm kit I receive or get from Calm Space Collective.
Of course you don't need to have a calm down space or even a calm down kit. Its all about your students, their emotions and how they are finding the classroom. The calm down space is a well received aspect of my classroom and other teachers can see the benefits of it also. The tools that I have received in the latest kit were kindly gifted to me to continue to build this space for my students.
If you're interested in checking the kits out for yourself, visit Calm Space Collective here.
I have used Daily 5 for four years now and use it as a basis for my programme. The aspects that are involved are read to self, read to someone, word work, work on writing and listen to reading. I find that all five of these are fundamental parts to practice and learn in reading time, with students building key skills while completing these. I also have a few other rotations included of other things like teacher time, work on ipad, word wall, free play, playdough, lego and crafts. These all make up important aspects of my programme. I first began with Daily 5 in 2017 - I had done the research, read the book, scoped for resources before implementing it 'the right way'. It was such a success and since then I have implemented a lot of student agency based choices which came from the daily 5 implementation.  My reading tumble is more of a choice board now where students can choose what they would like to do in reading time as long as they cross it off on their card. This is to create ownership over their choices and be held accountable for the choices they make in class too. They love being able to choose what they want to do and I love seeing them do it! 
I hope this has helped unpack a little on how reading is run in my classroom. Obviously things might be different this year with my newbies but I know I will be doing Daily 5 again in a basic tumble to begin the year. If you have any questions about how I run reading please get in contact info@mrspriestleyict.com or send me a message over facebook or instagram.
 Whānau, family members and parents are an important part of the classroom - just like your students. All parents want the best for their little kiddies (even though it might not come across that way sometimes). When starting your year, there are some important things you should think about and plan to start your year. Schools might have particular expectations that you can work with like how to communicate with parents (on an app, in person, set times) and for things like parent teacher conferences. Setting up (in your mind) what you want to achieve over the year will help it be a success.
A big thing for me with families is facebook and personal messaging. I absolutely REFUSE to add any parents as friends on facebook; give out my personal cellphone number and have conversations at absurd hours of the night. That is something that I have always stuck with since I began teaching, and feel that my facebook page is my personal life - the small part I have seperate from school. I worked at a school that lived their entire school community on facebook. It was INSANE trying to stop parents messaging me on facebook, ignoring friend requests and even facebook calling! It was just something I can not do and won't change for a job. If there is something you are firm about, then stick to your guns, be true to what you believe in and be consistent. Parents soon learnt to contact me via email or come in and visit me. Also accepting phone calls or emails at 10.30pm at night is a NO go. I will respond at resonnable times of the day.  Check out my top tips to get set up with parents! Want to learn more about Seesaw? Check out all of my Seesaw blog posts, resources and how to get set up if you are looking for an amazing way to communicate with parents and whānau.
Some of my resources pictured above are available for download! The 'meet the teacher' resource can be downloaded via the 'Mrs P's Teacher Hub link'. I made up the learning story template on Google drawings which involves text boxes and layering - super simple to make! Download my happy grams template freebie on this post! As always, if you need any help or have any questions email me info@mrspriestleyict.com
My main advice with writing ( and any other main curriculum area) is to first see what your school uses. Check in with your mentor teacher or other teachers around; ask what they do, how they teach, what resources and then create a plan. You might do whole class writing all the time; goal based writing; experience based or provocation writing; theme or genre based writing; fun writing and more! There are so many ways you can run your writing programme and it all goes back to your students and what they want. Again like maths, you can have other things set up to support your writing programme like games or activities, modelling books, appropriate word games or vocabulary, goals and progressions and more.
I start writing with the genre or theme we are working on. I make it explicit with anchor charts, examples, modelling and lots of engagement with hands on applications of the learning. For each session, it will start with a hook or exciting provocation to get them into the writing. Usually a piece of writing will be crafted over two-three days and not just one day. It will be broken up into sections so it can be drafted, edited and published. Of course with littles this can take awhile, hence it taking a few days to accomplish what you need. A prime example is narrative writing. You can't just say cool go write your own story now. Students need time to plan their characters, setting, problem and solution before even writing what they want to happen. Each session I remind them of the theme or genre, we talk about what we did the day before and then launch into the hook. We usually have some form of whole class brainstorm, discussion or learning journey that will take us to the actual learning point we are specifically writing about. There is lots of language building, brainstorming, think/peer/share and more.
After this, they come back to the mat for specific writing modelling that is based on the learning for today. So for example in the picture below, it was the actual writing that took place then using key words, vocabulary and sentence structures that we have been working on, are displayed or are important to the learning. In this time, I will also share the differentiated learning too so students can use this to help their learning; and aim for an appropriate level in their writing. Sometimes it will be in lots of detail (if the learning is something new) or very generic like the below picture where I am simply saying they need to talk about 'what and when' for 2 stars in writing. There would be lots of scaffolding and shared language happening in this process too - so students have as much knowledge as possible when writing.  After that, they then go off for either independent writing, writing with the teacher or writing with the teacher assistant. I send groups off based on their goals they are working on and have same goal students working in groups together. Independent writers are able to use the activeboard and sentence structures for help plus sound cards, word cards and anything else they might need. I will aim to work with two groups in writing time but this really depends on time. If I can, I put similar groups together and target both of those goals at once in the guided writing. I then conference with the an independent writing group at the end once they have finished writing and are ready to have it seen by the teacher. I use things like editing eyes once finished and peer checks also. In the teacher conference time I will check their goals in their work and slo their progressions to see how they are working. A lot to pack in a session, but once it is going, it is really smooth flowing and students know the routines and what is expected of them.  Now that probably does not explain hugely EXACTLY what I do, but it really is hard to write down what I do explicitly in a blog post. Once my classroom is set up, I will do a video explaining it in detail, plus how I run my guided writing programme too.
I love teaching writing my students make amazing progress over the year. Its changed and varied a lot of the year but that is to help meet the needs of my students. What I do is for a purpose and explaining it in this blog post has actually helped me confirm my reasons for why I do what I do and how positive I can see it being with my students. If you have any questions please email info@mrspriestleyict.com and I will get back to you about those!  I consider modelling books to be one of the most important things to use to assist my teaching in guided teaching time. Modelling books (if used correctly) can be an amazing way to enhance, help and extend learning than simply explaining something. I know many beginning teachers are like whhhaaatttt? Because this came up seven times in the suggestion box for next blog posts. Someone even asked "do they have to use them?". Of course you don't. Each school and teacher is different. You will have ways that work for you and ways that don't. For me, modelling books are part of my teaching and something I find hugely beneficial for my students. When I first started teaching in 2012, I was at school that had a HUGE list of non-negotiables with modelling books. They have to have a whole list of things in them, and were basically a teacher driven book - the students got nothing out of them. After moving on from that school I was able to fine tune the way I wanted to use them, see their true potential with my students and repurpose them (in my mind) for how they truely should be.
These will affect how you use them and the value they hold with you as a teacher. Now as I have said, I find and hold modelling books to be an important part of my teaching. That is because I use them explicitly in my guided teaching sessions. They hold the learning intentions students are working on, have formative and/or summative assessment gathering with the learning we are completing in the sessions and the content of the learning to support my direct teaching. I have my modelling books open constantly and use these in the beginning, middle and end of the teaching sessions.  Like I said, modelling books are not compulsory and something you MUST have. You might not have even heard about modelling books until today. But if you have used them before, I wonder if they hold the same value to you as they do to me?
When I am back into my classroom and are set up, I want to create a video explaining my modelling books further so I can share exactly how I set them up and answer any questions you might have. Until then, if you have any question please email me info@mrspriestleyict.com.
More recently, there has been a lot of work about UDL - universal design for learning. This is where you can specifically design lessons or learning outcomes to suit all the needs in your class rather than just the major chunks or spread. There is lots of research, ideas, resources and more online about UDL so if you are looking for specifics start here.
 In 2020, I had a large class spread covering Year 0-3 students. I needed to differentiate the learning significantly as I had students working in Early Level One of the NZ Curriculum to Level Two. So extreme and not as easy to cover in whole class opportunities. I incorporated a three level success criteria or level system into my classroom for whole class learning opportunities covering three key or main areas of students in my class. It allowed students to work at a goal or level they can achieve, or also push themselves to attempt learning at a higher level. This was made part of my classroom practice and students know exactly what it means when completing their learning. The main area I found I needed to differentiate for was writing, word work and maths hot spots. Those were the main three I began with and used for two terms solidly. Have more questions about differentiation? Email me info@mrspriestleyict.com or check out my website for more resources, ideas and freebies! Number of the week display chart - differentiation
NZ$1.00
Number of the week display chart - differentiation This template is great for different levels of students in your classroom that could be working on a variety of numbers for your week. I use this alongside my number of the week templates with this chart being on the wall for students to know what number to work on or choose. There are 4 templates in this pack:
There are 5 resources in this pack. Print off the template you want to use, laminate it to ensure durability and display it for students to be able to see what the number of the week is. Writing Vocabulary Mats (differentiated and plain)
NZ$6.00
Writing Vocabulary Mats (differentiated and plain) These vocabulary mats are a great addition to your classroom. Each vocabulary mat has both a differentiated and plain version. The differentiation provides three different sentence starters for students to choose to help scaffold their writing; or use their own sentence starters to form their ideas. This writing vocabulary mat pack comes with:
Vocabulary mats include these in both differentiated and plain (with sentence starters and without):
This includes 101 pages in the resource.  Maths is such a fun curriculum area to teach! I love everything about Maths - the way students share their learning and thinking, the manipulatives that can be used to explore their findings and the variety of programmes or Maths ideas that are out there to be used in your Maths programme. To start with, checking in with your fellow teachers at school on the programmes or notions they use in school. This could be things like Numicon, PR1ME or others in guided Maths teaching time. You might like to run your programme in a tumble based with activities to complete to support guided teaching time with you.
So I created a Maths acronym and concept based on each of those called PRISM. I use it in a tumble based programme to begin after unpacking each aspect slowly with practice opportunities. Each anchor chart is on the wall to refer back to if students are unsure or need ideas for each part. After practice and time, I then include 'you pick' where I give students the choice of what they want to do from the choices. I include other play aspects like lego table and play area so students can also do that if you they want to. I loved building student agency and giving my students the option to choose what they would like to do.  The above picture explains how I teach Maths in my classroom. This is something I have practiced and fine tuned and I find works for ME in guided Maths teaching. This covers what we do when students come to the teacher table when teaching a strategy. I love this type of teaching as it gives me opportunities to differentiate based on students needs and target the next learning steps. Maths is lots of fun and I love seeing the growth of students in the learning and activities. There are lots of different ways to teach and cover Maths so do what works for you and your students. Check out some of the many Maths resources I have on my website including my PRISM Maths concept covering everything you need to implement this concept in your classroom too. Prism Maths Concept
NZ$8.00
PRISM Maths Concept This Maths concept is the perfect way to pull a range of activities and ideas within Maths time. It allows for a variation of activities in class time to ensure students are receiving a range of things. PRISM stands for: P - Practise by myself R - Ready with a buddy I - I can use technology S - Solve in book M - Manipulative exploration This resource comes with: -premade pages that show what students can do when on each aspect -PRISM icons for your tumble board -anchor charts for explaining the behaviour in each aspect This resource also comes with some additional worksheets and activities that I have integrated into this PRISM Maths Concept. -problem solving thinking frames -number of the week chart -missing numbers activities -signs for boxes -various games that can be used for practice by myself or ready with a buddy PRISM maths planner on Google Sheets
NZ$4.00
PRISM maths planner on Google Sheets This planner is to go alongside my PRISM maths concept resource. With drop down boxes and matching pictures, this is ideal in streamlining and making planning easier. Each drop down box automatically changes the picture for you, and is colour coded with the theme of the PRISM colours. This resource will be a pdf document, with the Google sheets planner template accessible via link. This will then make a copy for you in your Google drive. **This is not a customisable template, with no assistance given if pictures/formula is tampered with, ending with the resource not running smoothly. Please think carefully about this before purchasing the resource. Want more information about PRISM? Check out the resource here. Want to see more of this resource? Watch this quick explanation video here. Maths reflection prompts
NZ$0.00
Maths reflection prompts If you are looking for some thinking or scaffolding prompts when talking about maths then these are perfect for you! This resource comes with a title header and 8 sentence starter prompts to help your students talk about their maths learning. Great for group work, individual sharing or for on your wall as a display! Maths Problem Solving mats (materials)
NZ$2.50
Maths Problem Solving Mats (materials) These problem solving mats are a great addition to guided maths sessions where students are learning addition or subtraction concepts. These problem solving mats can be used to create learning stories to support addition or subtraction learning with students manipulating the items to solve the questions. These mats include: Mat 1: Leaf and ladybugs Mat 2: Plate and hotdogs Mat 3: Bus and children Mat 4: Puppy and bone Mat 5: Monkey and banana Mat 6: Farmer and sheep Mat 7: Barn and cows Mat 8: Baking tray and donuts/cupcakes Mat 9: Basket and carrots Mat 10: Truck and cones |
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