Accurate

I'm not sure how many of you are New Girl fans but I love it! The following is one of my favourite moments from the show and is basically me every time I'm in the car

I don't think anything else needs to be said.

x Stacey

Teacher Tuesday

Oh my gosh it's a miracle, I'm actually posting a Teacher Tuesday on a Tuesday!

Unfortunately no freebies today, however I do have some good news (well for me at least). Today I received my final prac placement allocation which is cause for celebration for two reasons:

1. The uni was able to find me a placement so I don't have to go hunting for one like last time

2. My placement is in a kindergarten which I was hoping for since it gives me a chance to experience using the EYLF.


So please excuse me while I leave you to go scrub up on my EYLF reading. To make up for the lack of freebie today I leave you with an outfit set that you could wear for teaching during the coming Spring (for those in the southern hemisphere) or for Autumn/Fall (for my readers in the northern hemisphere).

yay for mustard

x Stacey

The Little Ostrich That Could

Ok Call me crazy, but I have just spent the last hour of my life watching an ostrich hatch on a live feed. It's so addictive watching little Pip fight her way outta that shell!

I know I'm not the only one going gaga over a baby ostrich as all my friends and I are going back and forth like crazy on messenger while we watch it. I swear this will go down as one of those times we look back on in years to come and be like 'remember that night we all stayed up and watched an ostrich hatch online'.

Anyhoodle, if you'd like to check it out for yourself the link is below

Click here for ostrich cuteness

x Stacey

UPDATE:

Pip just hatched with a lot of help from her 'dad', they are now reporting her delivery to the world, while the internet watches Pip trying to stand up for the first time.

x Stacey

FINAL UPDATE:

Ok so Pip is doing fine and is now in her little warm home. Since it's now 12:07 am and I have uni in 8 hours I'm going to head off to sleep. I leave you with this final picture of Pip all happy in her home, I may turn on the live stream again in the morning and see if it's still going. 

Good night my lovelies,

x Stacey

Teacher Tuesday (on a Friday)

OK so I officially suck at sticking to something when I say I will. I have missed TWO Teacher Tuesdays, so to make up for one of them I come bearing another freebie as a peace offering.

Enter 2D Shape Art:

click image for link

2D Shape Art is a fun activity for students to consolidate and review their knowledge of 2D shapes, perfect to cap off an introductory lesson on shapes or as a follow up lesson. This activity allows students to unleash their creativity and use common 2D shapes to make a picture, what they create is only limited by their imagination.

The pack includes an introduction on how to use the sheets, a shape art worksheet for students to create their picture on, and two sheets of shapes. The shapes used in this activity include squares, rectangles, circles, ovals, triangles, hexagons, and rhombuses.

I created this pack for my prac students and they loved it, I ended up with pictures of everything from flowers to dinosaurs! If you do use this pack in your classroom I'd love to hear what your students create so please leave me a comment below :)

x Stacey

Teacher Tuesday: Plurals BANG

As you may or may not have noticed my little bio up the top says 'teacher in training'. I'm currently in my final semester of my Graduate Diploma of Education (Early Childhood Studies) and have enjoyed every minute of my teaching journey so far. One of my favourite teacher related things to do is read all the amazing blogs that teachers all over the world have written. These bloggers offer advice, generously provide free resources, and form a wonderful tight knit community online. As I have gained so much from the online teaching community I have decided I would love to give a little back through 'Teacher Tuesday'. Now I can't promise this will be a weekly thing, however I will do my best to share any resources I have created, ideas I have or anything else teacher related. Check back here weekly or follow my teaching pinterest board for updates. So without further ado lets get the ball rolling on the inaugural Teacher Tuesday...

CLICK HERE to get the game at my TPT store

First up I'm sharing a game you can use for your literacy centres/rotations while teaching plurals. I created Plurals BANG for my prac students (year one) while I was teaching them plurals last term. We played it during their literacy rotations and they loved it! If you've never played bang before the basic idea is this: the students sit in a circle and in turn pick up the top card on the deck. They read the word on the card and then tell the group what the plural would be, then they keep the card. If a student picks up the purple bang card all the students put their cards at the bottom of the deck and they start again. My prac kiddos loved the anticipation of not knowing when a bang card was going to be picked up, and as they made their way further and further down the pile their excitement grew. 

The game offers 23 's' plurals and 4 'es' plurals. There is also a variety of CVC words as well as longer words to allow differentiation for your students. If you do decide to download the game please let me know what you thought and how I could improve it in the comments below as I'm always looking out for ways to make better resources. 

x Stacey 

Sally Hansen Salon Effects French Mani Review

Hi I'm Stacey and I'm a nail polish addict. I love nail polish and having colourful nails, I swear I have more polish than I could ever use in a life time and I rarely have plain nails. Personally I blame going through a school system where nail polish was not allowed so ever since I turned 18 I have rarely rocked bare nails. I had always been curious about Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips however at $14.95 for a one time application I could never justify the price, especially when a whole bottle of Essie or OPI polish is only $18-$19. However on a recent trip to priceline I noticed that Sally Hansen had come out with a french mani version of the nail strips. Well this changes the game a little, I have always struggled with french manis, and even when I do succeed the polish chips within a day which is always frustrating!! My curiosity (and 20% off) got the better of me and into my basket they went.

I got home and let them sit there for a while, contemplating when I should give them a go, I decided that last night would be the perfect opportunity since I had nothing else to do. Before I continue my review I would like to mention that while I have never used Sally Hansen strips before I have used Kit Cosmetic nail strips so I did have some knowledge of how these things should work. So please keep reading about my experience of taking my nails from this...

To this...

When I first opened the box I was greeted with 1 little nail file, 1 little cuticle stick, 1 set of instructions, 1 set of white tips, and 2 sets of nail strips....WAIT WHAT!! 1 set of white tips and 2 sets of nail strips that can't add up. Don't worry as I soon found out it does you have to carefully (and I do mean carefully) separate the white tips apart as they are two to a sheet. 

After I had prepped my nails and wiped them over with polish remover to get rid of any remaining oils I set about applying the strips. My first thought was how hard the little pouches were to open, I would pull off the silver backing only to find a plastic membrane had remained which I would have to hack into with nail scissors to retrieve my strips. After I did get the packets opened I was overcome with the familiar smell of nail polish, this ruled out my plans of ever being able to apply these strips in a shared living area. 

Next it was time to apply the white tips, this was a little tricky as 1) it was really hard to guess where my nail line is 2) the sheets are really flimsy and thin 3) the white tabs don't really stick well no matter how much I buffed my nails and 4)I found many of the white tabs to be just a little bit too wide for my nails (I ended up having to trim the sides off). Please note that this did get easier as I went along, but my first thumb has a massive white part to it that looks a little too big. After you get the white strip where you want it its time to file off the excess white part, be very very careful when doing this as it is really easy to rip them.

After this you have to apply the top strip, this is a sheer pink or beige colour depending on the set you get. I found getting these to not sit all over my cuticle and sit centred was a little tricky. They are a little stretchy so you can pull them a little to cover your whole nail but not too much otherwise they will rip (as I found out). When you get it centred you have to push it down with the cuticle stick to there are no air bubbles and once again file it off at the end. I found it a little harder to file this off than the white strips but eventually I got all 10 fingers done.

Afterwards I finished with a layer of clear top coat just to seal the strips onto my nails for longevity. They say these will last for 10 days, so I'll see how I go and report back with how they held up in 10 days time. 

Some initial thoughts

• These were a lot more fiddly than I thought they would be and the whole process took about an hour
• I feel that these weren't the most user friendly strips and that the Kit Cosmetics ones were much easier to use
• Even though I got these 20% off, I'm still a little bitter about paying $11.96 on nails that I will only get to use once. Again to compare to the Kit Cosmetics ones which are $9.90 for 20 strips which gives you 2 wears out of them (4 if your nails are shorter as you can cut them easily and they don't dry up).

x Stacey

Winter Bucket List

Winter has well and truly hit with the storms we have been having over the last few days. Everywhere I look on pinterest I see pictures of peoples summer activities and it makes me long for warmer weather. I started creating my spring bucket list but then thought to myself 'stop being so silly, winter is a wonderful time of year', and even though winter is half over I decided to make a winter bucket list.

Watch a Christmas In July Movie

I love Christmas movies so any excuse to watch them is good enough for me. I have a feeling after this post goes up I'll find myself snuggled up on the couch with a blanket and one of my favourite holiday movies National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Snuggle up at the movies

I love going to the movies all year, but there is something extra special about going in winter (maybe it evokes memories of my Gran taking all us cousins every school holidays). One movie I'm dying to see is The Great Gatsby. It's closing here on Monday and one of the theatres has a $12.50 movie and malteasers deal. Comparing that price to the regular ticket only price of $19.00 I'd be crazy to pass this opportunity up. 

Visit the Art Gallery

I love spending lazy days at galleries and museums (I actually completed a Graduate Diploma of Museum Studies before realising my love of teaching). Right now the Art Gallery of Western Australia has a fantastic exhibition from MoMA called Van Goh, Dali and Beyond. I've always loved the work of Van Goh and hope to see this exhibition before it closes. 

Hot Chocolate Date

Winter and hot chocolate, there was never a better pair since Batman and Robbin. I love hot chocolate in any form, real, powdered, milo (although it's technically not chocolate), the only thing better than drinking hot chocolate is drinking hot chocolate with someone you love. I think one weekend I will recruit Chris and go sip some hot chocolate while people watching.

Go to the Ballet

Mum, my sister and myself are all season ticket holders to the WA Ballet. We love it and there is nothing better than getting all dressed up for a night at the theatre. This winter the St Petersburg Ballet is coming and performing one of my favourite ballets Swan Lake. Obviously Mum jumped on tickets as soon as humanly possible, and I'm counting down the days until I can see this wonderful ballet in all its Russian glory.

Go to a winter Sunday Session

Sunday Sessions are something you usually associate with summer; beer gardens, live music and cotton dresses. However one of my friends runs a winter Sunday Session and Chris and I have promised to swing by at least one of them. 

Crochet a scarf

Technically this should read finish crocheting a scarf, however that didn't sound as nice. I started crocheting a scarf at the start of July and got halfway through before putting it down and leaving it. Now with winter half over I am determined to finish the project so it can be worn.

So there you have it, my winter bucket list. What is on your winter bucket list (or summer one if you're in the northern hemisphere), do you think I have missed anything?

x Stacey