A Bag of Tricks

As teachers more and more commonly push themselves to the point of exhaustion it's more and more likely for casual/ supply teachers to be called in at a minutes notice. It is a good idea to take your own bag of tricks with you. There's no need to spend loads of money or spend hours putting it together.

My teacher bag is just a reusable shopping bag with my prize box (contains cheap pencils, erasers and free collectible cards from the supermarket), 3 books from the library for early stage 1, stage 1/2 and stage 2/3. I try and choose multicultural books or books from other countries, teacher stamps and a few interesting photos from magazines.

The prize box is for the jelly bean game and since only one child wins each day it lasts ages, the books are awesome as it gives you something to read the children and base your activities on and the pictures I use as a drama prompt or story writing sequence. 

This simple resource will make your day run much more smoothly and minimalizes the need to go rummaging through drawers and cupboards and wondering what to do when you can't get into the school intranet to run the smart board or print off stencils (which is a dirty word anyway).

It might be nice to refresh your resources often (which is a reason I use library books) so you don't get bored of your own resources. If you want your students to be enthusiastic about the goody bag, you need to be too!