Five for Friday March 18

I'm linking up with Kacey for her wonderful Five for Friday.  Thank you, Kacey!

My husband and I  just finished watching Season 4 of House of Cards this week.  W.O.W!  An episode or two of that show, and you feel so much better about any mistakes you've ever made in life- because they really don't compare.  Anyway- the  day after we finished, this was a page in one of my group's guided reading books- and I just had to smile to myself.

Here we go with Five for Friday!

Here we go!

Each year, we are so lucky to have bagpipe players come to play for us up and down the halls for St. Patrick's Day.  It's very quick- just up and down the halls- but it makes such an impression. One of my student's fathers plays. They go around to several local schools as close to St. Patrick's Day as they can.  If you know anyone who plays, they may be willing to come to your school if you ask.  The kids love it.  I do, too. 





Here is a plant update for you!  I sent home the beanstalks and the Silly Hair People with the kids on Open House night on Wednesday, so they had a better chance making it home than on the bus.  This is the growth after about a month, just to give you an idea.  HERE is my post all about Jack and the Beanstalk and the activities we did to go along with it. 

Everyone got a golden egg of their very own to go with their beanstalk.  That's why Easter is a great time to grow these!.



Here are our morning glories!  They are climbing their little hearts out.  Again, this is about a month's growth.  I am hoping they will be in full bloom for grandparent's day in May.

These ALWAYS amuse me.  When I show the kids their hair updates, I always tell a story to go along with their expressions.  They love it.   I am thinking I should have cut the top rim off the cups.  Next year...

 

Most of my girls wanted little barrettes for their hair, before they gave haircuts at home.

My class had so much fun with this activity that I wanted to share it with you.  I posted all about my Words with Friends writing and shared the book I made for it HERE.

It's a great activity for working on questions and using question marks in writing.   I work with a little girl after school who lives near me, and as we were reading we came to a question mark.  I asked her what it was, and she said, "It's just a little mystery."   I LOVED that explanation, and now I can't NOT think that every time I think of a question mark. 

Another way I like to have my students practice writing questions is whenever we write thank you notes.  I have my kids write thank you notes a lot.  Not only is it great writing practice (and they must be neat so the receiver can read it!) , but it's a life skill that so many people no longer have.  My hope is that even one or two of the kids remember our lessons about writing a thank you note when someone does something nice for you.  You can write to the band or chorus after they put on a concert, the lunch ladies if they serve a meal your class really likes a lot, the custodians for keeping the school clean, bus drivers for keeping the kids safe every day... The possibilities are endless!

This week, my kids wrote thank you notes to the leprechauns for their surprise visit!  I loved seeing them add those  question marks in the letters all by themselves. 





I wrote about some ideas I love to do to go with Good Job, Jelly Bean- and some other fun Easter activities HERE.  Here are some of the things we did that are in that post-

 This cute letter to the Easter bunny paper (with a surprise bunny tail left as a surprise!)-

These sweet little bunny necklaces-

Our bunny hats and "If I were the Easter bunny" stories-

I found these little chocolate carrots (CHEAP- Palmer chocolate, so they were only $1) that I bought to save for when we do some activities with The Carrot Seed after Easter- so go get some if you want them! The won't be around when I actually want to do my lesson with carrots after Easter.

I found these cute pictures from Miss Lee that will be great for sequencing the story.

"How to Grow a Carrot" would be a great book for the children to write using first, next, then, and last. 

I always read The Carrot Seed and Tops and Bottoms together. 

This art project from Art Projects for Kids   really shows how the root vegetables grow underground.  It would be great to use with  both these books!  Don't you love the colors?

Here is another fun activity from Along the Way!

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Thank you for stopping by!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Five for Friday- Good Friday Edition!

I am linking up with Kacey for Five for Friday! Thank you, Kacey! I just finished a wonderful week off from school doing lots of things and nothing with my family.  It was wonderful!

Here are my five favorites of the week...

This week I posted about teaching and using  The Chunky Monkey Reading Strategy.

My kids have a ball with it- and doing lots of hands on activities to learn and remember chunky monkey helps a lot.

 

My Chunky Monkey Prezi is part of my Beginning Reading Prezi at my TPT store. They have lots of videos and links to great online sites and activities.

I also posted about the fun I have teaching the children how to How-To!  How-To books are so much fun to teach, and the children love writing them. 

 I also included LOTS of great TPT freebies that I found to help reinforce sequencing!

I found some other all time favorite How-To books some of my students made.

The first favorite was the one paying homage to the macaroni and cheese color crayon- the crown jewel of the 64 color crayon box with my class:

 I loved how he made the "black stove color" as he called it!

This one was my guide to dressing like a Princess. (Or how to "jes up like a pinsus!" )   

 (I love her hangers!)

After cleaning my closet, I am going to take a harder look at her advice in this book. I think my problem is that I often forget that very important third step - to "git" my crown.  That must be my problem...

I am so excited because our Family Reading Partnership is hosting Dr. Jean on April 26th for our Annual Kids' Bookfest.  She is going to do a program for our Pre-K and K teachers Friday afternoon, and I even get to go out to dinner with her Friday night!  I can't wait!  My job today is to put stickers on all of these books and cds that we got to send home with every Kindergarten and Pre-K student in our school. Here's one box...

 Emily and I are going to have a Will and Grace marathon and stick on stickers.  (She doesn't know it yet...)

This was a CRAZY weather week here.  People didn't know whether to shovel or mow!

It was almost 80 on Monday.  Jeff got a sunburn on his neck from being outside.  But don't worry- he could cover it up with a winter scarf on Wednesday because it was so freezing cold and snowing!  It's sort of fun to keep us on our toes like that. Today is beautiful and will be almost 60.  I'll take it.

Finally, I had a fun family week. I got to see all the kids a lot which I LOVED.  We watched my daughter's dog in the beginning of the week.  

He must have his tummy rubbed at all times, or he gently guides your hand back to remind you to keep rubbing. 

Emily and I broke out the T25 and made ourselves endure  had fun working out with that. I grew to love Tonya, the girl who does the modified workout, with all my heart.  I found myself saying, "What's Tonya doing?" a lot after Shaun T gave his orders... 

Anyway, it does me a lot more good when it is actually IN the dvd player being used then when it is in the box. Hmmm. 

And finally, these are some of my FAVORITE, FAVORITE Easter songs.  <3  I just love them.  

Nicole Nordman's Why

Newsong's Arise My Love

Have a beautiful, wonderful, happy, healthy Easter!