Five for Friday October 17

Happy Friday! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey! This was one of those short weeks that seemed LONG.  Why does that happen?

Last week had a lot of fun in our class  making butter to help us remember the letter Bb. I made this Making Butter booklet for each of my students to make and take home, so they could have the "recipe" too. Just copy the pages one side to two sides, fold in half, and ta da!  Then, I had the children glue on the pictures that matched the directions. I found the great butter making pictures at chicaandjo.com.

                           

If you have never made this with your children, it is so easy and always one of the favorite memories of the year.  All you need is heavy cream, a baby food jar, and a little salt!  We spread our butter on crackers, so you need those, too. I made butter four times, once with each of my groups, filling the baby food jar half full each time, and I used only one 8 oz container of heavy cream. That sounded a little like a Common Core math problem there for a minute. I was getting scared!

The children help shake the cream, but be prepared to do most of the some shaking to help.  By the time I made the butter with all the groups, I did quite a bit of shaking. It's a great time to practice counting to 100, saying the ABC's... while you or one of the children shakes that cream.   We talked a lot about holding onto that jar with two hands as we shook it, because it was made of glass.  They did great with it.

Last year, one of my little guys described the butter as "Red Lobster butter," which made me laugh, because it did look just like that ball of butter they put on the baked potato.  Yum.

                                        

                                                             

Since we reviewed Ff this week, we talked a lot about being a kind friend. We did another one of my favorite activities.

I explained that each person would have a clipboard, paper, and marker. Our job was to go around to each person, and ask each friend to sign our paper as we signed our friend's paper. We would only be writing our own name every time, once on each paper. We would collect all of our friends' names. I modeled this with a few children. I said, "Would you please sign my paper, and I will sign yours?" We switched boards, signed, said, "Thank you!"  and moved to another child.

For this activity they practiced gooooood manners when they asked friends to sign their paper and then said, "Thank you," afterward.  We also practiced name writing about 18 times in half an hour-and had fun!  Not too bad!   

If you want a copy of the simple sheet I used for recording, just click the picture below.

Feel free to make a "fancier" sheet!  I liked this simple sheet, because I told the children that the paper would be so colorful and pretty after they each wrote their names with different color markers. The minute they got the paper, they started reading, "I like, I like, I like..." so even that was great!

Speaking of names, can you tell from our sign in sheet that we've been working on noticing and trying to use periods this week? I just love when the kids play with punctuation marks.  

                                            
                                                                 

Last week I sent home my 5 Week Reports to parents.  I like to send home some things that parents can work on with their children at home.  This was the first time I printed out and used  the flashcards from ESGI, and I LOVE them! 

                                                       

I printed them for each student, cut them apart, and put each child's in his/her own baggie, stapled with a note to parents with different ways to use them.  Thank you, ESGI! I started using ESGI last year toward the end of the year, and I am so glad that this year I was able to start using it right away. They offer a  60 day free trial, which is how I started using it and loving it.  If you would like to buy ESGI (or have your district buy it for you- even better yet!), you can get $40 off the first year's subscription using this PROMO CODE:  B1119.   ESGI  has really made assessments so much easier, faster, and more useful for me.

I found these fabulous "What Can I Write About" papers FREE at Two Tall Teachers TPT Store.  They shared ideas for three different genres. The papers were made to go along with Lucy Calkins' Writing Units, which we are actually using this year, but they would be great for any program. Sometimes it's just HARD for the children to think of ideas.  Thank you for sharing these!

Here they are!

What Can I Write About? Personal Narratives

What Can I Write About? Opinion Unit

What Can I Write About? How To Books

I made this  Draw and Label book to use early on for Writing. If you'd like a copy, just click the picture below.

                            

It's simple, but  gives the children a chance to be creative, draw with detail, and begin to learn to label pictures.  You can print out and use only the pages that you want- you don't have to use all of them! I made quite a few- I think 19, but I chose six pages, and we did three each day for two days (another Common Core math problem just for you...).  I made it so you can just double staple the side and cut in the middle to have two books.  Here were some pictures I thought were pretty clever!

(mouse.)

HERE is my post with a fun Halloween poem that I had the children make into a book.  I put a link to download the book or just the poem on a single sheet of paper if you'd rather have it that way.  My kids loved it, so if you need something to do in the next couple of weeks, there you go!  

Also, if you haven't gotten a chance to see my TPT FREEBIE Posts- you can click on the pictures below to check out some  LOTS of awesome freebies for Halloween. Those will keep you busy until NEXT Halloween!

Happy, Happy Weekend!