Five for Friday: Five Days Left!!

I'm getting back into the swing of blogging with a much-needed Five for Friday post! 

This week started out with Mother's Day, which has become my favorite holiday since becoming a mom almost five years ago. My children are the best part of my life, and their little faces and handprints are my favorite. 

My sweet husband started having our girls complete pages in this book a couple years ago after I tagged him in a Facebook post about it gently hinted about how neat an idea it was. I love it so much.

We're trying to fit in working on a PBL project that involves deciding which of our old playground equipment to propose we keep and move to our big playground space. The weather and end of the year activities have made this difficult, but we're managing. We tried out the Easy Measure app on the iPads to measure the length of some of the equipment. The jury is still out on how accurate it is because we didn't have long enough tape measures to properly measure that way either, but we're going to give it another go next week. :) 

This happened on Tuesday. 

And this. 

On stage, in her little cap and gown, my daughter said she wants to be "Mommy" when she grows up. 

Tears have never hit my eyes faster. 

I have no idea how almost five whole years have gone by already, but I do know that I am so very blessed to be her mommy. 

On Thursday, we went on a field trip to our local wetlands to explore some animal habitats. It was a really awesome experience once we got there. We walked a not very clearly marked trail from a park and took a few wrong turns. We eventually made it and had a great afternoon! 

Today was the Celebration of Reading at my school. It's the culminating activity for our monthly reading program that our fabulous PTA sponsors, and it's my favorite day of the year! It's a whole day of fun for our kids, and teachers, parents, and the kids who earned all of their "Book Bucks" for the year get to dress up as book characters. It's so much fun to come in and see everyone's outfits. 

I decided to be Ms. Frizzle this year. :) 

That was my week in a nutshell.

Five days left. The countdown is on!!

Five for Friday!

I'm linking up again with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! I'm a little late, but hey, I'm here. 

We are finally up and running with Daily Five! I still have to introduce Work on Writing (I didn't go in order this year), so I guess we were doing Daily Four this week, but they did an awesome job! 

A few years ago, I convinced my principal to buy a site license for TumbleBooks for us to use for Listen to Reading, and I'm so glad she did! My kids love it! If you're not familiar with the site, click on the link to check it out. The books are leveled, and the kids can access it from home, too. 

These Read to Someone pairs are making and confirming predictions (from Deanna Jump's Interactive Reading Notebook pack) and Tuning into Interesting Words (from the CD included with The Cafe Book. 

Engagement. LOVE it. 

 Just like everyone else on the planet I think, we spent some time on apples this week. They got to taste red, yellow, and green apples. They chose their favorite and wrote an opinion about why that was their favorite. And then we painted some apples to accompany the writing. 

We broke out the math mat this week, too, to learn about the 100 chart to reinforce place value concepts and prep for comparing numbers next week. We stepped on numbers that were 10 more, 10 less, 1 more, and 1 less than a given number. Who needs hands-on when you can have feet-on? :) 

On Thursday, my PBIS team and I led a faculty meeting/PD to refresh everyone on our school-wide and classroom expectations and acknowledge them for all of their hard work. We have had A LOT of changes this year, and we all know how hard that can be. Part of our PD was on using GoNoodle brain breaks to help with behavior, and I was so grateful that the fabulous GoNoodle folks donated some goodies for my staff. Thank you, GoNoodle!!

My final thought for the week…my kids love Wonderopolis! If you've never tried it, check it out. I use it most often for morning work. There is a "Wonder of the Day" that always asks a question. I have my kids answer the question in their writing notebooks and draw a picture to go with it. The best part is that you can "explore wonders" and choose the one that is most relevant to your class. Then we watch the video and read about the answer. They like listening to the automated voice! It's an awesome way to build in a little curiosity and creativity into your day! 

Hope you all have a great week! :)

Five For Friday!

It's FRIDAY!!!

I just finished my third week of the school year. Looking back now, it seems like it's gone by quickly, but the days have felt very LONG. Especially with this midwest heat wave. 

Heat advisory + Indoor recess + Roofers constantly hammering + AC going out = One grumpy teacher and wound up kids! 

But we made it and actually managed to get a lot accomplished! 

Here's a snippet of my week: 

I started the week with a big change! 

I got nine inches of hair cut off and am sending it to Children with Hair Loss. I love my new short 'do! 

On Tuesday, we started our BLOGS! 

I am long overdue for a full-blown KidBlog post. I'll get it together soon! 

For now, just know that using KidBlog with my first graders was one of the best teaching decisions I've ever made! 

On Wednesday, one of my all-time favorite parents brought in caterpillars for us (and the other three first grade classes) on HER birthday! 

This never gets old. It is AMAZING watching these creatures transform. 

I also started #geniushour during our enrichment period last week. I let the kids brainstorm ideas for what they were interested in/wanted to learn more about, and then the research was on! This is also something that needs a post all of its own, but here is a shot of one of their presentations this week. This group's passion for Minecraft was infectious!  

This just made me smile this week: 

I'd totally "plik" all of you, too! :) 

And finally, today was the day I got to introduce my class to…

wait for it…

Our school's brand new iPad cart!!! 

{Insert singing angels here}

I'm beyond excited about it, and I'm sure you can imagine the squeals from my very eager kids! 

This cart has to be shared between 18 classrooms, but I'm hoping to be able to use them at least once a week! Send your favorite apps my way! 

Happy three-day weekend!! Give your brain a break! :) 

Five for Friday: Last Day of School!!

It's Friday, which means it's time to link up for 

Here are the highlights from my week: 

Last Friday, my kids gave their Author Study presentations they had been working on at home for three weeks. As usual, they impressed me so much with their professional looking displays and their knowledge of their authors. They told us some facts they learned about their author, some of the titles their author had written, and read part of one of their chosen author's books to the class. 

This past weekend was a princess weekend for my older daughter! We went to see Disney on Ice on Saturday just the two of us, and she loved it! But I think her favorite part of the weekend was her photo session dressed like Elsa. A local boutique and a photographer teamed up for a Frozen weekend - they even let us borrow the dress for the session! So fun! 

Monday was our Field Day! The weather was PERFECT, and my kids had a blast! We even came in first in most events, which was a first for me! 

Do you GoNoodle? My class LOVES taking "brain breaks." They beg for them, in fact, and on this particular day (Wednesday I think), we were just having a rough morning. GoNoodle to the rescue! We did a few activities (this was hurdles), and their moods were instantly better! If you've never tried it, you definitely should. Like Monday. Trust me!

Today was my LAST DAY of school! My sweet group of STARS and their parents gave me the most awesome gift - a bouquet of gift cards! I just love their faces! Seriously, I'm so spoiled. My school and our families are amazing. Each of my kids came up and gave me a huge hug (they could've just stopped there, and I would've been more than happy!), and then one of the moms brought in this bouquet! I was lucky enough to receive some other sweet gifts, and we spent the day wrapping up. 

We spent the most time finishing our memory boxes. You can grab the cover for FREE here. My sub and I saved one or two writing/craftivities from each month throughout the year, and today I helped them put them all in order in their memory boxes (12" or 14" white pizza boxes). I know they enjoyed looking at their work throughout the year, and I hope their parents do, too! My favorite part is always looking at their writing from the very first day of school. They're always surprised by how far they've come. 

Let the summer fun begin!! :)