Five for Friday

I know it is Saturday and I'm a little late but yesterday was pretty busy.  (I'll explain later.)  So now it's time for my weekly Five for Friday with Doodle Bug Teaching.

1.  Teacher appreciation week waFriday and I really did feel appreciated.  I hope everyone enjoyed their week as well.  As part of Teacher Appreciation week, we had a drawing for massages. A massage therapist will be at our school next Tuesday and only 15 teachers won a twenty minute massage.  I was one of the lucky 15.  I'm super excited about it.

2.  I've mentioned before that I have had a lot of behavior issues in my class this year.  Let's just say that I have a very needy class this year and it has been a struggle.  Well,  yesterday a student surprised me.  He brought me this watch.

It's hard to tell from this picture but there is no glass on the face of the watch and the hands don't work.  But this was the most precious gift I received this week.  This child and i have a long way this year and this present symbolizes the hard work that we have both put in this year.  He was so proud when put it on and wore it the entire day, even though it was my least favorite color.  And I plan to wear it for the next 19 days as well.


3.  Wednesday we had our final orchestra concert.  I'm so proud of thr 2nd-5th graders who played.  Here are pictures of some of our violinists and our bucket band.

Three of my students are in the orchestra.  Their playing has come so far this year.  I'm so proud of their musical growth.


4.  My school is holding a book drive wirh the attempt to send five books home with every child over the summer.

One of our teacher assistants told her mom about the drive and she jumped in to help.  She held a drive at her school in Mississippi and they were able to donate almost 3,500 books.  Rhe books were delivered on Friday morning.  With that donation and what we have collected at our school, we are extremely close to our goal.

5.  My mom is visiting me for the weekend.  This is why this post is late.  Last night I had to finish cleaning my house and then headed to the airport to pick her up.  We had a great day today and I'm looking forward to enjoying the day with her tomorrow as well.  I don't get ro spend as much time with her as I would like so I will cherish every moment while she is here while celebrating her for Mother's Day.  Here's a picture of us goofing off today.

Well, that's my five random things from this week.  I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the weekend and Happy Mother's Dat!

Five for Friday

Happy Friday!! Two more weeks until testing and onl. 5 more weeks until summer. This was a strange week so I'm glad it's ovet but we did have some fun along the way.

Therefore, I back to share five random things from my week by linking up with Doodle Bug Teaching for Five for Friday.

1.  This week was spirit week at my school.  On Wednesday we had Bring a Stuffed Animal to School Day.  Here are the stuffed animals brought in by students.

All but 5 of my students brought in a stuffed animal.  I lent out the rest.  (I'm a bit of a collector.) The Cincinnati Bengal bear up front was my contribution.  The students kept their friends with them all day, except for lunch and recess.  There's nothing like a line of fifth graders walking down the hall with stuffed animals.  I loved it.

One of my students wanted his animals to read for themselves.

So cute.

2. Thursday was Wacky Tacky Day. Here is my outfit for the day.

3-5. We've been in test prep hell all week. (I obviously hate testing.) Therefore I try to do many activities yo break up the test prep.

3. We did a sort of gallery walk to work on math problems. Several problems were posted on the wall. The kids walked around the room and solved them.

It's funny how allowing them to wonder room makes solving math problems more fun.

4. I also pulled out the tangrams for the first time. They got a kick out of making the different shapes.

5.  We made acrostic poems using our names to give test taking tips.  They turned out really good.

I originally saw this idea here.


Well,those are some of the highlights from my week.  I'm glad the weekend is here.  Don't forget to stop by Doodle Bug Teaching to join in on the fun and share your five random things.

P.S.  I just realized that this is my 50th post. I can't believe it's been that many.

Workshop Wednesday: Favorite Reading Group Book

Happy Wednesday! I can't belbook  it is already May.  Only 12 more school days before End of Grade testing begins and only 26 more days of school.  I can't believe we are so close to the end.

Since we are still in full test prep mode, things have been really busy but I'm still finding time for small groups to participate in book clubs.  Therefore, I'm linking up withJessica from Ideas by Jivey for her weekly Workshop Wednesday.

A few years ago, I read the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan for a grad school class.  I instantly fell in love with the book.  It's about a little girl who lived in a wealthy Mexican community with her parents and grandmother.  They had servants who took care of their every needs and Esperanza gets what ever she wants.  Then tragedy strikes and he r father is killed.  Her entire life gets turned upside down.  Esperanza, her mother, and their former servants must flee the country to America and become migrant workers.  The book focuses on her struggle to adapt to het new life in America.  This book is great for theme and context clues.  I've read this book with my highest reading group for the last three years.

This year I decided to do an author study on Pam Munoz Ryan.  I wanted to allow my students to discover the connection between the various books by an author.  So I had them read Becoming Naomi Leon which was another greay book about a little girl of Hispanic decent who had to relocate and learn to adapt to her new life.  (Just like Esperanza.)  This book was also really good for theme.  My students were able to make so many connections between the two books. I was actually amazed.

While they were in the middle of reading his book, the kids found Paint the Wind in our classeoom library.  I was only planning to have them read the two books, but they were eager to read another Pam Munoz Ryan book.  (I love their eagerness to read.)

Paint the Wind was also about a little girl of hispanic decent who was forced to relocate and had to adapt and adjust to the changes in her life.  They were immediately able to identify this common theme.  This book is good for teaching kids to follow multiple story lines.

Finally, my kids saw an ad in this book for Stealing Freedom.  Luckily I was able to find this novel set in my school's bookroom.  Although it was an easier reading level I knew they would love this book too.  And I was right.  This book also focused on change in a young girl's life.  More connections were made after reading this book.

Through all these books, students were able to see how similar themes are developed differently.

As a culminating project they are researching Pam Munoz Ryan to see if they can find out why she has the tendency to write novels about girls who must relocate and figure out how to adapt to the change in their lives.

Over the past couple of months, I have grown to love Pam Munoz Ryan and I will definitely use her books in future years.

What books do you love to use with your small reading groups?  Link up with Jessica from Ideas by Jivey to link up and share.

Five for Friday

This has been a crazy yet exciting week. I've been looking forward to writing this post since the beginning of the week because I knew this week would be jammed packed with excitement. So once again I'm linking up with Doodle Bug Teaching for Five for Friday.

1. This week I tried something new. After publishing a piece of writing, I had each of the students read each others pieces and then write comments telling what they liked about the story. This worked out very well. Read more and see more pictures here.

2. On Wednesday I was out for a workshop entitled Innovation Institute. This workshop is a series of four days and Wednesday was day three. The focus of this workshop is for the participants to discover their creativity while beingallowed to be very reflective about their personal and professional lives. I'm extremely happy that I took advantage of this opportunity because it was only offered to a limited amount of people in my district. Here are two products from this week.

I plan to do an entire post after the final session.

3. If you have been reading my blog, you know that I'm a member of a skeeball league. Our skeeball season started on Wednesday. Each week each team of three play against another team. Team and individual scores are tracked and after 8 weeks we have playoffs and then a championship Saturday. I just wanted to share that I played really well this week and I'm looking forward to continuing this throughout the next few weeks.

4. Thursday was a huge day for my school. To begin we had our spring concert. There was an international theme. We had students singing, dancing, and stepping. It is truly amazing at how talented our students are.

Here is a video clip of three students from my class performing a Nepali dance that they created.

Here is a picture of the fifth graders singing their song at the concert.

Thursday evening we had an International Festival. There was a school wide pot luck dinner in which families and staff brought food to share. There were over 300 people crowded in the gym for this event. Once most people were seated the performances began. Out step team performed again, some of the students performed their dances from the earlier concert, one of our teachers performed an Irish folk dance, and our TD students performed an African drum and dance number. It was truly an amazing night.


5. Friday was another jammed packed day. We had our third quarter awards ceremony this morning. After school I went to visit a friend who just had a baby. He was so cute! And then a friend and I headed over to see our Latin dance group perform this evening. This group of dancers is sponsored by a local Latin American group. Our students along with two other schools combined for a final performance tonight. We were a little late so I missed them dancing but I got a picture of them when they were receiving their medals.

Five of my students are in the group and they were extremely excited to know that I was there to watch them perform.

After a week like this I further realize that I am extremely fortunate to do what I do each day. I work with some amazing students. I am also very happy that my students are given the opportunities that they are given.

Well that was a glimpse into my week. I hope you had a great week as well. Don't forget to stop by Doodle Bug Teaching and share your week.

Peace, Hope, Love, and Kindness Linky

Today was an extremely long day. I left home at 6:45 this morning and just returned home around 7:00 tonight. And yes I was at work the entire time. We had International Night this evening so I stayed to help and enjoy the program. I definitely love attending after school programs, but it just makes for a very long and exhausting day. We also had our Spring Concert, which also had an international theme, during the day today but I'm preparing a post for that later.

I was thrilled when I first heard about this linky party from Jessica from Ideas by Jivey.  With all that is going on in the world, it's nice to see what good things are happening.

A few days before Easter I posted about an amazing blessing that was provided to one of my students.  Her family is struggling due to the incarceration of her father. This means that her mother is now bringing in the only income to feed a family of 6. Luckily, my school received some donations that allowed us to feed four families Easter dinnee and thenalso provide some canned goods for spring break to make sure that the kids had food while they were out of school.

Here is the original post.
Thankful for Easter Blessing

Stop by to visit Ideas by Jivey orCollaboration Cuties to link up and share some love and happiness happening in the world.

Tried It Tuesday: Commenting on Peer's Writing

It's Tuesday again which means it is time to link up with Fourth Grade Flipper for her weekly Tried It Tuesday.




After completing out book projects last week, I wanted to give my scholars a bit of a writing break on Thursday and Friday.  I knew that they were super excited to read each other's stories so I took advantage of their excitement.

I printed out copies of their writing and stapled it inside two pieces of construction paper.  Then I placed the booklets around the room and gave them instructions.

They were asked to walk around the room and find a story.  Read it and then provide a positive comment stating what they liked about the writing.

Here's a picture of one of my scholars working.

Here are a few pictures of some of their comments.

What I Loved About This Activity
1. My scholars really enjoyed being able to read each others writing.
2. Everyone was completely engaged in the activity. (It was amazing how quiet they were. I have an extremely talkative class this year so anytime they are quiet for longer than 10 minutes is amazing.)
3. I was able to see exactly what they focus on while reading. (Some comments were really generic.)


What Needs to Be Improved
1. Some of the comments were very generic. I should have modeled the types of comments. I will definitely do a better job a modeling next time I do an activity like this.


After we were finished, I gave them time to decorate the cover of their booklet and then I placed them on the bulletin board.

This was a very simple activity that I will definitely try again.

Now it's your turn. Stop by Fourth Grade Flipper to link up and share something that you have tried.

Let's Get Acquainted

It's Sunday so that means it's time to link up with Latoya from Flying into First Grade for her weekly Let's Get Acquainted linky party.

Today we are sharing our favorite parts of our classroom. Since we spend so much time there, our classrooms say a lot about who we are.

Welcome to my classroom.


CLASSROOM LIBRARY
I am in love with my classroom. I posted about it here. It definitely doesn't look this neat at this point in the year, but it is still pretty organized.

CLASSROOM DOOR
I also love my door. It definitely sets the tone for anyone entering my classroom.

DATA WALL
Here is my data wall. We track data for each of our assessments in reading, math, science, and social studies. For more information about my data wall click here.

That's a quick glimpse into my classroom. Now it's your turn to stop by Flying into First Grade and link up.

Have a great Sunday!