Five For Friday

Whew, what. a. week.  I kid you not, this week has felt like I have been waiting an eternity for today to arrive!  Major props to all teachers to have to go through the prep and agony of sitting through standardized testing.  I am NOT the least bit envious, especially after doing two days of back to back small group administration!  I can't even begin to explain how happy I am that today is FINALLY Friday!

I meant to post this earlier this week and never got around to it...

Today makes 3 weeks straight that I have been able to post my Five for Friday!! Whoop, whoop! 

1.  Monday I began laying the ground work for teaching about the government!  We did our fun lesson about the Tired King, Louie.  If you are not familiar check out my post earlier this week about it!  The kids had a blast and when it came time to introduce the 3 branches of government, let me tell you, THEY GOT IT!!! Between the King Louie lesson and their new book (which they loved!) they are experts about the 3 branches of government and our government leaders!

2.  We continued to work our way through the Knuffle Bunny unit I bought from Hope King.  This week we focused on Character Traits that describe Trixie, writing stories about when we lost our favorite toy/stuffed animal/blankie, and finishing our glyphs from last week!! So much fun!!

3.  One of my new FAVORITE bloggers is hands down Tracy Teagler over at Creekside Tales.  If you haven't checked her out, her blog is a must!! She has so many awesome ideas, tons of freebies she shares with her followers, and just overall some great quality work!! I have bought several items from her and don't pass up any of her freebies.  A little while back Tracy posted about teaching No to Bullies, Yes to Buddies, she shared several activites she did with her kiddos and books used as read alouds.  I LOVE books, especially when they have a great lesson attached, so I immediately went to amazon and purchased the books!  We watched the Birds short film made by Pixar (like Tracy suggested) talked about how they treated others and then read a new favorite Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun!  We talked about how we are all Unique and how important it is to treat others, even when we aren't being treated the way we deserve to be treated.  The kids then completed one of the writing assignments she shared about bullying, shared ways they are unique, and made their unique bird!! I couldn't resist but to put all their birds on a "wire."  The kids loved the display and so have all of our friends that walk by our bulletin board daily! :)   Thanks, Tracy for sharing your great work!

4.  We are through week 3 of Charlotte's Web, my kids are HOOKED!  They loved as we read "never hurry, never worry" in a chapter this week!  I think there was a gasp of excitement from everyone of my kids because it is the quote on their bookmark! :)  They also get all excited when we come across our pre-reading vocabulary words!!  I'm so impressed with how well they have been using the words in context and identifying behaviors with the words... Their new favorite word is GULLIBLE!  :)

One of their literacy centers this week (and probably next because they are working hard with adding the detail) is to make plates full of Charlotte and Wilbur's diet!  They are making them 3-D and they are turning out SUPER cute! I can't wait so share some of their finished products!

5. As I was planning for next week with one of my best friends and co-worker Diana, we ironed out our writing plans for the next two weeks!  We are digging in deep with expository writing and really explaining the difference between expository and narrative writing.  In an attempt to scaffold the steps/lesson and make it as user friendly as possible for our kids we came up with a mini-book and outlines for the two types of expository writing.  This is my freebie for this week!  I am super excited because next week we will be making an "edible" Charlotte!  The kids will then be writing a How-To make an Edible Charlotte.  I did this two years ago and it really helped the kids realize how DETAILED they must be when it comes to writing a how-to!  Be on the lookout next week (probably on my Five for Friday) of our Edible Charlottes! :)

I hope you all have a FAST Friday and a WONDERFUL weekend!

Happy Easter!

I hope your weekend has been relaxing and full of fun time with your family, mine sure has been! I've been busy at work this weekend, too!  Not only did I manage to stock up on some great items from TPT due to the wonderful sales, but I managed to update my Charlotte's Web Unit, already!  I added versions of the book in color as well as the black and white!  I also added vocabulary cards that go along with the book, with and without definitions.  If you already purchased the unit, please go download it again for the new additions! :)

As I began thinking about this coming week and what I am teaching for Social Studies.... I became a little worried that I needed something to help teach this unit.  In the past, I have always used the lesson about the Tired King, Louie and his kingdom, to introduce government.  If you don't have any clue what I'm talking about you can click here and find the PDF version.  Basically, it is a story about how the king divided up his responsibilities among three departments, the law makers, the guards, and the judges.  Students then participate in an activity where they read letter from the people of the kingdom and students must decide which department is responsible for handling the letter.  Since this lesson is always such a huge hit, I will of course use it again! :)

This is not where I began to panic, my panic set in about the days following this lesson.  I am supposed to teach about the three branches of government, their responsibilities, and about our government leaders.  I needed something to easy to handle that the kids wouldn't lose and could actively be used as a resource.  This is the same type of panic that set in when I decided to create My Communities Interactive Book!  Since this book was such a BIG hit not only with my kids, but also as a resource in my TPT store, I figured something of this sort would solve my problem! Thus, I created my What is Government Interactive Book! I'm really excited about this, mostly because my kids LOVE having their own little book to use as a resource!  Seriously, we will be working on an assignment and they will ask to use their resource(s).  Makes a teacher happy, or at least this one!  :)  This book includes a table of contents, headings, sub headings, pictures, bolded text, and a glossary to help reinforce those wonderful non-fiction text features.

Now that I have my panic resolved, I need to get on making sub plans for Tuesday and Wednesday since I am being pulled to test students on the STARR test.  Yay for standardized testing, NOT!  So in my attempt to get started and not be a huge procrastinator, I will leave you some pictures from this morning! 

Wishing you all a marvelous week! :)