Five for Friday Freebie!

Whew, this week flew by, probably because it was only a 4 day work week for me!! I hope you all had a marvelous week! I'm doing my usual link up with Kacey over at Doodle Bug's for Five for Friday! I am also linking up with Teacher's Blogger Addict for Friday FREEBIE!! :)

1.  This week we dug a little deeper into expository text.  I don't know who enjoyed it more, me or the kids!  Their pieces of writing are REALLY coming along!  Following the format of the writer's workshop, we of course did our mini lesson first.  We had to discuss the difference between telling all about something or someone and telling a story about something or someone.  Once I shared two pieces of my writing about the same topic (of course I forgot to take a picture of it... errrr!) they seemed to really get it!  On our first day of independent writing students simply added a list of things or people they know all about, of course I modeled this first!! On day two we began the brainstorming piece.  Oh. my. word.  These kids love anything to do with sticky notes and when they find out they get to use them to brainstorm (this was not the first time we've done this) their writing is SO much more detailed!! I swear some of my Lovies go through like 15 sticky notes for their brainstorming piece.  When picking my topic during my lesson I chose Mo Willems to write about.  First I wrote all the things I knew about him down on sticky notes, each thing on a different note.  Then, with the help of my kids we put them in the order we thought the information should be shared. 

The next day we spend some time talking about a good beginning and turning the sticky notes into sentences.

 

I then explained that IF they were to get done with their writing before the end of independent writing that they could begin their illustrations, so of course I had to QUICKLY model that!  Now, there is just one more thing we must do before we finish this piece of writing next week, the conclusion!!  Like I said above, their writings are really coming along, I love reading their work! :)

 These resources are available as a freebie on in my TPT store!  Click the picture below to check it out! :)

 2. Last weekend I spent some major time beginning my centers for the end of the year.  I've worked a little bit each night on them, I'm hoping to be done this weekend!! Check back soon to check them out!! For today I will leave you with a sneak peak of the craftivity that will be included in the literacy centers!   Ekk, I love these little baseball players! :)

3. Most all of my kids finished up their "What do they eat?" activity for Charlotte and Wilbur!  We should be finishing the book this next week or the beginning of the week after!! My kids are so hooked on this book! I love it! :)  Here are a few of my favorites that were created!

4. In our "Charlotte's Web" center this week, my kids had the task to write a persuasive article for the Weekly Chronicle to persuade readers to come out and visit Wilbur at the Zuckerman's Farm.  While there were some better than others, as with everything that is done in the classroom, I was in love with the creativity of some of their writings!

This is also my FREEBIE for this week!  Click this link to download the template from Google Docs! 

5.  While I spent quite a bit of time this week working on stuff for my classroom, I didn't sacrifice any time with my sweet girl, I try to wait until she goes to bed to begin working!  Tuesday after my workout, I decided I was a little too lazy to cook, SO we went to Jason's Deli!!  Let's just say my sweet girl thoroughly enjoyed herself! After eating a good bit of her mac and cheese, she decided she was ready for the frozen yogurt!! However when it came time to eat it, B decided it was a better idea to go back and forth between the froyo and her mac and cheese.  One bite of froyo, one bite of mac and cheese.  This went of for quite a while.  She was happy none the less!  :) 

It is our nightly routine to read before prayers and bed each night.  It is a rare occasion that I get away with reading only 2 books.  This little girls love for books makes my heart melt!  :)  Last night B was "reading" Goodnight Moon and telling everything "nite" and "bye" as she flipped through the pages!  Then this morning she decided to stuff her bag with AS MANY BOOKS AS POSSIBLE!  I think she managed to get about 10 books inside her bag before she became TOO frustrated with not being able to shove anymore in! 

Since yesterday was our Friday, we got to sleep in and enjoy the morning, even watch a little bit of her favorites Doc McStuffins and Sofia the First! :)  Tonight we will be getting ready for our yearly garage sale in the morning!!

Before I go though, I need some help!!! Our science fair is coming up soon.  I'm still STUCK on what to do.  Any suggestions of fun things you've done with your kiddos?!?

Have a great weekend! :)

Egg-Cellent Five for Friday

Today is the start of what I have no doubt will be an Egg-Cellent three day weekend!! However, it is before seven and I am wide awake!  I am ready for summer so that I can retrain my body to sleep past 8 am!!  As promised, here I am back for my Friday weekly update, luckily I just happen to have enough energy to do this on a Friday and not my usual Saturday or Sunday!  :)

So here I go with my Five for Friday!

1.This week and week we spent some time talking about the night sky.  We have learned about where the moon gets its light from, the different phases of the moon, and how long it takes the moon to rotate the Earth. This week as we reviewed the phases of the moon the kids made a quick model of four of the most known phases.  I got this idea from a cute unit I bought last year, The Sun, The Moon, The Stars, from Yvonne Dixion over at Sassy in Second.  Wednesday and Thursday we spent some time talking about constellations and even making our own!  

2. If you ask my kids who my FAVORITE author is they will either tell you Mo Willems (my all time fave for chidlren’s books) and Gail Gibbions (I mean really who doesn’t love her books for teaching non-fiction!).  My favorite Mo Willems books though are all about Piggie and Elephant!  

 

I could tell you about 20 reasons why I love Mo Willems, but that would make this post excessively long, so I will just share one of the reasons that my kids have become obsessed!  I’m sure if you haven’t read the Don’t Let the Pigeon book series that you’ve at least heard about it.  This was Mo Willems first book series and so when he writes about others the pigeon gets jealous and “sneaks” into the books.  The pigeon is usually hidden in at least one place.  In some books you have to REALLY search to find him, but he’s there! This week we spent some time working on different activities that go along with his series about Knuffle Bunny.  I actually bought Hope King’s KnuffleBunny unit impulsively last year when I saw it due to my obsession with Mo Willems.  I didn’t ever end up actually using it last year, but when I saw Hope post about it a couple weeks ago and her suggestion of using it for Easter time, I was sold!  I quickly pulled open the unit and went through it finding things that I could throw into centers that my kids would love! Needless to say they had a blast using one of their our favorite book series to work on their skills of cause and effect, creating dialogue in their writing, and some fun with a Knuffle Bunny Glyph!  Next week I will be adding a few more things from the unit and things I've added discussing character traits and comparisons between the different books! 

 This was probably one of their favorite writing activities ever!! One of the unique things about Knuffle Bunny is that the background illustrations are all black and white photos and the characters are all animated.  The kids tried to use his inspiration and create a scene of their own! :) If you haven't read Knuffle Bunny, it's a must! 

3. We made it through four more chapters of Charlotte's Web this week!  Let me tell you, this is the kids favorite time of the day!  I love that they are just as excited about it as I am, one of my kids said after we read one of the chapters the other day "Man, this book just keeps getting better and better!"  The suspense of what is going to happen next (even though most of them have seen the movie) is exciting!  We all know that the books are MUCH better than the movies anyway! 

4.  If you caught my post earlier this week, you learned that Sunday night part of my attic fell into my garage.  Yep, that was fun, NOT!  You also would have learned that I got my NEW MACBABY!!! One of the very first things I did after I backed up all of my files from old Macbaby thanks to the awesomeness of the time capsule was create something new and fun for centers.  For some reason, compound words are never explicitly taught in second, however a review, especially when there are compound words on our assessments, is always great for my centers.  So I made a little compound word FREEBIE to share with you all! There are two different ways you can do this, you can have them do it independently and have students complete the recording sheet so you can check to make sure they really understand or they can play memory or you can have them do it independently first and then play memory with a buddy.  All of the above are possible. I also have it in color and the cards in black in white.  Whatever is best for your liking!  Click below to grab it FREE from my TPT store! 

5.  I have decided to take part in the Egg-Cellent Sellers Sale!  Go check out my store to find what my favorite five sellers are! :) 

I hope you all have a great Easter weekend!!