Five For Friday (Linky)

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five For Friday.

1. I was sick last week as I tracked in. Cough, sore throat, congestion and fever. Yuck, it was no fun! I was also in my dear friend Sarah's wedding on Saturday and I hated that I didn't feel good but I pulled through anyways. When I got home I found this on my bed from my roommate. I love elephants!

2. As we reviewed behavior and expectations as a class the kids voted on their scoreboard prize. I use the scoreboard technique from Whole Brain Teaching. To up the ante, I decided to have them choose a special prize to work towards. Every day that they win the scoreboard I mark a "win point" at the bottom of the scoreboard. When they get to 15 they will now get free time on the ipads (we have a school ipad cart that we can check out). (Please excuse the blurry picture!)

3. This week we read The True Story Of The 3 Little Pigs. What a fun book!

We also read an original version of the 3 little pigs and compared and contrasted the 2 stories. I had the kids use stickies to make a large venn diagram type chart. 

4. Every day we look at a word of the day (from our story of the week). This year I have used Kristen from Ladybug Teacher's Files' word rock organizer. Until now we even sang "Word Rock" - I just changed the lyrics of party rock to be more about words. Right before track out I decided that we needed a new song, we were all kind of tired of word rock. So now we are singing "Word on Fire" set to the tune of Alicia Keys' "Girl on Fire". For the chorus we all get out our air guitars and jam! It is the cutest and most hilarious thing ever!

5. I made some Spring Calendar Task Cards just in time for April. I put mine behind the date numbers in my calendar pocket chart and then the leader of the day takes the card out during morning meeting and answers the question or leads the class in the activity. They are a quick way to review previously taught concepts. Head on over to my TPT store to get yours for FREE. Happy Spring!

I hope everyone enjoys their long Easter weekend/spring break! 

Five for Friday

It's Friday again! Time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.

Edit: I really did start this post on Friday this time. But then due to some technical difficulties including my phone sending gray images instead of the pictures I took and my computer driving me nutso, I had to take a break from it all. :)

1. I introduced Christina Bainbridge's Partner Reading Party activities. This is just what my kiddos needed to amp up Read to Someone. I will admit that Read to Someone has never been my favorite part of Daily 5 because it's so easy for them to get off task and not actually be reading. With these materials I have seen a huge increase in on task reading behaviors and I love hearing their conversations! I have all the materials each partner pair needs in a cute little basket.

 2. I posted before about how we started letter writing - here's my cute little mailbox that the kiddos put their letters in. I got it years ago as part of an art set. They love to put their letters inside and then put the flag up.

3. As we move on in our Economy unit we started making the lovely Amber Polk's Economy Lapbook. I have to admit this is my first lapbook experience and I love it! I can't wait to use more! 

4. This week we finished our shape unit. I love teaching about shapes - so much fun and so much deep thinking! Here are our shape creation pictures - I think they are so stinking cute! The shape posters are FREE from 2nd Grade Math Maniac.

5. Yesterday was an Early Release day and we had staff development in the afternoon. We spent our time studying Disciplinary Literacy. After reading articles and watching videos each team had to post/share their findings using linoit.com - an online corkboard/sticky note program. I fell in love with the website and all that you can do with it. My brain is buzzing thinking of ways to use it in my classroom. Here is my next story of the week with a few things that I will have my kiddos help me fill in.

That's it for now! Hope everyone has a great weekend! :)