A Peek at My Week-November 10, 2013

I am linking up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for A Peek at My Week.
 
Because of Veterans Day, this next week will be short of course, but it will be even shorter for me since I am taking the GRE on Wednesday! And although I should be working on sub plans as we speak, I am blogging instead! LOL!

 Daily 5 (Reading and Writing Mini-Lessons)

 We are finishing up our poetry unit and will continue to work on reading Love that Dog and using mentor texts to write our own poems.  I will be posting more about this later on this week and next week, but I am loving how their work is turning out!  My reluctant writers are turning into poets!  

 Math 

 This week begins our division unit.  Most of my kiddos are still struggling with the concept of division and their basic division facts, so this week will be an extensive review before we dive into the processes of long division.   I just started small math group instruction two weeks ago and I am LOVING it.  I really loved when one of my struggling kiddos said, "The best part of math rotations is working with the teacher!" (My other rotations are seat work and games). I feel like I can really give each student what they need and ALL of my students are making progress instead of just a few.  

 One of the games I will be adding to the rotations this week is this division bump freebie game from Games 4 Learning. 

Social Studies

We will continue learning about the Pony Express.  We had a re-enactment done a few weeks ago sharing letters from our school to another local elementary school which the kids loved!  We have been reading a few pages of this book everyday.

We will then start learning about Native Americans in our state.

Science

This week starts our unit on systems of the human body.  

Seems like an awful lot to cover in a short week, but somehow we will make it all work!

November Currently and $25 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card Giveaway!

Oh my!  I am super late for the party, but I couldn't miss Currently!  So late or not, here it is :D

I am finally starting to feel better after an almost 2 month bout of being sick with bronchitis!  No fun!  And my classroom is showing the wear - I have had no extra energy, so I have just been kind of shoving things into cupboards and drawers (please tell me I am not the only one who does this!).  Anyway, I am looking forward to an extra weekend day to get in there and get things back into shape so I can find things again!

Next week is also my GRE test!  I am super nervous about it!  I am applying for a PhD program so I have to take it.  I didn't need it for my Master's but I need it now. I have been frantically studying during downtimes and even my students have offered to help me!  Love them!

For my yummy pin I am sharing what has quickly become one of our family's new favorites.  With a lot of kiddos it is happy to please everyone, but this one really does, and it is super easy for busy school days.

It is originally pinned from no.2 pencil (I'm a teacher of course, I have to love a website called that right?)

Besides teaching things, I think I pin more recipes than anything else!

And last but not least - time for my monthly Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card Giveaway! Just my little special thank you to all of my followers! I am so thankful for all of you! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Trick or Treat? A Treat I Think!

The principal and vice principal at our neighboring school (we are K-4 and they are 5-6 right next door) came over today bearing treats - coffee, tea, and hot chocolate.  They said we deserved it since we would be dealing with sugar crazed kiddos the next two days.

I thought I would share a treat with you since you also will be dealing with the sugar crazies!
My whole Teachers Pay Teachers store is on sale at 20% off as a special treat for all you do!  And while you are there, make sure to follow to be eligible for the $25 TpT gift certificate I give away each month!

Also, a special thank you to Krista Wallden for the adorable sale button!  If you love clip art, be sure to check her store out too!

What Are We Learning About? The Pony Express!

We live in Nevada and Nevada Day is on Halloween!  We now get the day off the Friday before, but we are still going to celebrate at school by having a Pony Express between our elementary school and another elementary school in town.  The students at each school are writing each other friendly letters which will be delivered via "Pony Express".  To get the students ready, I decided to have us learn a little bit more about the Pony Express.

To get the kiddos excited, and engaged we did a pre-activity where I had pictures in various spots around the room.  The students wrote down what they noticed and what they wondered about each picture.

 

Then we came back together to talk about what was written about each picture.

 

 

On one of the pictures someone had written, I wonder if there will be a fire.  That confused me a little, so he came up and showed me that there was a fire extinguisher in the picture.

See it?

It always amazes me the things they notice!

Then we wrote predictions about what we thought we were going to be learning about.

Some great guesses, and one of them hit the nail on the head.

 

 

Do you ever have your students guess your teaching topic ahead of time to build anticipation?  What other anticipation activities do you use?

 

Making Our Own Kaboom Games

I really want my students to start motivating themselves to study and learn.  I decided to have them make their own Kaboom Games as a way to do this.  They each told me what skill they wanted to work on (from spelling, to multiplication, to fractions) and they partnered up with another student with the same goal.  Each duo got twelve index cards.  I asked them to write Kaboom!  on two of the cards and to make flash cards for their particular challenge using the other ten.  They had a blast!  I will definitely be doing this again!

The Day The Crayons Quit Writing Prompt

A few weeks ago we read the most adorable book, The Day The Crayons Quit! The students (and I) LOVED it! It is about a pack of crayons who quit coloring, and they write letters to their owners explaining why they are on strike.

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.

We have been working on writing narratives (Common Core Standard W.4.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.), so I thought it would be perfect for them to write a letter to themselves from their crayon's point of view.  They came out so good!  Here are a few of the letters:

Five for Friday

time to link up for 5 for Friday from Doodle Bugs Teaching!

Five random things from this week:

Learning some new vocabulary word from Bunnicula.

 Working in our readers notebook as we read the story.

 

 

Learning about Factors and Multiples the fun way - with games!

 Both of these games are available in my new Ghoulish Math Product. I also have the exact same product in a non-Halloween form called  Factor Fishing.

 

My boys loved these cool swings at a new park we visited. Even my 6th and 7th grader played!  I love that they aren't growing up TOO fast! 

We had a fire safety demonstration from our local fire department.  The kids' favorite station was definitely the fire extinguisher!

 

I finally bit the bullet and signed up for the GRE!  I will be applying to schools to start my PhD next fall.

And now... enjoying a restful Nevada Day -we got the day off!