Five for Friday Fun!



We're back for this week's Five for Friday!  It has been a loooooong week and before you ask...yes it was only 4 days!  We only have one more Friday and are as anxious as the kiddos for summer vacation.

1.  Sister 2 took a day off this week to go on a field trip with her son.  They went to a historical building in their community to see how school used to be "back in the day."  The kids dressed up in period clothing and had a great time!  Boy was it a wake-up call when they had to write on slate boards with chalk instead of typing on their ipads.  The most disturbing  funniest part of the experience was when the "teacher" of the schoolhouse called up one of the boys for being disruptive and showed them what would have happened to him "back then" by pretend beating him with a ruler.  Seriously...it sounds bad but was hilarious because of who the boy was....trust us on this!  Just ask his real teacher....check her out here.  She's new to TPT!

2.  We are whipping up some fun measurement activities to wind down our last math unit of the year.  Sister 3 came up with this "brilliant" idea to cut construction paper in all different lengths and then have the students work in partners to plot the measurements.  Great activity.....really great.  Well....except that Sister 1 needed RtI for the cutting instructions.  Took her about 20 minutes longer than Sister 3....and Sister 3 did 2 class sets worth!  Look for this to be included in our upcoming graphing unit on TPT!  It's almost finished and worth the wait. 

3.  Movie review time!  Since the weekend is upon us (thank goodness) we know many of you may be heading out to the movies!  Sister 1 saw 2 movies over the past week.....two thumbs up on both!  First, she saw Fast and the Furious 6.  Yes don't judge her, she loved it....who wouldn't love a movie with Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, The Rock, Tyrese, and Ludacris?!? 

She also saw "The Hangover 3."  Hilarious....another 2 thumbs up...although for different reasons....and Bradley Cooper....yum.

4.  We had a great assembly at our school today!  Our whole school went outside to see a BMX show....and they were silent....quietest assembly we've ever had!  Yes, it was educational somehow, although we didn't get to that part because a storm rolled in.   A dark, rainy storm...so we rushed 960 students back inside.  Such a bummer but a great time....hoping they come back to finish!

5.  Okay...here is a disclaimer for our #5.  If you are easily offended or won't find some of what kids "shouldn't know" funny then stop reading here.  However we HAD To share this because it is just one of those moments where teachers can laugh together...."kids say write the darndest things!"

AND that's how our week ended!! :) lol

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!



Here Fishy, Fishy

This weekend was the official kick off to summer trips to my cottage in northern Michigan. I know I blogged about my winter oasis at my cottage before but there is nothing like the summer up there.  This weekend not only did I enjoy the sun, relaxation, and being on the pontoon...

Sorry, I couldn't resist!

But I also found a new love. Don't worry my boyfriend's NOT angry or jealous... he's actually thrilled! I love fishing! ... wait did I just stay fishing? Yes, I did! I really surprised myself with this one.  My boyfriend has been begging me for two summers now to try it... I always politely decline but this weekend I thought, "What the heck!?! I'll give it a whirl." He put what I like to call the 'wacky pickle' on my hook and within minutes I caught my first fish!  What a thrill! I couldn't stop, I had to catch 7, yes 7, more!

As you can see, that's not MY hand holding that slimy fish. I didn't stray to far from myself. The bf takes it off the hook for me and releases it back to it's home.  But I have to say I'm pretty darn proud of myself... that's a big fish for a beginner!  

How did you spend your Memorial Day weekend? 

- Sister 3 -

Bubble Gum and Research Books

Hey, I thought I'd take a break from my homework to update you on our classroom happenings.

Today we did a Babbling Abby special! "Yum! Yum! What's your favorite flavored gum?" It fit perfectly with our graphing unit. First we made our choices, then we predicted what the class favorite would be, we made a class graph, analyzed our results, and did a quick write.

One guess as to their favorite part. YES! Chewing the gum! 

We love reading informational text. We made cute research booklets that you can grab here for free!  Unfortunately, we sent them all home without snapping a picture!  We used them as a whole class research assignment.  Next year we plan on using this earlier in the year so we can fit in some small group research and individual research projects too. 

When I was checking papers today I found this cute little answer... How darling? I felt a little bad for having to mark it incorrect. 

- Sister 3 -

A Busy Weekend

Do you ever feel like you need a weekend after your weekend? The last two days have been a whirlwind!

Last summer my boyfriend bought a house! Being the amazing girlfriend that I am [ ;) ] I spend a lot of time helping him paint, fix things, build furniture and lately cleaning up the landscaping.  The yard was totally neglected for the last 5-8 years so we have some MAJOR work to do.  It's taken us 3 weekends so far and we finally have the front yard under control!  Now on to the back... where the majority of the work is.

We went to the Tim McGraw concert and scored these free t-shirts!  Any country fans out there?

I've also been "training" for my 5K. Thank you for all your support! I'm at a walk-run right now... I'll get there eventually.

This morning at school we started working on local government.  We made these cute craftivities.

Tomorrow we're going to start a definitions flap book!  

We also began our graphing unit, nothing like squeezing it all in!  Today we talked about bar graphs and made a classroom birthday graph.  We have a bunch of cute activities lined up, stay tuned. 

- Sister 3 -

Five for Friday

It's Friday! Finally. [hehe] It's time for some more Five for Friday!



Last night my boyfriend told me he signed us up for a 5K... and it's on June 8th! We hardly have anytime to train... and when I say "we" I mean me.  He's a soccer player so he's in great shape.  Me on the other hand, I love chocolate and ice cream and chips and candy.  I texted sister 1 and 2 last night and told them we are walking on prep everyday for the rest of the year! Today was day one. We walked 10 laps around our track.  We're off to a great start!

Sister 2's fridge died yesterday while she was at school.  She came home to a huge water puddle, defrosted food, and her husband saying, "Sorry to leave you with this mess." She wishes she had signed up to be the boys baseball coach instead!

Sister 1 went to the Red Wings viewing party at Cheli's Chili Bar on Wednesday! She is a big Wings fan. Unfortunately, they lost and her boyfriend was devastated. She's looking forward to spending Monday and Wednesday in Hockeytown. 

This week we were all blessed with some mother-in-law / future mother-in-law time.  Let's just say that they were all some interesting visits.

This week we were working on opinion pieces about Where The Wild Things Are. We didn't tell them to turn into the wild things.  But a few of them did.... Ahhh.

  

Let's just remember...

Story Elements and Measurement

This week we've been focusing on story elements and measuring.  Along with assessing, assessing, assessing... ohh and the occasional brain break on the playground. The weather has just been too beautiful to not go out.

For one of our story element activities we partnered the students up and gave each pair a few sticky notes and a book.  They had to partner read the story and then fill out the story elements on the sticky notes.  Then we posted them up on the front of my desk.

Measurement is one of my favorite units... I know I say that about almost everything, except regrouping! Haha but I love measurement because everyone can get up and move around.  We do a lot of, "Be the first person to find something that is 4 inches.  Find something that is 15 centimeters." It's kind of turned into a game, but I'm okay with it!

We also like to measure ourselves!  I hear them comparing the length of their shoes or hands which others.  It makes me so happy to hear, "My shoe is 1 inch longer than yours." Real life story problems! And the best part is I'm not telling them to do it!

Today we had a parent volunteer come it... I just love those days! The kids love to have their mom or dad come in and do a special project or game with them.  Today's mom took groups of four to our pod to play a measurement game.  It was the first time they played and they absolutely loved this game!  They were begging to play again.  I can't remember the name of it but what they have to do is roll dice to see which body parts to add to their character. Some of them can get pretty funny.  Then they have to measure how tall it is and compare it to the other other players.  The player with the tallest character wins the round.

See you tomorrow for Five for Friday! 

Five For Friday

We're linking up with Doodle Bugs again for Five for Friday!

1. TpT Teacher Appreciation Sale 

This linky is going to include a linky! It's a two-for-one linky party!  Check out the great things we bought  below at the TpT Teacher Appreciation Sale!

2. Mother's Day

Sister 1 did an adorable If You Give a Mom a Muffin craftivity.  She can't take credit for this idea though, she found it on TpT last year but she's getting old can't remember who to give credit too.

Sister 2 had her class make a picture of their mom out of construction paper and had them answer a questionnaire about their momma.

I had each of my kiddos make a card for their mom.  We traced our hand and cut out flowers for the hand to hold, inside they wrote a letter to their mom. 

3. Bees

This week was dedicated to bees.  We read tons of informational books including a pocket book from A-Z (told you... obsessed).  We even watched a Magic School Bus about bees.  Grab our bee freebie found here!

4. Sister 2's Son's Birthday!

Happy 7th birthday to Sister 2's baby... Boy how time flies.

5. Last but not least .... right testicle surgery! 

Yes, that's right one of Sister 1's students announced to the class that this summer he would be having surgery on his right testicle.  On that note...

Time to Catch Up!

We've had so much going on the last week.. I feel like we've been neglecting our blog!  Soooo this is your warning, this post is going to be a LONG one!

It's crunch time and we're starting to feel the pressure.  It's hard to believe we're in the final stretch and there's still SO much left to cover. I know we say this every year but seriously, where did this year go?

Last week we talked about hosting, An Afternoon of Poetry.  Our classes worked on our poetry unit for two weeks.  We didn't want their hard work to go unrecognized so we decided to invite the parents in for a poetry reading.  We called it, "An Afternoon of Poetry." Grab our invitation here!

At the start of our unit everyone made a Book of Poetry.  I'm not sure what happened to the pictures we took of them but somehow they are lost!  What we did was have the students fold a piece of construction paper in half to create a folder/book and decorate the cover.  After we completed each poem the kids slid them into their book.

The day before our poetry event each child selected their best piece of poetry to read out loud.  We did a few run throughs of the program the day before to make sure everyone was comfortable going up to the document camera to read their poem.

The day of the big event I set up a refreshment table.. I went a little overboard on the juices!  It's just so hard to judge how much you need.  Trust me, you'd rather have too much than too little!  We had rainbow cupcakes, rice crispy treats, and goldfish butterflies!

A Pinterest find!

It was such a fun, laid back afternoon.  We got lots of wonderful feedback...  The parents and kids loved it... which obviously means the teachers loved it!

We've also been covering timelines.  We were trying to think of some fun ways to teach a topic that can be dare I say.. boring.  I think you'll like what we came up with!

We started with a few simple timelines that can be found in our Timeline unit on TpT.  Here's one of them... a timeline flap book!

We also did a paper plate turn style timeline of Disney Parks.  We read a biography of Walt Disney so the kids had some background knowledge on the man who created the magic.  We also visited Disney's website to learn more about each park.  Most of them had visited Disney World before so they were pretty pumped to be doing this assignment.

One of my favorite wall displays is our timeline of pictures.  We start this in September and add all of our favorite school pictures as the year progresses.

We've also been knee deep in measurement.  We start our unit with, "Rulers are tools, not toys,"  otherwise we have helicopters, weapons, and who only knows the other things they might think of to do with them!  I bought Amy Lemons', I Can Measure! unit.  We've been having so much fun with all the activities.  Here's a look at the Measurement Garden.

This activity inspired me to make a Measurement I Spy.  You can grab it here for free!

We've also done a lot of practice measuring... I'm sure you have tons of these worksheets.  

Finally, informational text.  It's a biggie!  We started printing pocket size books from A-Z Learning and have been using them for everything, not just informational reading.  They are so cute and educational.  We needed a few grades so I whipped up this little half sheet assessment.

I foresee many more of these in the future! I can't get enough of these little books.