Another Week...Five for Friday!

I swear I always tell myself that I will do more posts besides my usual Five for Friday posts but somehow that's just not working out right now...

At least it's Friday so it's time for Five for Friday!! :D

We were hard at work learning different strategies for adding three-digit numbers...

Using a number line

Branching

...and subtracting three-digit numbers.

Drawing cubes without regrouping

Drawing cubes with regrouping

We are currently on the informative unit in Writer's Workshop which also means a lot of tie-in with science! We have been writing lab reports while also means a great opportunity to talk about the scientific method...

excuse any horrible grammar

...and comparing/contrasting narrative writing versus lab report writing.

For centers this week I decided to try something new. Instead of make copies of recording sheets for the students and waste tons of paper (because who really has the time to check every single one of them???), I decided to laminate the recording sheets instead! Brilliant? Almost. Sometimes the expo markers wouldn't wipe off which leads to the teacher using some elbow grease. 

It was quite an experience. First, I tried the mini white board erasers that I got from Target. Next, I used an expo white board wet wipe. Still no goes. Then, I tried a Clorox wipe. Nope. After that, Expo spray. Still no. Even tried Goo Gone! STILL no...

After a couple of minutes of leaving it alone I decided to try a kleenex and it wiped right off! Anyone care to explain what kind of magic happened there? @@

We investigated some rocks in Science. First we used hand lenses...

...and also did some rock rubbing to create rock dust...

...and finally put the rocks in water and jotted all our observations down in our Science notebooks.

I had an extern from my alma mater, UC Berkeley, this week shadowing and observing. On her last day, she led a Martin Luther King Jr. lesson with the kids using Scholastic News. Not bad for a first timer working with elementary kids with no training whatsoever at all. :)

Phew! All done! Hooray for a long weekend! What is everyone doing! I'm going to the happiest place on earth! Can't wait! :)

Now to end the post with a picture of a very cute visitor a student brought in for show-and-tell. :)