Five for Friday

TGIF! Also means it's time for Five for Friday!

Even though Monday was off I guess it still counts as part of the week! What did you do on your extra day off? Well, I drove down to LA with the boyfriend on Saturday, spent the day at Disneyland on Sunday, and spent Monday driving back up. 

Of course, we couldn't leave SoCal without me meeting up with a friend for lunch, first!

and getting one of my favorite drinks from one of my go-to tea places when I was in LA for my Masters!

House fruit tea!

Once we started the 6 hour drive, there was nothing else to do but stare out the window and look at fields or...

image from Instagram. Follow me!

...lesson plan!

Dorky teacher alert?

Our "Be An Expert" projects were due this week. The students had to become an expert on a topic of their choosing that is related to the pre-historic era and then share what they know with the class. There were no restrictions on how the presentation should go so we've had quite a variety so far including powerpoints and other displays! It was pretty amazing to hear all the information each expert had to share. The audience was also required to ask thoughtful and relevant questions and most of the time, the experts were able to answer them! Only halfway done with them...

powerpoint on triceratops

presentation on baby dinosaurs

powerpoint on Ammonites

fake amber = aka gum

Science time was spent looking at river rocks and sorting them based on their characteristics.

No pictures for this, but my class is partnering up with the San Francisco Opera and participating in their ARIA program. Basically, a teaching artist comes to the class once a week and leads the kids through learning about opera and creating their own 10-15min opera to perform. Some of my colleagues who are also participating in the program have already attended some PDs and met with the teaching artist. Today was the teaching artist's first session with the students. The students in my class had done the ARIA program once when they were in kindergarten and some were excited to do it again while others weren't. This is my first year doing it. I like the concept of it all, but it does seem like a lot of work involved including "giving up" a 50 minute instructional period a week. But we shall see... We have already decided to adapt the book, Bullies Never Win, for our opera.

Our school Lunar New Year parade is happening next Thursday. The new year doesn't actually start until next Friday but we have that day off for PD. It will be the year of the horse so my art parent had our kids make a horse craft. they turned out cute!

 Sorta can't wait to see the kids parading around the track with these paper bag horses next week. We will also have lion dancers come and perform. Can't wait!