Friday, May 2, 2014

I'm Back! (Five for Friday)

Has it been two weeks since I've blogged?? Spring Break and the week after went by just like that! Oops! But I'm back now, just in time for Five for Friday! :D


As a part of our partnership with the SF Opera, we were able to arrange for the San Francisco Girls Chorus to come for a school assembly for free! These girls are AMAZING. My kids were really inspired after the assembly and many of my girls wanted to audition for the SF Girls Chorus when they got older.



We started our measurement unit, beginning with a first grade review of using non-standard units. The students used paper clips as their non-standard unit and had to estimate and measure a variety of school supplies and items. They had a lot of fun!






After a full month of the Cinderella unit, we finally got back to centers on Wednesday! The kids were so happy to get back to centers again. 

Math Mystery by Hilary Lewis

Scholastic News and supplemental worksheet

Homophone Match-Up

Special Center...Art...
Painting toilet paper rolls for our Mother's Day gift (which we will be making next week)


Love the colors!

We finally finished our Mary Poppins read aloud which means...it's time for the movie!

We rarely watch movies in class so of course when we do watch a movie we have to do it the right way! I bought the plastic popcorn containers at the dollar store and reserve them for special movie days only.




Friday's art session involved some paper weaving. The kids did great!






Lastly...so much happened this week that it's hard to fit it in 5 parts. 

We started our letting writing unit last week. The kids learned about the format of a friendly letter and wrote letters to their friends. I started to realize that wasn't going to work out for a month so I needed to find some topics to have the kids focus on in their letters. Good thing I stumbled upon this book!

Click the picture above to buy the book (affiliate link)

I found this book on a list of mentor texts for letter writing and it's great! Our awesome teacher in First Day Jitters (Mrs. Hartwell's Class Adventures) starts a classroom post office allowing the students to write letters to her throughout the school year. It was a great example of letter writing and gave my kids so many great ideas. I HIGHLY suggest you get this book for your classroom when you are introducing letter writing. SO, this week, the kids had to write letters to their teacher, me! I had no idea what to expect from my kids, but after reading their first round of letters, I wish I had started this post office at the beginning of the school year (next year!). 

I got some hilarious letters...
The "ticket" is a gift card. And I don't eat cheese. Just fyi. :) 



But this one was my favorite one and almost made me cry...
I had this kid in first and second grade.
I was told to frame this and put it on my wall. I just might do that because THIS is why I teach and why all the hard work, time, and effort I put into my job is totally worth it. 

Hope that leaves everyone on a happy note! I have a lunch and movie date with two of my kiddos tomorrow (a donation I made to our school auction). We are going to watch Rio 2. I'm excited! :)

3 comments:

  1. I found and love your blog! You have wonderful ideas! I nominated you for the Liebster Award. Come check out my blog post for more information.

    Liebster Award and a Freebie!

    Ashley
    Rockin' in Resource Room

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  2. You sure had a great week! I love doing compare and contrast activities with books and movies. It's really fun to showcase the difference. I'm sure your kids loved the Mary Poppins movie! I also love the letters your kids wrote. Our school used to do a school wide post office. Every classroom had an address, and kids could write anyone in the school. It really helped my kids understand how to write letters and also address envelopes! :)
    Ana
    Mrs. Bentin's Blackboard

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