Five for Friday

Report cards are done (primarily since they went home today)! Also had parent conferences. So TGIF!!! Also means time for Five for Friday!!! There's lots to share this time! :)

We focused on narrative paragraph writing during Writer's workshop this week. We have spent a bit of time in the past talking about creating topic sentences. This time I wanted the kids to focus more on their supporting details. I gave the students two topic sentences to choose from, "Last weekend I had a lot of fun." and "Last week I did not have fun." The students then filled out their graphic organizer with supporting details and I asked for some to be shared. 

Some of them are quite entertaining!

We started our Cinderella unit last week. The kids have been working in partners and reading different versions of the Cinderella story (I had no idea there were so many!!!). We do one each day. 

Of course, it's not all about reading! They are also filling out pages in a workbook I created for them using pages from the two units I got on TpT below. 

They are both super awesome! I told the kids that they are doing research when they are reading because when we are done circulating through all the books, the kids will be writing their own Cinderella story!

We started our geometry unit this week. Lots of it was a review of stuff from first grade like reviewing plane shapes, solid shapes, and their attributes. 

We also took solid shapes and traced them on paper to see what plane shapes their faces are.

We also learned some new vocabulary words, too! :)

If you've been following my blog you'll know that my class is currently participating in the San Francisco Opera's ARIA program. We have been meeting with a teaching artist weekly and working on creating our own mini-opera based on the story, Bullies Never Win.

This week, we got a special visit from some Adler Fellows, opera performers in training with the SF Opera. Before meeting them, the class came up with some questions to ask them. I was really impressed with the ones they came up with!

Then we met them! (two singers and a pianist)

Each of the singers performed a short piece for us. Then we got to sing a song with them!

First they singed a song from the opera, "The Magic Flute"...

...and then we joined them!

Oh, what fun the kiddos had! 

Our school's annual auction fundraiser is coming up (next Saturday!). Each class is in charge of creating a class basket for the class auction (it's typically parents who create it). Some of them are currently on display in the school lobby to give parents a sneak peek of what they can bid on! Some of these are pretty cool! (My class's isn't pictured since it's not there yet.)

Okay, weekend is finally beginning! :D

Five for Friday

Another week over! Is it sad that all the teachers at school have started counting down to the last day of school??? Today was day 119 so that means 60 to go! Report cards are also going home next week and I'm not ready yet! aah!!

I think I mentioned before the our class is partnering with the San Francisco Opera and working with a teaching artist to create our own mini opera. This week, we also got an extra visit from someone in the SF Opera Costume Department. She brought some real costumes from the opera The Magic Flute and then talked about the different jobs there are in the costume department.

Math this week has been all about multiplication!

Making equal groups using cubes!

We also solved word problems (that the students wrote themselves!) and showed all to do it through all four ways! 

So I've been using reward coupons this year (which are awesome by the way). One kid decided to grab a "Teacher Cleans Your Desk" coupon and used it this week. He definitely needed it!

Look at the blue folder. Torn completely in half! Crazy. Let's just say that went in the recycle....

Last Sunday was a good friend and colleague's birthday. Her weekend was busy so I took her out to dinner to celebrate on Wednesday instead! Japanese tapas! Yum!

For Art this week, the kiddos made a watercolor wilderness scene. We just finished our unit on camouflage so the kids were told to try to camouflage an animal in their wilderness scene. They had to color their animal in crayon so that it would sort of hide and show up in the artwork.

So I guess I ran out of numbers, but I just had to share this...

Are you tired of getting no-name papers and students making silly mistakes on tests? Well, I am! And no matter how many times I remind them to they still never seem to remember. So, I'm trying this out!

Haha, I hope this works! :)

 Alright, I guess I better get back to those darn report cards! @@

P.S. The question to my Currently from the previous post is...What movie have I not seen yet? I was actually quite impressed by the different questions people came up with!

March Currently

Oh no! It's March! The month with no breaks! How will I survive?? Thank goodness we have Farley's Currently to help start the month off right! :)

Loving...We've had two storms this week so it's nice to see the sun out right now. Not complaining too much about the storm since California really needs the water right now, but I hope this sun stays out today at least!

Thinking...so I'm curious about how other schools are handling report cards. Have your schools/districts aligned your report cards to the Common Core Standards? We are still using our old report cards which are not aligned with the Common Core Standards, yet we are supposed to be teaching Common Core. This is making completing report cards SUPER frustrating for me. I can't even get started on the comments because I just have no idea what to write! Well, I have a week to figure it out....

Wanting...I'm sure everyone can relate. Our spring break is in April this year so March is a month of no breaks. Well we get the last day off for Cesar Chavez Day but that's so far away that it just doesn't count. 

Needing...I think the stress of everything has been getting to me. I just feel sore all over. Definitely need a massage to help loosen the muscles!

???...Can you guess the question? :)

Happy guessing!