Five for Friday on my week back to school

I am joining in on the Five for Friday(5.4.F) fun for the first time.  I have read so many 5.4.F. posts that I knew that I'd need to get in on the fun when I got back to school.

So let's see what I can gather up from my first week of school since November.

Last weekend, my school district hosted their annual "Spring Fling."  We always go, and I have been so excited for the day when my daughter could participate in the fun.  Needless to say...we had some fun.

Yep, that's green icing all over her face.  I think she may have gotten a little bit of cupcake in the whole mess.

 

 

On my last post, I talked about how I wanted to do a pretest on contractions to see how much my class knew about contractions before I decided how to change my curriculum.  We had some snow days, and I have had to adjust my pacing accordingly.  Based on my observations, I knew that some of my students already knew contractions, but I wasn't sure if EVERYONE knew contractions.  I gave a pretest that was just for MY information--not for a grade, and I don't always show the kids how they did on the pretest.  I just told them that I wanted to see what they already knew.  Here's an example of the range of scores on the pretest:

All the way from 0%-100%.  I confirmed my prediction--a large amount of my students already knew contractions.  I addressed the other side of the spectrum in small group time.  I admit that I wasn't exactly expecting 0%'s, so I had to dive into my files for some ideas for instruction.

 These are some oldies but goodies.  I can't even remember where I got the sorting mat and game.  I've had them that long.  I used the sort to introduce the skill.  The flashcards are nothing pretty, but they worked.  I flashed one card, and my sweeties had to tell the "opposite" form of the contraction.  Example:  aren't--they read "aren't," then told me "are not."  We played the game a different day.  I actually only had the game board to the game.  It is supposed to have cards, too, but I've lost them all somewhere.  Monitor and adjust time!  We rolled a die in a small plastic container, then the kids had to tell me the two words that were combined to create the contraction.  I used the little animal erasers as their game pieces.

Surprisingly enough, the kids LOVED it.  They even loved the sorting and flashcards!  It just totally reinforced that even the simplest things can work.  You don't always have to have perfect, cute, pretty, with the cutest fonts and clip arts.  We still had fun anyway! 

Now that I am back, we started Math rotations back up.  We are in the midst of our measurement unit.  I like to use lots of "practical" application in measurement with our math series.

Here's a sweetie in Teacher Time.

 

 

I wanted to use "review" skills for centers this week.  While I was out, I saw this idea of the mystery number puzzles, and I knew I needed to incorporate this.

 

(It was crazy sock day.  That's why this sweetie has her silly socks on!)

 

We also started our Fact Practice again.  This is what the kids do if they finish their lesson work (work related to teacher time), and there is still time left before we switch rotations.  I *really* want my sweeties to be fluent in their math facts before going to 3rd Grade!

 

 

 

 

This kind of goes along with #3, but this "strategy" has been one of those life-changing teaching moments that I *SO* wish I would've had when I was a kid AND when I started teaching....THE LAND OF GALLON!!!  Another teacher at my school shared this with me and my instruction has forever been changed.  This story/picture representation can help sweeties with liquid measurement.  You know all of those questions--How many quarts in a gallon?  How many pints in a quart? etc.

 

"In the Land of Gallon (draw a LARGE G--gallon),

there are FOUR Queens (draw 4 Q's inside the G--quarts).

Each Queen has a Prince and Princess (draw 2 P's inside the Q's--pints).

Each Prince and Princess has TWO cats (draw 2 C's inside the P's--cups)."

(You can also say the cats were 8 years old to relate to ounces.)

 

(Excuse my crude drawing on an index card with my toddler's crayon...haha!  You can get the main idea.)

 

We all learned this story and illustration.  Next week, we will work more on extending the concept by connecting the story to the actual units of measurement.

 







 

I love the Land of Gallon!

 

 

 

One thing I am proud of my school for is the commitment to healthy kids.  The PE department and administration have started a Fitness Club in the mornings before school with the older kids.  Through this, we have a grant with the local community, so we partnered up together with local organizations to host a Wellness Night for our students and their families.  The night was capped off with a 1 mile Fun Run.  I was deemed the photographer of the event (my usual job!), and I took LOTS of pictures.  Unfortunately for me, I used my friend's very nice camera instead of my junky one, but that means that I don't have many pictures from my camera.  Here are a few:

 

This was a game about systems in the body.

This was an organs game.

This was the hallway before things got real crazy, but outside one of our Computer Labs where the kids played "health" games on the computers.

 

 

Other activities included:  dancing with the Wii, smoothies, fitness trials (vertical jumping, jump rope, shuttle running, long jumping, and calculating heart rates), exercise activities with resistance bands hosted by the local Parks and Rec, a fire truck was also parked outside so the kids could learn about fire safety and climb into the truck, and then a healthy dinner was served in the cafeteria.

 

Even though it was SUPER cold outside, I loved watching the kids WITH their families crossing the finish line of the Fun Run.  They were trying their hardest, and it was just too precious.  All participants received a water bottle with the name of our school on it.  I cheered them all on as I snapped finish line pictures.  I even had to settle a "friendly" dispute between two teachers who crossed nearly the same time.  I think the kids really enjoyed themselves. :)

 

 

 

OK...I think that's it!  I had a pretty busy week, so I am pretty tired.  I'm thinking I'll be in bed before 9pm tonight!  Have a wonderful weekend.  I know a few little daughters that I will be snuggling on!! :)