Hump Day Highlight :: Good Friends Class Book

Hi there!

I'm liking this Hump Day Highlight linky with Mrs. Stanford's class!  It's nice to check in mid-week.  Click the image to hop over and see what other teachers are up to this week!

The book we are focusing on this week in our reading curriculum is Farfallina and Marcel.  I love this sweet story about friendship.  

You know I'll take any chance I can to create a class book. :) We had a great discussion about friendship and it led right into this prompted writing activity that will make a super sweet class book.

 Isn't this just about the sweetest thing you've ever seen???  

So much wisdom from this precious 5-year-old.  Totally made my heart pause and think YES!  Exactly!  Never forget this!

Sometimes I think Kindergarteners should rule the world.

OR....maybe not......

Ha!

Good friends SHARE THEIR WEAPONS.

Too much.  So funny.  I love my job.

And P.S. -- look out for this one some day. ;)

Just kidding.  He's sweet as can be.  It's a bow and arrow.  Just so funny that THAT is what he thought of.

The rest were just sweet...

 ...and touching...

 ...and funny too.  

This one is serious about his candy! Ha!

And the speech bubbles.  "Do you want gum?"  "Yes."  "Thank you."  Hee hee!

CLICK HERE to grab this page from Google Drive if you'd like to use it with your class.  It would be a great one to save and use close to Valentine's Day too when we're all feeling the love!!

Hope you're having an awesome week!!  Happy hump day!

Five for Friday {November 21}

Well, hi!  Hope your week has been great!

1. My week started off awesome and so productive at school!  

On Monday we spent some time partner reading from our book bags...

Anytime we make a student reader together as a class, I have my students keep them at school in their book bags.  That way, we all have the same books and can use them to partner read.

We also completed our first personal narratives.  We wrote this one, about trick-or-treating, together as a class.  They are ready to dive into the next one on their own!  

2. Monday's end-of-day recess was super cold.  The wind chill was 6 degrees and boy was is WINDY!  So glad I had my awesome recess partners to brave it with me!!

I posted this pic on Instagram.... you can follow me HERE.

3. The snow and wind didn't let up and Tuesday was our first snow day of the school year.  In November!  Before Thanksgiving!  So crazy.  Crossing my fingers that this isn't a sign of what our winter will be like!  Missing my sunshine already!!

BUT....we made the most of our winter-like day and put up our Christmas tree!  I had two happy little helpers!

4. Wednesday we were back at school and busy!  I re-discovered my "whisper phones" after forgetting about them for several years, and I've started "Whisper Phone Wednesday" with my morning reading group.  They LOVE these things!!

5. Thursday was another snow day!  SO much blowing and drifting snow.  I can't even believe it.  The local meteorologists announced yesterday that this is the snowiest November ever in my area.  Lucky us!  

BUT...we made the most of another snow day and went out to get groceries.  On a weekday!  It was bliss!  No weekend crowds or lines or empty shelves.  And of course having my sweet helper along made it even better.

Two more days until Thanksgiving Break for me!  Happy weekend!!!

Five for Friday {November 14}

Hi there!  It's the weekend and that's a wonderful thing!  I'm cozied up under a blanket today because everything outside is snow-covered and all of a sudden Michigan is like a frozen tundra!

In related news....I survived the first days of snow with my Kindies.  This is no small feat, and I'm feeling extra successful this weekend.  Every time I got them all bundled and out for recess, it was a feeling of sweet victory!  Only infinity more recesses to go before winter is over.  We can do it!  Ha!

Here are my Five for Friday (Saturday) this week... 

1. I created this simple anchor chart a couple weeks ago to remind my students what I am looking for in each of their stories.  It simplifies the process for them a bit, and is easy for them to remember.  My students are at so many different levels, but this is something they ALL need to remember.

 2.  We drew dragons this week during Project 64.  They were all so cute.  So, so cute.

 

 

3. It snowed all night on Wednesday, so we woke up Thursday to a snow-covered ground.  Meaning that I had to make sure my kids had everything they needed for recess when I brought them to school on Thursday morning.  Adding that one extra thing to my morning completely threw me right off and I realized when I got to school that I had forgotten my shoes!  I had my big clunky boots, but I couldn't teach all day in those...my feet would have been soooo sweaty.  So, I used these socks from the office.  They had been donated by one of our staff members after her son outgrew them.  He is now in 4th grade.  Navy skinnies and faded navy little boy socks.  It's a good look.  

 

4.  We completed our Thankful Turkeys this week.  I always love these.  They are so sweet!

I love that this girl added bottom lashes to her turkey! :) 

 Melt me.

5. We're learning about MOTION in science.  My kids loved this investigation this week.  They had to make ping pong and golf balls move without touching them.  Such a blast!  

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!!!  My kids played outside until dark on Thursday.  Fun in the snow!  

Just can't believe it's not even Thanksgiving yet... 

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!!

Five for Friday {November 7}

I'm a day late, but I'm linking up with Kacey for Five for Friday!

1. November means these adorable directed drawing scarecrows which I LOVE.  

CLICK HERE to read last year's scarecrow post for more information on these cuties!

2. We have been working hard during writer's workshop!  This week, we celebrated 16 minutes of stamina two days in a row!  The kids are doing a great job taking my specific feedback and putting it into their writing.  

This little guy is working on organizing his work and remembering to add details, details, details!

 This sweetie is stretching herself to go beyond just labeling her drawings.  She is ready for sentences and did such a great job this week!

I just LOVE watching budding writers!!

 3. Last week we made this awesome story map for our Reading Street story, Armadillo's Orange.

4. We began Math Work Stations this week.  Finally!  I just kept putting it off this year because other things filled the time and it seemed overwhelming to start.  BUT, since we run them exactly like our Literacy Work Stations, the students knew exactly what to do and they ran so smoothly this week!

These Fall Counting Mats are free in my TPT store.  Click HERE to check them out!

5.  I implemented "Learning Partners" by mistake a few weeks ago ;), and it has been awesome!  I randomly paired students up for an activity, and the pairings ended up being so perfectly matched that I decided to keep these pairings and call them Learning Partners!  Anytime we have a partner activity to do, the students find their Learning Partner and off they go!  So easy and makes our transitions so much calmer and quicker.  A happy accident!

I overslept by an hour yesterday morning.  I know you can relate....isn't it a terrible feeling to realize you've woken up late??!?  Thankfully, for me, waking up an hour later than normal still means I'm up at 5:50. #earlyriserperks

I saw this quote and it made me laugh.  So, so true! Ha!

Any other early risers out there????

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!!!

Five for Friday {October 10}

It's been a while since I've joined the Five for Friday fun, but tonight I'm watching last night's Project Runway and taking some time to reflect on my week.  Check out what we were up to this week!

1. We have been working on building our "writing muscles"!  Stamina, stamina, stamina!  This week we got up to 13 minutes!  I am so proud of my talented writers.  Everyone is working hard and many are implementing the things we're working on in our writing mini-lessons.  I just love writer's workshop!

2. We had a lot of fun with science this week.  We are still working through our Five Senses unit.  This week, I supplemented our curriculum with Caitlin Clabby's Five Senses pack.  This sheet came from her pack.  I used a sound CD that I have.  The kids loved this!!  

We also did a taste test, focusing on foods that are sweet, salty, sour, and bitter.  This is always such a blast.  The bitter taste of the cocoa powder always surprises the students, and the puckery lemon faces make everyone giggle!

3. I discovered an awesome new October read-aloud!  My class (and my own kids) loved this book!  The rhymes are so much fun.  I love love love finding great new books!

4. We added a Community Helpers poem to our Interactive Notebooks this week.  The Melonheadz clip art mixed with sweet 5-year-old coloring?  Precious.

5. I arrived home on Tuesday to a beautiful box from Lakeshore (love Lakeshore!!) on my front step.  I was so excited because I knew that the farm animal counters I have wanted for so long were inside!  They will be the perfect addition to the farm study we do each May.  But, we'll also get lots of use out of them the rest of the year.  My own kids enjoyed playing with them at home all week, and today I brought them to school and took them out during Choice Time.  We had to take turns because EVERYONE wanted to get their hands on the sweet little animals!

I am so looking forward to this lazy weekend!  Enjoy it, friends!! 

Five for Friday {May 30}

It's a great Friday!

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs to share my Five for Friday.

We're still having lots of fun at school, but truth be told, we're all fading.  When Kindergarteners begin fading, you know you're in trouble.

Summer!  It's so close I feel like I can reach out and grab it!

I'm craving lazy days and oodles of time with my kids, but we're finishing off the year strong.  I know I'll miss my kindies like crazy when they leave me, so I'm soaking up their almost first-grader goodness with the time we have left.

1.  We're still starting every day by popping our countdown balloons.  This week we had a bubble party with the other Kindergarten class, we hung out with bare feet in the classroom, we chewed bubble gum, and we enjoyed some outside reading time.  

2. We planted seeds over a week ago and watching them grow has been such a disappointment!!  I'm not sure what we did wrong.  Maybe the seeds were old???  Only about one third of the class has a sprout.  Bummer. :(  

On a positive note, next week is Worm Week (LOVE!), so all will be forgotten with these boring old plants.

3.  We made these addition ladybugs this week.  A fun craftivity to go along with our BIG addition/subtraction review push to finish off the year!

4. We received our last pen pal letter for the year this week.  We have been so lucky this year to be class pen pals with two awesome classes.  My in real life bestie is a kindergarten teacher in Colorado, and one of my blogging besties teaches Kindergarten in Texas.....it's been so much fun for us to write back and forth and for my students to learn more about these very different places!  They were intrigued by the mountains in Colorado and the Spring dust storms in Texas!  So much fun!  

5. My students completed their final writing assessment this week.  This piece goes into their permanent file at school.  Both of these sweeties began the school year barely able to write their names.  They are going to first grade as writers!  So proud of how hard they've worked this year!

My weekend will be filled with baseball, planting flowers, and getting Memory Books put together!  Bring it on!  Hope yours is awesome as well!