Five for Friday

Happy Friday everyone! It was a little tough to go back to work after such a wonderful week off with my boys. Luckily, it was a good week at school. It was one of those weeks that was uplifting because it all just seemed to click. There were some good "teachable moments" and some unplanned lessons that ended up being so engaging and valuable! I'm half watching Mad Men (on Netflix, I'm way behind) and half focusing on this post. :) Stay with me, folks! 

I'm linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky. This week, it's all school stuff!

#1: Our impromptu Easter stories. I blogged about this earlier this week. We made these adorable bunny planning pages for our stories. Each student chose character, setting, problem, solution, main idea, and central message (if possible). You can read more about this process here. 

Here are some pictures taken today of students using their planning page to write their stories. I was so happy with how enthusiastic everyone was. My vice principal happened to come in for a quick informal evaluation (we have those from time to time). She was really happy with what she saw, so I was happy! Phew! Writing workshop can make my blood pressure rise. I love it but it can be stressful trying to reach everyone who needs you. When I see these stories, it makes it all worth it. 

 

#2: Math Stories: I drew a little Easter scene on the board and we made up some different story problems based on the picture. Then each student drew a similar scene in their math notebooks and made up a story problem. 

 

(Sorry for the blurry pictures, I really need a better school camera.)

 

Then, they read it to the class and the class solved them on the white boards. If the story problem didn't make sense, we worked as a class to make it work  then we solved it. :)

#3: Ramps and Pulleys: we had fun making ramps and pulleys! Pulleys weren't quite top notch but we did the best we could with what we had. Ha! :) 

#4: Easter reading: Since we were on Spring Break last week and we had Easter Monday off, we spent this week doing Easter activities from my Hoppy Easter pack. They are getting SO good with these activities. They are predicting, inferring, rereading to find answers, and are becoming so fluent!

    

                     

You can't see his smile but he is very proud o f his work here. He asked for sticky notes so he could write facts down as he read. Love it! Then he filled out his double bubble map. 

#5: April Literacy Centers are in full swing! Here are just a few pictures I was able to snap up at the beginning of the center time today. 

 

 

I hope you all have a good weekend! How was your week?