Five for Fraturday and a Freebie!

Well I just have the hardest time getting it together on Friday after school to join up with Kacey at DoodleBug’s for Five for Friday.  With 3 teenage boys there always seems to be some school activity or event going on.  So I am here linkin’ up a little late, once again, with my Five for Fraturday.  I have a little freebie for you at the end as a consolation for my tardiness…haha!

 I have a new theme song this week…I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it…I’m about to lose control and I think I like it…this is the Pointer Sisters in case you didn’t know.  I am a “music” person and songs just seem to pop into my head.  For all you from the “Y” generation I am sure you have never even heard of this song...just google it or check it out on YouTube…it’s pretty good. 

I digress…the reason for my song, and our first exciting thing of the week is the “huge” rug came from our Donor’s Choose project.  It is beautiful!  We all love it! My kiddos were so excited when they came into the room on Thursday morning.  They were tiptoeing around it like they were unsure if they should really step on it since it was so beautiful…lol…they were so darn cute.  We had the best carpet time ever.  They were sooo quiet, when they were supposed to be…it was like the new carpet put them in a trance.  Everyone had their “own” rectangle to sit on and it was so soft and comfy.  We even read an extra book so we could sit on it a little longer.  We also may or may not have squeezed in a short movie on Friday afternoon.  We have made it through 4 weeks of school now! So we got to lay out on our carpet and enjoy a little Netflix. 

The picture doesn’t even do it justice.  It is so big I had a hard time trying to even get it all in the picture…and we all know I am not a photographer! 

This was our focus wall for the week and just some of the things we are working on. 

First up, our letters of the week Circle maps.

There aren’t very many things on our Hh map we got cut short on time due to an Assembly for student council election speeches.  I am at a K-8 school and everyone attends and votes.

Our shape this week was the square and we completed this fantastic book from Angela Wargo.

It is great!  She has a pack with all of the flat 2D and 3D shapes.  First we made an Anchor chart together, we were so busy I forgot to take a picture of it…then we made the book to review all the attributes of squares.

I was so proud of my little cuties using their academic vocabulary and counting the number of vertices on the square. Angela has a FREE book about Triangles you can try here!

A few of our favorite books from the week were.

This little book was fantastic for talking about manners and what it actually means to have good manners.  It was a great discussion!

We also read these great books to kick off our study of apples

The Biggest Apple Ever

Apples By Gail Gibbons

Apples for Everyone

Our poem of the week was all about apples too! This is from Deedee Wills poetry units.

The kiddos loved it as usual, plus it introduced subtraction as we took one apple away each time as we went through our Poem on the way down to zero.

We started our writing center this week and the kiddos were super excited. 

First we completed a label it activity as a whole class.  This way I knew they would feel confident when they went to the writing center with their partners during the week. We are going to model a different activity each week for the next several so we can set the expectations of what needs to be done when they go to this center.  So at this time there will only be one choice at writing. It will be similar, but not exactly the same, as the one we do together.

Once we have covered all the different activities that will be available to them at the writing center there will be 3-4 choices each time that they can choose when they go to this center.  This center is the wonderful creation of Deedee Wills from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten.  It has everything you would need to implement a writing center in your class.  She has a theme for each month of the year, you can check it out here. It rocks!

I am so excited my kiddos are just doing awesome in the behavior department.  We use Whole Brain Teaching (WBT) in our room and one of my favorite things is our Super Improvers Wall. (Just ignore the lovely phone cord just hanging there in the pic...lol)

Each student has their own card and earns stars for positive improvement in ANY area.  This could be behavior, academic, being a good citizen.  You name it.  It is unique for each student.  It is THEIR improvement.  So our top students who are always doing well will strive to do even better to get another star on their card, while little “Johnny” who has trouble just sitting still can earn stars on his own level too.  He was able to go 5 minutes without interrupting…etc.  Once they earn 10 stars they move up to the next level.  There are 10 levels and you can even make alternate levels with their picture on it if you feel you need to stretch it out more to make it the entire year.  As you can see we are all still on the 1^st level.  I am usually pretty tough on earning stars in the beginning of the year and get a little more generous as the year goes on.  That way they push themselves to continually improve in all areas. 

This is a close up of one of my littles cards.  I love that these are in a 10 frame so it is reinforcing math skills at the same time.  They quickly learn to recognize how many more stars they need to move to the next level.  I got this cute jungle theme one for free here.  There are numerous different themes you can use.  The possibilities are endless!

Well I am a post it note girl.  I usually have them floating all over the place.  I saw this fantastic idea from my friend Amber at Mrs. Matsters' Kinder Love, she has lots of great ideas so be sure to check her out.  She had this super cute “To Do list” in a frame.  Then you can just write on it with a dry erase marker and you always know where your list is!  Genius I tell ya.  

Well, I had to have one that matched my room so I whipped up this little ditty.  If you like it you can grab it here for FREE.

If you made it all the way to the end thanks for sticking with this marathon post.  What were you up to this week.  I would love to hear all about it.  SO link up with Kacey or even better leave me a comment below.  Have a great weekend!

~Laura