Five for Friday: Science, journals, & guided reading

Ha!! This really applies to my week and I tell parents this very quote at Orientation every year =) I had this week mapped out with what I wanted to do for my 5 for Friday but each day of the week got progressively worse so this might be kind of short in narrative...

We started our guided reading groups this week and they were not thrilled initially. I pulled out the witch fingers on day 2 and I think I might have seen a smile or two. Yeah!

I wanted to increase the confidence of my kids when writing so I decided to make a Fall words dictionary for them to use as a reference in helping them compose a sentence. For the most part, the kids got the hang of it. I laminated them so that we can reuse them during our writing time each day.

You can check them out in my shop with more Fall writing prompts!

 Fall Journals

I love the Fall because it is jeans with over sized sweaters with flip flops, pumpkin spice, decorations, bonfires, and fall festivities for the kids!

We eat and breathe soccer with the three boys from August until October but fun is had by all!

I said that I like the flip flops but the little guy likes to do the reverse on our walks. He wears his pajamas, carries his walking stick, and feeling the comfort in his Winter fleece crocs. LOL!

I finally got on the boat with the QR readers! I downloaded the app (It's FREE!) and tried a sample high frequency activity. The kids had to look at a picture that would be a simple CVC word, sound it out, write the letters they heard, and then check it with the code reader. The kids had a blast. I will have to do this again as it was interactive and engaging. 

My last item I had prepped was to talk about the two book studies that I am going to be participating in but then I decided that I could share about the Science adoption we will be doing this year. On Wednesday, one teacher from each grade level in our district met to discuss the standards we cover in the Science curriculum. We dissected each one and designated where it is taught. We looked at a couple of online companies but will be looking more in depth at several companies that offer more complete packages (books, kits, online components, etc.). Which one do you use and do you like it?

Needless to say it was a long day but we did the things that had to be done. Imagine my displeasure upon returning to my classroom that evening while my boys were at soccer to discover that it was a bad day in my room. Not just a regular bad day but absolutely horrible! This is my 17th year of teaching and I have NEVER had a situation where a sub has left a room in such a disarray. Normally, I am pretty easy going about getting a substitute in my room. I am so thankful that someone is coming to replace and allow me to be outside of my room for whatever reason.  I walked into my classroom with  tables that looked like they hadn't been cleaned in decades, papers that were never collected from home, papers that were not sent home....but the kicker was when I noticed that the supply boxes were overflowing with brand new glue sticks and crayons. The kids helped themselves generously to my storage bins!! I spend the entire soccer practice scrubbing tables with clorox wipes and putting supplies back. The note left from the substitute said that it was a difficult day and the tables were still a mess. Still?!!!  I will have to be a little more picky in the future I guess.

I definitely addressed the kids when they entered the room the next morning and we immediately began a classroom management system (Class DOJO). I had great success with it last year but was hoping this class would iron itself out a bit after we began. They are a great group of individuals but just need to learn some focus yet. We created our avatars and designed an incentive point system that will work for us. Here is what we came up with:

Avatars are being laminated and the board should be up by Monday. I will share it next week.

Have a great weekend!!