Five for Friday

Today I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

ONE: Vowel Team Olympics

We have been working on vowel teams over the last few weeks and before moving on to other patterns I wanted to make this a review week to be sure my kiddos had a firm grasp of these vowel teams.   

That being said I tried to think of a fun way to review these vowel teams without using worksheets or even the materials we use during our Daily 5 rotations.  I wanted this review to include something special.  Because we're learning about American symbols this week I thought some Vowel Team Olympics would go right along with this theme.

All week during our Daily 5 block we took a few minutes in between rotations to use these vowel patterns in spelling tasks and sentences.  During our first rotation buddies on each team were given three pictures. Once the timer started the kids had to work with their buddy to spell the three words correctly.  They did such a nice job sharing the pen and helping one another.  

During our second rotation the kids used one of the pictures in a sentence.  They knew the only way to get the point was to spell the vowel team word correctly as well as use correct punctuation and begin the sentence with a capital letter.  Love the sentences the kids came up with!  

After each task we also did some Olympic exercises.  If each team was able to complete the exercises they were also awarded points!  

As you can see we all ended with 40 points this week! 

I love what these activities added to our classroom this week.  There was a buzz in the room as the kiddos were talking about their team points.  I was also so impressed by how well the kids worked together in teams to help one another! 

Today we concluded our Vowel Team Olympics by singing the National Anthem.  After singing the anthem the kiddos each got an Olympic Achievement Certificate... they were so excited for this!  

TWO: Place Value

This week we dove back into place value.  We touched on place value a few months ago and as part of our math program we are going back to this topic to add more tasks.  

I love that the kids really "get" place value because we do it as part of our morning calendar routine each day.  That being said we've been able to add hundreds into the numbers we're working on this week.  

This week we were able to take out these "Building Numbers" tubs to build and expand numbers during our math workshop time.  

I also had the kids building numbers and writing the expanded form on work mats.  I think this helped my Firsties understand what expanded form means.  It also helped those few kiddos that were confused by writing the number of tens and ones and then using that to write the expanded form.  

Never underestimate the power of using manipulatives.  It keeps the kids motivated and truly gives them a great math foundation.  More to come on the blog tomorrow as part of the Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites book study.  

THREE: Opinion Writing

These collections can only mean one thing... we've started our Lucy Calkins unit on opinion writing!  My kids loved writing about their "best in show" this week and I was blown away by their willingness to add many reasons to back up their opinions.  They were so engaged this week during writing and I had a few kids SO disappointed they didn't get a chance to share their pieces this week.  

FOUR: American Symbols

We learned about US symbols to go along with out reading series piece in which we "visit" Washington, D.C. to learn about our capital.  We also read a ton of good books during our guided reading groups this week!

I had these maps sitting on a shelf and I forgot about them until today. This afternoon we took them out and used stickers to mark our state capital as well as some of the US symbols and landmarks we have been learning about.  We also finished learning about the Bald Eagle this afternoon.    

Five: Happy Friday

Jasper and I can't wait to catch up on our favorite show! 


Thanks so much for visiting! Have a great weekend!