Linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. We survived a five-day week now we are on winter break for a whole week!!
ONE: Valentine's Day
As luck would have it Valentine's Day and the 100th day fell on the same day this year! It's a catch 22... on the one hand, it's nice to get two big, exciting days over in one fell swoop. However, on the other hand, it makes for one crazy fun day!!
This week we did a ton of Valentine and 100th day read alouds and we used various comprehension strategies including making predictions and retelling stories. The best way to fit it all in is to overlap as many skills as possible. We have been working hard on retelling and predicting during our reading workshop block and this week's read alouds were a great opportunity to review and use these skills.
We graphed and discussed our favorite color candy heart... orange won this year! We also used these candy hearts to build our sight words for the week. During our literacy stations, we have been using play doh to build the words but we needed to spice up the task this week. The candy hearts were a great way to add something to this task this week.
Our Valentine monster bags came out so cute again this year! I love these Love Monster books and the kids do too! I couldn't find any large white lunch bags but the brown worked just as well!
With all the candy that came with the Valentines, I was happy that we only had some sparkling water and a small ice cream cup for our "party". It was just enough to make the day special without the kiddos having too much sugar!!
As luck would have it Valentine's Day and the 100th day fell on the same day this year! It's a catch 22... on the one hand, it's nice to get two big, exciting days over in one fell swoop. However, on the other hand, it makes for one crazy fun day!!
We graphed and discussed our favorite color candy heart... orange won this year! We also used these candy hearts to build our sight words for the week. During our literacy stations, we have been using play doh to build the words but we needed to spice up the task this week. The candy hearts were a great way to add something to this task this week.
Our Valentine monster bags came out so cute again this year! I love these Love Monster books and the kids do too! I couldn't find any large white lunch bags but the brown worked just as well!
With all the candy that came with the Valentines, I was happy that we only had some sparkling water and a small ice cream cup for our "party". It was just enough to make the day special without the kiddos having too much sugar!!
TWO: 100th Day
To celebrate the 100th day I had my kiddos bring in 100 items to count during our math block. Before sorting and counting, I had the kids share their items and explain why they picked their items. This went perfectly with the opinion unit we are starting in writing workshop... another great way to fit it all in!
After sharing their items and their reasons, we sorted by 10s, 5s, and 2s. This took some time but I saw my kiddos helping their classmates if they were done early, and I loved seeing this! After sorting we skip counted and the kiddos got a real world application for skip counting that I think they appreciated this!!
I still have a few kiddos that need reminders to use strategies when reading. I have these decoding strategies on the wall by our small group table and we also have them on sticks to grab when reading. But I wanted another way to give my most reluctant readers a reminder of these important strategies.
During our small group readings I give them this strategy "bookmark", we review the strategies, and then as they are reading independently they clip the clothespin onto the strategies they use. This helps them recognize the strategies that they are using. I have sent these "bookmarks" home to help the families and I have made sure to put them in reading book boxes as well!
FOUR: Swag Tags
I modeled how this would work and then placed a sentence prompt by the swag tags to help the kids tell the student why they were awarding them a swag tag. This worked so well as the kiddos recognized these great behaviors in others and were so happy to tell other students to get a tag. In some cases if no tags were left, they gave up their tag to a friend caught doing something well in the classroom! So proud of my kiddos!!
FIVE: Friday Instagram Feed
I'm in love with our weekly Instagram feed! It's a great way to wrap up the week and celebrate all the learning and hard work that took place throughout the week. This week I had my kiddos select their favorite part of the week as this task goes along with our opinion writing unit!
Have a great weekend... Don't forget to check out Doodle Bugs Teaching for more Five for Friday posts!
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