Five For Friday March 7, 2014

Another week has come and gone!  This week is flying by!  I missed last Friday because of our Nevada Reading Conference, so I definitely couldn't miss today's Five For Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching.  I love the chance to look back on my week and to peek into other people's lives as well.  I guess I'm just nosey curious like that!

This week we have been hard at work on our animal research projects.

We are using this Animal Research Project  packet from forkin4th.

We had our "store" this week where the kids spend their stickers from my classroom incentive program.

Store days are definitely a favorite each month!

We have also been having fun Mining For Multiplication!  I made a fun review game to keep up on our multiplication skills featuring one of their favorite activities - Mine Craft.

We've been doing a ton of small group reading and text work, and I am so impressed about how my students have been working in groups independently with very little of my input!

 Yesterday was my birthday and my students made it extra special with a Birthday cake and presents.  Love them!

How was your week?  Link up and share!  Also, don't forget to come back tomorrow to enter to win the monthly Teacher's Pay Teachers $25 Gift Certificate I give away!

My Holiday Break Writing Prompt and Freebie

I don't know about you, but I am spending my "vacation" planning for the next few weeks. Ah,,, the glorious life of a teacher! LOL! I know you are all planning too, so I figured I would share this great little find from Fun in K/1.

I have a few kiddos in my class who are still having a difficult time mastering writing the elusive paragraph.  This graphic organizer will be perfect for a small group lesson for that group. I know that they will be excited to tell me all about their vacation when we get back, so they should have plenty of inspiration to write about!

I am going to have them fill out the graphic organizer.  I will then give them an opening topic sentence to help scaffold the process.  Maybe something thrillling like, "You won't believe the incredible holiday break I had!" We will then turn the phrases in the graphic organizers into supporting detail sentences. Hopefully they can restate the topic sentence in their own words to close it out.  I will keep you posted with how it goes when we get back to school.

What fun lesson ideas have you been inspired by from other blogs? Do you have any inspiration to share? Leave the link and I will stop by and check it out!