Five for Friday Flashback, Toliver's Secret FREEBIE, Mother's Day

Happy Friday!!  Wahoo!  

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and Amanda from Teaching Maddeness to share some tidbits of my week.  See a freebie in #4:)

1.  Teacher Appreciation

Our PTC, administration, and Board have really spoiled us this week for Teacher Appreciation week!  

 On Monday, we had a decorated water bottle delivered and the pencil in the pocket has a little flower petal stuck through the eraser.  How cute is that?

 Here was the M&M saying attached to a package of M&M's (the BIG sharing size!)  We also had a breakfast from the Board on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, we had parents hauling around breakfast snacks on carts and some of these yummy cookies to take back to our room.  They watched our classes for a few minutes while we enjoyed a yummy treat in the hall!

 Today we are having a luncheon provided by the PTC and it is always delicious.  

It is so nice to be recognized!

2.  Mother's Day Project

I just love how these Mother's Day Projects turned out using Wordle!  The fabulous Bethany at Fab and Fun in 4th blogged about it here.  The students were so excited yesterday that they wanted to take them home.  I told them they had to wait until Friday:)  They printed their wordle and mounted it on pretty paper.  Then, I laminated them.

Here are some pictures of the Mother's Day necklaces made out of paper clips and magazine cut out squares!  Just wrap the magazine square around each paperclip and it looks like jewels on a necklace!  We used 26-30 paperclips per necklace.  The students also made a box to hold the necklace.  There is a cotton ball inside to put the necklace on.

3.  Wellness Day

On Thursday we had Wellness Day all morning.  Our students rotate to six activities for 25 minutes each.  There are eleven activities total so the students do not get to go to all of the activities.  My class participated in a fitness challenge (cup stacking-very competitive!), board games, healthy thoughts, honey presentation by a bee keeper, healthy snack, and (our favorite!) martial arts!

Here is a snapshot of a black belt breaking two boards with a ridge hand strike.  Next, he broke the two boards on the other side with a different strike.  He is actually my kickboxing instructor and is an amazing black belt!!  It was so much fun to watch the karate presentations and the students were in awe.  Of course, some of my students wanted to practice their karate moves later that day and I had to put a stop to that!  haha!!

4.  Toliver's Secret   

We just finished reading Toliver's Secret.  You can read more about this book here.  When my computer's hard drive crashed last spring, one item I didn't have backed up was my Toliver's Secret SMART board notes, unit test, and internet activity on Revolutionary War Spies!  Luckily, I had a hard copy in my file.  I scanned them on the copier and imported the test and internet activity into power point.  The test is nothing too eye-catching but you can get it here for free:

Revolutionary War Spies Computer Activity and Unit Test FREEBIE

Yesterday, my teammate and I paired our classes up for an activity about the corncakes and oatcakes used throughout the novel (Revolutionary War times).  I made the oatcakes:

 Recipe called for 1 cup oats, 1 cup wholemeal flour (I used whole wheat flour), 1 tsp. baking soda, a pinch of salt, 2 tbsp. lard (I used Crisco), and 5 tbsp. almost boiling water to hold the dough.  I doubled the recipe and used more water than it called for.  It was a great activity to demonstrate the blandness of the food and we also showed the class pictures of sugar cane on the SMART board and discussed the use of sugar during Revolutionary War times.

 Baked:

Here is the worksheet we used to have students explore how corncakes and oatcakes were used in the novel, Toliver's Secret.

Corncakes and Oatcakes FREEBIE 

5.  Giveaway

 If you haven't checked out my giveaway yet, there is still time!  It ends on Sunday at midnight.  There are over 50 prizes available and FOUR winners will be chosen.  YAY!!