Role Play FREEBIE, Outdoor Game (Five for Friday Flashback)!!

Happy Friday!!  This week has left me exhausted but the warmer temperatures have been such a blessing!

I am linking up tonight with Doodle Bugs Teaching and Amanda from Teaching Maddeness to share some randomness of my week.

1.  It was time on Thursday to "celebrate" the conclusion of our ELA and math state exams! Wahoo!!  We couldn't have picked a more beautiful day to play some team building games outside.  All three 4th grade teachers planned a game and we rotated the groups through each station.  My game used some balls that had numbers and polygons drawn on tape and stuck to them.

•  There were three of each color and one ball had the team number while the other two had a polygon drawn on the tape.  
• Students started with a team ball that had a number on it.  
• After they turned around, I threw all the balls into the field.  
• Then, they had to have one team member race out to the field to find the ball with their team number (not the polygon).  
• Once they brought back that ball, the next team member raced out to get ANY ball of any color that had a polygon drawn on it.  
• They had to race the ball to me and name the polygon.  If it was correct, they kept it and if not, I threw it back out to the field and the next player went out.  
• This continued until I said time was up.  
• We added up the team points with the numbered balls worth 5 pts. each and the polygons worth 3 pts. each.  Each group played 3-4 rounds in the time we had.  They loved it!
• You can draw anything on the tape for review!  The possibilities are endless:)

Here they are ready to start the race in teams:)

 and running out in the field to get their first ball...

2.  The Mother's Day project that our team has used the last couple years was started at the end of the day today.  I will show you the finished product next week but it involves paper clips and magazine pages.  Students string about 25-30 paperclips together to form a "necklace".  Then they cut out square of magazine paper to wrap around each paperclip and glue in place.  When they are finished, it looks like there are little jewels in place of the paperclip!  I know it sounds funny but it is a work from the heart and takes the students some time to make this special present for their moms with their own two hands:)

3.  Check out the STACKS of books that my babysitter donated to our classroom library!  The students were SO excited (almost as much as I was!).  I am trying out a new system for a digital library and will blog about it soon after I see how it all comes together:)

4.  We continued our novel, Toliver's Secret, in ELA and our Revolutionary War role plays.  

The students each researched a Revolutionary War figure and wrote about them in 2nd person.  I then randomly gave each group four essays written by other students.  They group decided which student would play each role and used the points of view of the characters to create their own role play.  You can read more about this project and get the resources I used here.

Here are some students in the planning stages of their role plays:

The first two groups performed their role plays today and the rest will finish on Monday.  One group had all their lines memorized (I don't know how they did it!) and it was amazing!  This project was a class favorite last year and I love it because it really combines so many higher level thinking skills in a fun way:)

I developed a rubric for the essays in 2nd person and the group role plays.

You can access them for FREE here!

5.  I just hit 500 Followers today!! Wahoo!!!  I can hardly believe it.  I am so thankful for the blogging world and all the ways it has helped me grow as a teacher.  It has truly made such a difference in my daily life and I love the connections I have made with teachers from all over the country (and internationally too:).  Of course, this calls for a celebration!  I am launching my 500 Follower giveaway this weekend and am thinking I will divide the 40 prizes from bloggers into FOUR rafflecopters with an additional nice giftcard in each rafflecopter too!  You won't want to miss it:)  Thank you, thank you for all your support and love!! XXOO