Five for Friday (Father's Day project FREEBIE, book studies)

Whew!!  I am in the thick of it all right now with assignments still waiting to be graded, grades due Monday, an iMovie of the year to make along with 20 copies to burn, other class gifts to still put together, my own kids' teacher's/caregivers gifts to make, two dance recitals this weekend (on top of 3 rehearsal nights this week for 3 hours each!), and all the end of year folders and data has yet to be touched.  I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share some (quick) highlights of my week.  

We began working on our Father's Day gifts on Monday because I knew time would be scarce!

I LOVED, LOVED this idea shared for Mother's Day by some of my BBB's!!

The wonderful Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching posted about her Mother's Day project here. 

The amazing Jivey from Ideas by Jivey posted about her Mother's Day project here.

They used the book, The Best Part of Me as inspiration for their Mother's Day projects.  

I was too late for Mother's Day, but thought I could use it for Father's Day!  Dads would love this too.  The students' final products were real tear jerkers.

I followed their guidance and read the book to my class. Then, I had the students think of the "best part" of their dad and describe why it was special to them.  I even read them samples from Joanne and Jivey's blogs:)  

I quickly made a paper for students to write on and added a Mother's Day version too.  Of course, I am a little late for this freebie this year, so I added the year 2014.  Maybe you can use it next year because I know teachers love to plan ahead!  You can download it here for FREE!

 

Here are some of my students' completed letters.  They are difficult to read on this screen, but are so sweet. :)

We received our last group of letters from our wonderful pen pals from Indianapolis, Indiana!  The students were SO excited!  We loved the ABC book of Indiana that they sent us (forgot to take pictures) and we started working on our own ABC book of Western New York to send back to them.  They are already out of school but start back August 1st.  Since we are going to be pen pals again next year (Yay!), she is going to share the book with next year's crew!  I will post pictures of both books soon.  

Here are my students reading some of their letters and showing off the pictures they received!

This week was FULL of rain, rain, and more rain.  The physical education department tried to have their annual track & field day all week but it didn't happen because of all the rain!!  Even on the two days it didn't rain, there was so much water on the track from the day and night before that we couldn't have the event.  The students were disappointed:(  We did use 600 classdojo points (see post here) and traded them in for some free time outside.  Some played kickball on this concrete pad while others played on the playground.  See the grass in the background?  It was FILLED WITH WATER!  This girl slipped in the grass and literally went flying as if she were on a slip n slide!  It was too funny!

We completed our first attempt at Classroom Book Clubs in ELA!! (see post here) Overall, it was a huge success but there are several things I would do differently next time.  I have some more freebies to share with you and will post more extensively about what worked and what didn't for me after I get through next week!

Some of my summer reading materials arrived in the mail this week.  I can't wait to read "Guided Math" and am participating in a book study with my girl, Tina from Croft's Classroom!  She will be starting this book study the week of June 24th!

I am also participating in the wonderful Sabra's (Teaching with a Touch of Twang) book study on Word Nerds!  It started yesterday!!  Sorry, Sabra...I am behind on my reading already!  I just need to get through next week.  Last day with students is Wednesday and the teacher's last day is Friday.

I also can't wait to read Aimee Buckner's Notebook Connections: Strategies for the Reader's Notebook.  that arrived this week.  Last summer I read her Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writer's Notebook.

The sweet, talented Andrea from Reading Toward the Stars is having a mega 600 follower giveaway that you don't want to miss.  Check it out!

Have a great weekend, everyone!!