Five for Friday

Well, it was good while it lasted.  Last week was the first FULL week we've had since the week after Christmas break.  Yep - more than 6 weeks without five full days of teaching.  And THIS week we got hit with three more delayed openings and a snow day on Thursday.  MAKE. IT. STOP.  It's not so much having to make the days up at the end of the year, but my kiddos are so squirrely because of all the inconsistency and lack of a regular schedule!  And to top it all off.... Friday was Jammin' Jammies Day as our whole school reward... I give up :-)  Time to link up with Doodlebugs for some Five for Friday action.

Here are five peeks into my week (and a little of last week, since this week was so crazy again!)

1.  Oh spring, where are you?  I know spring doesn't even start for a few weeks, but here in CT I don't think we're going to see the grass until the end of April (and I'm not exaggerating!).  Our amaryllis was a beautiful way to remind us that spring WILL be here.

 

2.  VIP swag came out last week!  It was time to add a little something to our behavior celebrations and having a VIP or two really did it!  I wasn't so keen on having a special VIP table, so I put together a couple VIP buckets for those students who worked hard, followed directions and were caring and nice ALL THE TIME.  The buckets have gel pens, mechanical pencils and Smencils, special erasers and stickers.  (All decided on by the whole class!)  The VIP also gets to choose a workspace using a camping chair or lap desk... but the best part is the get to was with the smelly soap!  Oh what an incentive!

 

I have been so amazed at all the pictures and blog posts about their experiences at the Ron Clark Academy, it has motivated me to make some changes in how I teach - and I didn't even go!  I'm trying to add more "pizazz" to my lessons to get my students engaged - and keep them engaged!  We started our subtraction with regrouping unit as a "Math Mission" theme - complete with Mission Impossible music and daily missions as we went along.  Stay tuned for a blog post about what we did - and yes, it really helped everyone be excited and on target as we learned!

 

We are knee-deep in regrouping of all kinds.  We finished addition with regrouping and re now moving into subtraction.  This is where it gets confusing for many of my kiddos.  And the fact that their subtraction facts are not solid only adds to it.  Next week I'm devoting my math centers time to LOTS of subtraction fact practice.  I like to use these transition boards to introduce regrouping.  It's a very visual way of seeing the "why" of the regrouping process.  You can check out my blog post HERE on how to use the boards with addition regrouping.

Today was "Jammin' Jammies Day" at our school!  Students met their whole school goal of earning over 20,000 paws and we celebrated with a fun day of pajama partying!  That meant a "Find a Friend" morning meeting activity (actually, and afternoon activity, since we had a delayed opening AGAIN!), some important pajama writing and a little pajama math riddle to keep us engaged.  (Everything is from my "Pajama Party!" pack in my TpT store.) At the end of the day, our principal played some "jammin' music over the loudspeaker and we all ended the week with some movin' and groovin'!

I'm hoping next week will be a FULL week so we can really get going with our March activities.  Lots of shamrocks and leprechauns, a biography project and more math missions!  Stay tuned!