Five for Friday

This week I have more of a balance of rewards with frustrations. Yay! I was a whiner in my February Currently, A Linky Party. So balance is good. My five this week is a little slim because I didn't teach five days this week, only three. :(

Monday I had an appointment out of state and I missed out on teaching and my children missed out on learning because we could not be in two places at once. Okay, that happens.... 

Five for Friday is a linky party created by Doodle Bugs, hop over and link up here.  Include five random things from your week from school or home. One of my favorite things to do is toot my own horn (horn, get it, hahahahahaha), and another fave is to read what others are doing at home and at school. 

1. Rhyming. wow. I still have a lot of frustration. Here's an example of the rhyming center they are supposed to do. Find the two cards that match and write the rhymes, draw a picture and then add a rhyming word and illustrate it. 

fan/man/wig.

Hmmm. I can't figure out if I am not explaining it, if students are not listening to me, or if they honestly don't get it. Because let me tell you, this is not an isolated incident. The only rhyming papers are the ones who copied my example exactly. They can rhyme on the porch after school. So I just don't know what happened!  If you have great rhyming activities that students could do in centers, please send me an email!

2. Valentine's write the room. I printed these before I got new ink for the printer and I just decided that ink is too precious, so I kept them. Anywho... the kids love them! I know a lot of Kindergarten teachers have been doing write the room all year, so I am behind. But I am just glad we are getting started! The first one they are doing is letter Hh. Here are a few. 

This one has fewer than any of the others. 

This one has the most words and this girl has less English than many of my students. I was excited that she understood the assignment and was so enthusiastic. 

I will ask students to go back and count the words they found and fill in the last blank. It was a good beginning. More to come. I love what my teaching partner does with her "write the room" center. She has fancy glasses and big pencils and students use them in the center. 

3. Kids. I love, love, love my children. I love my school family, yes, but I'm talking about my own kids. This week I thought about how precious they are to me when we drove the road back from Kansas to the panhandle on Monday and again last night when we detoured around an accident on the way to Kansas and when we did not get squished by a semi in spite of his best efforts. I thought about how some of the crazy we share is not positive and some is a really good thing. Like when we sang along to the YMCA and did the actions with a long line of cars behind us and they had to see our crazy actions.  Mine were one-handed since I was driving. Thanks Red for doing the YMCA with me!! :) Punky asked us how we got so good at it and we said, "practice." A little crazy might be a good thing.... 

4. Due to circumstances beyond my control, we made an unexpected trip to Kansas. So I was getting ready for a sub while my students did writing activities. First they practiced letter Yy, then they were to find words that had a y in them.  It didn't matter,  the beginning, middle or end. Once they found the word, they wrote it down. One student just made up words. Can I just say.... "love it!" Here it is. 

5. Overwhelming sadness. On the personal side.... I love my family and when they hurt, I hurt. I can't fix it and there's no band-aid big enough. I am spreading around as much "mommy-love" and "grammy-love" as I can, but it's desperately inadequate. Love and prayers my dear family. You are my heart and soul. So I have to say... "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." And I might have to accept that fact that sometimes crying is okay.