Five for Friday, December 6

I am loving that it is the weekend. And with that comes my favorite linky in the whole world.... Five for Friday! Hop over to Doodlebugs and read about everyone's week!

1. My Second graders rocked out their last presentation of their research. They had the option of researching Neil Armstrong, space travel, the moon (or traveling to the moon), or the planets. They had to tell me what they were researching and find facts that matched the pictures they printed or drew for their posters. I still had some that couldn't funnel down the information they found and they still gather information that they don't understand and don't know what to do with it. But the growth from their first research project until now is phenomenal! I was so proud of them. (One student just joined our group and this was her first presentation so she was very nervous.... everyone in the room closed their eyes and we held up her poster so she couldn't see the rest of the class and SHE MADE IT.... whew).

2. Frozen. We went to see Frozen last night. Cute movie. I loved Olaf. I also loved going to a movie with my girls. Interesting that we went to see it when it was a balmy 16 degrees and woke up to 1 degree.

3. My little Punkin is in the community children's choir and I am really proud of her. Sometimes Most of the time she whines and it's like pulling teeth to get her to practice. But she is starting to see the pay off of knowing the words to the songs and she is starting to see that there is reward to this responsibility thing. They have to finance their Spring Break trip and their last fund raiser concluded this week. Let me tell you something, that girl went out in the neighborhood on Sunday and Monday and sold about 60 items (approximately $800 in sales).  She is very close to having her trip financed. I was so proud of her hard work.  After a few arguments (equivalent to tooth extractions I'm sure), she is starting to put the discipline into practicing her songs too! More often than not, I see more growth in students in school than I do in the children that live with me, and the growth I am seeing here just blows me away. I am so proud of the person this little Punkin is becoming.

4. Homemade Christmas. I love the homemade parts of Christmas: making playdough for my nieces, making some little thing for "the fam", sewing for my girls or embroidering or crocheting, or, or, or....  I am wishing I had a little cash for some special Christmas gifts, but I am pleased with the whole concept of gifts from the heart. And I love the food. I finally just explained to my youngest that this is a large part of why we are so broke at Christmas, all the extra groceries for the food and goodies cost a lot of money.  Love to make dipped pretzels, and almond bark candy, and cookies, and artichoke dip, and salsa, and the list goes on....

I couldn't find a photo of a Christmas project, but a favorite activity of mine is to crochet with my little one.

5. I do reading interventions with students in the afternoons and every one of them is shooting up on their progress monitoring. I was explaining this to my second graders yesterday. First of all, I had to brag on them and how great they are doing, and then I explained that if their scores were not going up, I would have to figure out a different way to teach them so they would be able to learn what they need to know. But between seeing the growth with my high groups (think about the 2nd grade group I just typed about), and the growth of my intervention kiddos, I am feeling the reward of choosing to teach. This is part I love.

This is seriously what my intervention student's growth looks like when it's charted! :)

What do you love most about teaching? And when do you feel it, see it, experience it? I really want to know.