Five for Friday.... hallelujah.

Thank the good Lord that it is Friday!! That is all I have to say about that! It's time to see how everyone's week went by linking up with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday.

1. Acrostic poems with second grade guided reading. I only had my guided reading kiddos for two days this week.  So one thing that second grade said might be nice to re-inforce or introduce or touch on would be poetry.  On Wednesday we tackled acrostic poems. They wrote their names down the page and had to write lines that described themselves.  It was fun and they did great. 

These amazing little thinkers have "had it easy" the last couple weeks. Why? Because they went from not being able to put together the information they needed to, to being able to funnel it down, get to the "good stuff," make their information relate to the topic, make it relate-able to real life, and make it audience friendly (put it in their own words). They became adventurers, researchers, philosophers. Most importantly they became confident. When they got something back that they needed to correct, fix, change, they did not wilt, they rose to the challenge and soared.

2. Transfer. What we started on Wednesday I transferred to other learners on Thursday. I have "morning supervision" for second grade this week. I read to them after they arrived at school and before they could go into their classroom. Yesterday morning we wrote the word READ down the page. I published it and put it on the door of the reading room. I cannot believe I forgot to document that with a photo! Ugh! What did I see? Students at all learning levels "got into it." And everyone participated! It was good for my heart.

3. Haikus and a certain second grade group. Is this one reading group going to dominate my entire Five? maybe. Yesterday we wrote Haikus. One student could not wrap his brain around this, but the rest just really dove in!! I typed them and gave them each a published copy. After the students finished their Haikus they were supposed to start on a Limerick. Is that too hard for second graders? Maybe some. Not these guys.  However, we didn't really get that far. I did write a sample so they could understand what I was talking about. It is at the bottom of the Haikus.

I see that this is really hard to read. Here it is:

My cat is awesome.
My dog likes to play with cats.
Sara loves her dog.
by Riley

I like the BullPups.
I like the Dallas Cowboys.
I live bananas.
by Nadia

Sports day is the best.
I wear a jersey and hat.
Saints are the best team.
by Daken

We got a sports day.
I get to wear a jersey.
Longhorns are the best.
by Benjamin

Tarantulas eat.
Bats are awesome, they eat bugs.
Snakes eat mice and rats.
by Ethan

Our sports day is fun.
I get to wear my sports clothes.
K-State is awesome.
by Danica

Here is my limerick.

School
by Ms. Horn

I love to come to Lincoln Elementary School,
I think school is really, really cool.
Summer's no fun.
It is hot.
Coming to school keeps me from being a fool.
(okay, okay, I just made it up on the spot, so it is a little corny).

4. Bonus! Today in supervision we read poems from a book about food poems (maybe it was called Poetry Stew....? not sure). One of these second graders from my group says to the entire group, "writing a Limerick is hard, you have to rhyme the first line with line 2 and 5.  Line 3 and 4 don't rhyme." Can you say... blown away? He remembered. He also knew what he just said. I felt golden.

This is the guy who remembered all about Limericks.

5. So this week the transition back to school was hard. I think it was harder for me than my students. My brain was in a fog all week. I was so grateful for Friday.  Tonight is game night at our house and the folks are coming to town to join us. Fun times? Probably. I better get out of here and get ready!

How much of teaching students to love learning has to do with brainwashing? Seriously. Know why kids forget to complain about Ms. Horn making them work hard. Because I TELL them they are having fun, that Ms. Horn's group is the best, that they will miss me when they are gone. Does anyone else do this?