Five for Friday, week of February 23-March 1.

I don't know about you, but it takes me a good chunk of time to sift through the photos and write my Five for Friday posts! I always think that I will get faster, more organized. Or that perhaps I'll even start typing the post as the events happen, but every week, I spend a large chunk of my Friday night or Saturday morning posting in my blog(s).

But here is a look at my week. I hope you'll look at everyone's weeks by hopping over to Doodlebugs and enjoying this lovely linky known as Five for Friday.

1. Family fun. I have two things here. First off, my youngest LOVES horses. I mean, she LOVES them. I know the feeling. I still think they are very cool, but as a child, I felt like she did. I loved the smell, the sight of them, riding, the touch of their fur, the feel of their muzzle. Last Saturday it was a sunny 60 degree day and she went across the street to visit her favorite horses and her favorite horse person, Mr. Peters. She rode and rode and rode. 

Sunday we all got to enjoy going to church together and we explored the mall together afterward. It has been pointed out to me that we remember experiences, not things. So I decided to let my child have an experience. The older of the two opted out of this. Funny, I thought she was the one who would think it was oh-so-cool. But Punky did the bungee-jump in the mall. She was scared at first, but she "conquered her fear."

2. New reading groups! Lots of fresh faces this week! This is both a blessing and a curse at the same time. The curse is reteaching procedures and rules that I tend to think should be ingrained by now. But the blessing is that we all needed a change. The students need a change and the teacher needs to see fresh faces and probe into different minds! One of my little first grade learners doesn't really like it that the rules apply to her and not just everyone else, but she also is the one person in her group that "gets" my corniness and catches on to my drier sense of humor. 

3. Second grade guided reading.  We read the book Animal Helpers. Then we discussed how animals help each other, how humans help each other and what ways are the same that we help (both people and animals help each other take care of their teeth, did you know that?). We filled out a Venn Diagram (which I failed to capture), and then we extended our activity to ways we can help at home, ways we can help at school and ways we can help our community. We drew a picture of ourselves helping either at home, school or in the community and then wrote a sentence to match. We will continue to work on making the connection between school and home and our community and we will also work on our writing/reading connection. This is a group that needed more support and often misses out on some of the "fun" because they struggle with some basic reading skills. 

4. Red got a new haircut! She is ready for anything now! Bring on the world! Ha! I know she opted out of the bungee thing voluntarily, but I want her to feel special and worth it and she cut off all her long hair and it looks beautiful but more importantly she feels beautiful! Yay. 

5. Fourth grade guided reading struggles with filling out the constructed response part of their test every. single. time! They know the test-taking strategies, they just don't know how to actually put them into practice! So we are working on the different literary elements and how to pull the information out of the text. This week we are working on compare and contrast, so we used a Venn Diagram in Fourth grade too.  I didn't make it look like a Venn Diagram, we just wrote the characteristics of hard coral and soft coral (out of their Treasures vocabulary story), and then we wrote the characteristics that were the same down the middle. I was impressed with how much they were able to do. Now to transfer that ability to their independent work time.....