Five for... *sigh*.... Saturday.... again.

I'd love to tell some story about how I am going to get more organized and that Five for Friday will actually get posted on Friday one day soon. But the reality is that this is not even on the list of things I hope to accomplish as I get more organized. So if I post on Fridays, it will be a miracle, not really part of the plan. I am working hard to get more organized, to feel like I can just go to the file cabinet, or a box, or a bin, and find what I need because everything has a place, and that will speed up daily routines and make planning and class time more efficient. So THAT is my goal. I got a lot done after school yesterday. We stayed in town and I was going to work until 6, but 6 stretched to 7. Anywho.... here are five things from the week. Hop over to Doodlebugs and read about everyone's week! Welcome to my favorite linky party!

 1. We started another whole school project: branding or logos. What are they? Why do we "need" them? Does our school have a brand? What would our logo look at? and Why?

Here is some of our brainstorming at the beginning of the project

Here is one group working on their logo and slogan

We split into groups of four. Groups tried to figure out how to represent Mt. Hope Elementary School.

The above pictures of groups presenting and calling on students for "likes" and "wonders." I hope we train our students to use kindness when expressing wonders. It is the job of the group presenting to take the wonders seriously and to see if they can improve their final product. I noticed a little bit of Middle School type of cut-throat-like use of words this week. But students will respond to us as teachers when we present wonders and even if some wonders are hard to hear, we can teach them to express themselves in ways that will lend credibility and give them an edge in life, not just at school.

 2.

This is my idea of organization.... lol. I made an extra copy of the front card of sigh words flashcards
by grade-level and stapled it to the front of the folder so that in the future if we forget what level the picture
represents, we can look at the folder and see it quickly.

The previous teacher left a TON of resources, but guess what?!! We've been in school for over a week now and although I am pretty sure I came across dolch words before school started, I can't locate them now. So our word wall has been empty. Sadness. So I found this FREE resource and printed Dolch words for pre-primer through Third grade. The picture below has the blog on it, this is not my work, but I am so grateful for someone else's hard work.

This free resource is from www.bogglesworldesl.com.

 3. Friday we played BINGO. I had one student working by herself because we had one student absent, and the rest I paired in groups of upper and lower grade level students so that the older students could help the younger ones to do the math. I would call out a number, and students had to see if any of their equations equal the number. This covered a multitude of standards on a number of grade levels. It also introduced something I wanted to focus on for upper grade level students: how many ways can you make one number?

I love this resource! I found these bingo cards at: http://donnayoung.org/homeschooling/games/math-bingo.htm
This is a free resource as well, and very nicely made. The cards are small, but they are well put together.

 4. Yep! The next task (for some students) was to write out how many ways they could get to one number. These are all addition facts. We will look next week and see if we can multiplication equations, like you obviously can for the number 16.

5.

 Even though we are not planning (at this point in time) to move to Mount Hope, we do want to be involved with the community. Especially because my daughter attends school here in addition to my teaching here. And we are loving it so far. I was told in my interview about how supportive the community is, but words cannot prepare a person for this kind of community. I have to say once again, I am blessed beyond measure.

 We got a salad and pizza from the local pizza joint. Then little miss Punky wouldn't eat her salad because it had "that funny lettuce in it" (Spring mix). But I found out that one of my parents is also gluten free, she has celiac. So she gave the Punky-girl a hot dog, and even had gluten free ice cream treats!

Ready for the movie.... 

We brought popcorn.... 

See all the kids in the background? There are at least that many on the other side and they are tossing
balls back and forth and just generally having a good time..... 

Mayor Somers giving the greeting as the movie is getting ready to start.

Community members ready to watch the movie.... one of our class members ready to see the movie Cars.

The families that played large roles in putting this together are parents of students at Mount Hope Elementary! It just reinforced in me that I have landed in the right place. This was a lovely community event with families bringing food, or going across the street to LMNO Pizza, watermelon and cookies were provided and ice cream treats were provided! I truly felt "a part of."