Five for Friday!

A couple of weeks ago, I started my Five for Friday post and I'll be darned if I didn't have time to go back and finish it. This week, I'm making sure to finish because I have some fun stuff to share!

1. Halloween was a blasty! Let me just say how awesome my neighborhood is. There are....let me see....EIGHT families with babies 2 and under on my little street. Plus a few more with kids that are a bit older. We all got together and had a block party. We had chili, one guy was grilling hot dogs, there were TONS of sweets and candies, and we just hung out and talked. We had so much fun! This was the first Halloween for my sweet Olivia and she loved looking around at all the people and puppies and other babies. Bless her heart -- she was so worn out by the time it was over that she was falling asleep in people's arms while she was being passed around from person to person. We also went to Boo at the Zoo a few weeks ago and she went as a peacock. Momma, of course, had matching eye makeup to coordinate. Love having a living doll baby. :)

This picture basically sums up the party. Love. 

{This is my best pal, Deanna. She was having her turn with Olivia when Olivia decided she had had enough.}

2. I am loving Goodreads. Are you on Goodreads? I have been making sure that I am reading every single night, even if it's for a short bit. I have SO MANY books in my "To Read" list...and I'll never get through unless, um, I actually READ. I want to read a Stephen King book, but I still (after almost a year) haven't finished Beach Music by Pat Conroy. So, I'm finishing that one and then once I'm finished with that one, I'll allow myself to start a Stephen King novel. Any suggestions as to which one I should start with? I'll add it to my Goodreads "To Read" list.....

3. We are still doing SciFri in my room every Friday. {Or at least attempting it on most Fridays...} On most days, we only have about 10 minutes of class left over for SciFri, but it's just enough for them to look at a cool science magazine or search our Twitter feed for something interesting. Some days, however, like today -- we have 25+ minutes for SciFri! I tend to feel like the kids kinda get off-track if they have more than 10 minutes, so I searched high and low for something cool to share with them that is science-related. I am thinking about reintroducing my Daily Discoveries on SciFri, but I'm also toying with the idea of introducing a "Creature Feature" and have some neat nonfiction articles for them to read about a new species that was discovered, or maybe even just about an interesting species that they may not even know about. Then I could tie in some CCSS work into the mix. I found a couple of neat websites that I thought I would share! I shared a few articles from these sites and the kids really enjoyed reading about real stuff that's actually going on in the world, like, right now. Check them out if you are a science buff {like I'm pretending to be}. I

Science News Magazine
Student Science

4. On a completely random note, Christmas is 53 days away. This post is exactly how my brain works. I jump from one thought to another. I actually had something else that I was going to share until this thought popped into my mind. So, have I done any shopping, you ask? The indefinite answer is NO. However, I have started to at least think about what I am going to get a few folks. Ok, two folks. And my list has 752,001 people on it. Not an exaggeration.  Good luck in your shopping endeavors this holiday season.

5. The big clipart bundle offer on Educents is ending in a few days! If you have no idea what I'm talking about - click here! It's a great deal on clipart featuring 19 artists and it's filled with graphics, fonts, borders, and digital papers. Don't miss out!! And please join Educents! You'll love it. I included my Carnival clipart pack in the bundled offer, but there are still over 1,000 fonts, graphics, borders, and digital papers in this offer.

Link up with Doodlebugs Teaching for this Five for Friday!

First Week of School

Ok teachers! It's officially getting down to the wire. It's time to start planning those back to school activities! I love these types of activities, personally, and I am thrilled to be already planning them.

I posted earlier about my Daily Discovery that I will be using everyday as a tool to get my students to come in and get focused. The Daily Discovery tasks will be anything from trivia questions to logic to common sense to just plain silliness. However, during the first week of school, these tasks will be focused on procedures, getting to know each other, and general back-to-school stuff. I just wanted to share these ice-breaker type activities in case some of you out there are struggling to find something awesome and engaging to do during the first few days back.


FIRST DAY:
In addition to the Word Scramble that I mentioned in my earlier post {listed below}, I also plan to have a "Snowball Fight". What?! A snowball fight in August? Yep! Students will write down three things about themselves on a piece of paper that they think is interesting. Then, they'll wad them up and once everyone is ready, we'll throw them around the room in snowball-fight fashion! After a few minutes (or seconds...) students will pick up the "snowball" that's closest to them and introduce that person to the class. Of course, Mrs. Brown will participate in ALL get-to-know-you activities of the week!

DAY TWO:

Since the first day will be devoted to introducing procedures, the second day will be the day that we make sure everyone understands what's expected of them in my science lab. Hence, the "Around the Room" questionnaire. Day two will also be the first day of real instruction. We don't mess around at BWF Elementary!

DAY THREE:
By today, we're hopefully on a roll and we understand the way our little science world works. Now it's time to get to know our new friends! The snowball fight provided a mini-intro for each student, but now we want to know lots more about each other. And we'll do that with a Human Scavenger Hunt! This isn't a new concept, but I really like it and think it is appropriate for fifth graders.

DAY FOUR:
Okay, today will be the first "real" Daily Discovery question. But I threw in a little something about myself to make it a little more fun. This task involves putting dogs in order by weight, according to the clues. But the dogs just so happen to be characters from Mrs. Brown's real life! Layla is my dog, Foxie, Sammie and Roscoe are my momma's dogs, and Otter is my little sister's dog. Of course, I will introduce this fun fact after the students have completed the task.

 

DAY FIVE: 

Week wrap-up! By this time, I will be thanking my lucky stars that I survived the week! But I also want to give students the opportunity to reflect on everything that has just been thrown at them. What are the excited about? Nervous about? Want to learn more about? This is the perfect opportunity to implement a "Dear Me" letter. Each student will write a little to himself/herself that will outline any or all of these things, plus anything else they want their future self to know about. I will collect and save these letters and at the end of the school year, I will pass them back out. It will be important for students to have tangible evidence of how much they will have changed by the end of the year! And even though I teach science, I still strive to incorporate all subjects, especially writing. And yes, Mrs. Brown will definitely be writing a letter to herself, too!

I hope these have given you some ideas that you can use during the first few days of school! I would love to hear any new ideas as well! It's never too late to go back and change my plans or incorporate another activity!!

Daily Discovery

Still getting geared up for my very first classroom! I'm so excited because this weekend - it's going D.O.W.N. I finally get to get in there and start putting up some of the stuff that I've made. I cannot wait to see how it all looks once it's up!! Here's sneak peek:

These are the contents of two bulletin boards, actually. And it's only a small fraction of them. I really can't wait to see what they are going to end up looking like. {Probably like NOTHING I had in mind, but the effort is the thing that really counts...}

Moving on! I have been working on the first day of school stuff. You know, the getting the kiddos acclimated to my obsessive-compulsive requirements, showing them around the room, and scaring the bee-gee-zees out of them with all of my rules and warnings.  I'm trying to thing of cute activities to do with them {or have them do together as groups}. I've found a few things, but I really love the Saving Fred activity. Have you seen this? Too cute! AND they get a candy snack on the first day. Who's their new favorite teacher? That's right. I am. I stumbled upon this blog and found the activity, though I have NO IDEA how the heck I found it. I do that a lot. I actually had to dig into the search history of my computer to find something just tonight that I could not re-find if my life had depended upon it. It took about 45 minutes, but I found it. And now I've forgotten what it was all over again. Good thing I Pinned it. Sheesh.

Speaking of StumbleUpon - have you been there yet? DON'T DO IT. It's like Pinterest, but worse. Once you're sucked into the abyss of that mess, you'll never make it out. The other night I was on my iPad and it had a full 100% charge when I started. By the time I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer (some 5 hours later) - my poor iPad had 11% battery left. And let me just say that I only charge my iPad about once every week and a half, normally. Steer clear of it, friends. It's like a drug.

I'll leave you with this spectacular idea that I thought was my own creation. Incidentally, lots of teachers out there like to start their day with already having something for the kiddos to do when they barge into their quiet haven at 7:45 in the morning. Who'd a thunk it?! It's like "morning work"...only not. It's for "grown up" kids. Introducing my take on morning work...Daily Discovery! Kiddos will answer trivia questions that will require more thought than trying to solve a simple math or science problem. These will just be brain busters, and sometimes they will be related to science, but mostly it will be a "brain break" for them that won't have anything to do with anything. I'll put it on the projector every morning {and throughout the day, since I'm departmentalized} and there will be something different each day. I have the first five days set up already! Woo!! Here they are, in case you want to see the format. I got the trivia questions here. EXCELLENT resource!! I've also found SO MANY new and extremely useful resources over the past few weeks. Go to my Pinterest board called "Science Wizards." You'll be so glad you did!!