Five For Friday- A Busy Week!

I am linking up with Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

1. My team and I decided we needed some more word work activities. We wanted things to pull out for centers, use during morning work, grab quickly to use in small group while we pull other kids for assessments and the list goes on.  So I worked until the wee hours of a few mornings this week to get these two packs done. Needless to say I am one tired girl!

The first pack is my CCVC/CVCC Word Pack which is modeled after my CVC Word Pack. I am hoping that between these two packs my classroom will be differentiated in tons of ways! Next is my "Build It" Pack. With this pack students can build CVC, CCVC, CVCC, and CVCE words using a variety of manipulatives. My students are loving these with letter tiles, magnetic letters, and these amazing little letter legos from Lakeshore.

2. This week we talked about the weight and used our balance scales! The students really enjoyed doing an investigation the first day. I lined up various objects on the carpet and had the students write the objects down from heaviest to lightest. Then I let them come to the carpet one table at a time to lift the objects. Then they could go back to their seats and fix their lists. Then I gave each group a set of objects from the carpet and a balance scale and they went crazy began working.

I did this lesson using the inquiry method and let the conversations at the tables drive their understanding of the balance scale. The groups were able to determine that the size of the object doesn't necessarily correlate with the weight and how to interpret the balance scale.

One little boy told his group to "Sit down and I will explain." His whole group sat down while he explained "See I will put the feather on. Now I put the paint on. The paint is heavy. I know because I felt it. A feather is light. Because feathers are light. The scale goes down when something is heavy. Thats why the scale goes down under the paint."

Those periods are no exageration. He was so matter-a-fact. It really makes me wonder if I sound like that when I am trying to get my point across.

3. I found these cute little watering cans in the dollar section at Target. They were three dollars each but I didn't figure that out until I made it to the register and I already had big plans for them. I used them this week to sort long and short vowels during an activity from my Flutter Into Spring Unit but you could use them for plants and gardening too.

4. Next week is FCAT for the students in grades 3-5. The K-2 teachers adopt a classroom during the week of FCAT. We will sign our name to this poster and hang it outside out adopted classes' classroom. We will also bring the class pencils because they are so sharp, smarties because they are so smart and butterfly bookmarks because they are flying by success!

5. We get to pack our classrooms this year because our school is getting new flooring. I say "get" like it is a privilege because I am actually more excited then I thought I would be about this. I like to have things organized and I like to organize-- I just have a terrible time keeping things organized.
I decided to stay late one day this week and tackle some of my closet. Can I just say construction paper storage makes me crazy?!?! I have a cabinet inside my closet so I made a snap decision to put the construction paper in there. I hate to admit it but it was mostly because if it gets out of control again I can just shut the door.

As if this week was not crazy enough I have my bags packed and waiting by the door. I am heading on a short mini weekend vacation with some teacher friends to go visit some friends in Orlando. I am looking forward to a weekend of shopping and girl talk! And I am all ready to start Earth Day when I get back on Monday!