Five for the Day After Friday

I hate being late anywhere....but I can not get a Five for Friday accomplished on a Friday! 

 1.  We finished our first read aloud, Stuart's Cape.  Stuart is starting 3rd grade at a new school and is convinced he needs his cape for adventures.  One of his adventures ends him up with a plethora of toast.  He invites the whole neighborhood to share his leftover toast.  So we had a Toast Party and invited another 3rd grade class after so many kids brought bread!  We had all kinds of toppings...butter, cinnamon/sugar, peanut butter, bananas, fudge topping, marshmallow fluff! 

 2.  I finally got my classroom door completed.  Kept forgetting to send first day of school pictures to be printed.  Now we see smiling faces everytime we come in the door.

3.  We began Math Workshop.  I will have to blog more about this later, but my class is loving how much the structure imitates Reader's Workshop Daily 5.

Math to Self-reading math concept books or our "number it" sheet.

Math Writing-math problem solver in journals or a page from Read It! Draw It! Solve It!

Math with Partner-card games (right now it is a version of multiplication or addition war.

4.  This week we worked on an art project all about lines and shapes.  The original idea came from here.  I am loving how they turned out!  We traced shape stencils with pencils.  Then we outlined with sharpie and used markers to add the color.

5.   Our new read aloud, The Great Gilly Hopkins, is full of new vocabulary.  I am loving the conversations it is sparking! We have talked about what "taking the Lord's name in vain" means, why we don't use the word retard, and the respectful name for little people.  Isn't literature fantastic?!

Happy Saturday,