Five for Friday and Friday Flashback

Today I'm linking up with Amanda from Teaching Maddeness for Friday Flashback and Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday!  Let's see...  What has happened this week?

1. I got my next two Donor's Choose project materials in the mail!  Just in time too!  My second project was test prep material from Lakeshore.  I forgot to take a picture but here is our list of goodies!

Vocabulary, Math, and Science Game Show Quizzes

These are great and the kids love them!  The questions aren't written how "THE TEST" is written but it is a nice review of the skills they need to know.  We had a few hiccups in figuring out which team gets to answer, others getting to many turns, people raising their hands too quickly without reading...  WHEW!  I think we finally figured out a way to get it all done fairly: dice.  We rolled the dice to see which team went first and then we went clockwise from there.  If someone missed the question then we rolled the dice to see which team got to snag the answer, then it went back to clockwise.  That seemed the best/easiest/fairest way to go.

Math Problem Solving Card Bank

 Science File Folder Game 

 Nonfiction Reading Comprehension and Research and Respond Comprehension Center

 
These are great for early finishers, TIMER Tubs, literacy centers and Fun Friday!

2. We are starting our new read aloud in my homeroom called The Serpent's Ring by H.B. Bolton.  Now this is exciting for me for multiple reasons.  First, in May the author will be visiting our fourth and fifth graders and that will be my first ever author's visit!  Being a book-a-holic this is BIG thing for me :o)   Secondly, H.B. Bolton is a mom at our school!  I do not have her kiddos yet but I do teach her nephew, who knew?!

3.  Just found out our fifth grade party theme is Medieval!  I am such a history nerd that I am ridiculously excited about this!  I've already got a Pinterest board going for it, haha.  If you have any game ideas or decoration ideas please let me know!

4.  Possibly found our dream home!!!  So I grew up in Texas and when I think of "home" I think of siding and brick and we found it!!!  It's on a beautiful street and it is just perfect inside and out.  We would have to do some serious wall paper removal and painting but that's okay, it just makes it more "ours."  Problem = our neighborhood is one street (I'm not an overly big fan of that) and the surrounding neighborhoods are not.  As in nonexistent.  Random homes all about, some beautiful mansions, some run down shacks.  It's a little random but we're going again today to take a look around some more.  Now, just like I judge restaurants by their bread, I judge neighborhoods by saying, "Could we go trick or treating here with our kids?"  So I ask you, is it better to live in your dream home in the not so perfect neighborhood/community or to live in a home you like in a community you love (that's assuming we can find that as well).  This adult decision thing is really hard and overrated, let me tell you!

5.  I know I mentioned it once already this week but it needs repeating... MY NEW BLOG DESIGN!!!  Earlier this week Megan from A Bird in Hand uploaded my new design to the blog and I just love it!  It's the perfect twist of blue jean twang and teaching and I couldn't have asked for anything more.  Check her out if you're shopping for a new design, she's amazing on all fronts!

Also on the blog front I've started my very first linky party: Monthly Market.  All you have to do is share your ideas on the themes of the month.  This month is poetry, testing, and weather.  Go ahead and link up if you've got some great ideas you want to share.  I'm loving it!  I've already made a  new friend (Kelly over at Koonce's Korner is such a sweetie and has some amazing ideas, you should check her out) and I've had a blogging celebrity moment.  I've been following Amanda from Teaching Maddeness for the last couple years and you can find many of her products or ideas implemented in my classroom.  Now it might be silly but when she linked up I thought, "Oh my gosh, she knows my name now!" Hahahaha does anyone else ever feel like that?  Anyway, it just made me feel very special that ALL the women linked up to share their ideas, because who doesn't love it when you see someone else linked up to your party?


Needless to say this has been a VERY good week!  I hope you all had a great week as well and an even better weekend!

Five for Friday and Flashback

This week I'll be linking up with Five for Friday and Friday Flashback!  I feel like a lot happened this week but it didn't...  Do you ever feel like that?  Maybe because it went by so slow?  Who knows!?

1.  My first big news is that I am the newest passenger on the Donors Choose train!  I had always heard about it and thought what a great idea but for the life of me I couldn't think of anything I needed.  Well now I have and it just got accepted this morning: Crossing the Curriculum One iPad at a Time :o)  Please check out my page http://www.donorschoose.org/mrs.sanjurjo and let me know of any other great Donors Choose ideas y'all have.  I feel a linky coming on....

2.  A few weeks ago I found this amazing site from Stafford County Public Schools and knew I had to do one of their lessons and soon - like Monday!  I'm a big history nerd and whenever I can fit in Social Studies, I'm all over it.  These teachers wrote a grant for Teaching American History through Literacy and they have posted all of their lessons and handouts!  It focuses on grades K-5 and there are three different section to browse: Grade Level Index, Moments in Time Index, and People Index (within those are key events, historical figures, and founding documents).  I clicked on 5th grade and went to heaven!

It's an AMAZING resource to bring Social Studies in through literacy.  My first lesson from this website was Roanoke the Lost Colony and it was perfect because I already read this book to my kids every year but now someone took it to a whole new level.  I bought three extra copies and made CSI: Roanoke Colony folders so the students could get their inferring on!  There were four different folders and each folder had a copy of the book and a different theory handout.  The students had to find vocabulary words, answer questions and look for clues to help support their theory (even if they didn't think that is what really happened).  The kids loved it!!!  Perfect lesson for inferring and citing your evidence to prove your point.  Whew that was really long but I was really excited about it! LOL

3.  Tuesday was my observation and we started piggy backing off of author's purpose to move into author's perspective.  Our first lesson: Point of View.  The students and I went through a PowerPoint where they filled in their notes sheet and some practice examples and then on to the fun stuff: Book Bonanza! 

Each table had one of these book bins that they were to go through and figure out what point of view each book was written from by reading a few passages here and there.  Usually when I do this lesson I'll put four books at a table and let the kids rotate tables after a few minutes but I had 24 kids and thought this might be a little easier on my sanity ;o).  The kids filled out their sheets with the title of the book, the point of view, and cited their evidence as to how they knew that was the point of view.  They rocked it - so proud!

4.  One of my best friends Amanda made this super cute foldable for the Multiplication Properties and sent it to me this week.  This year I will use it for a review before the BIG TEST (ugh) but next year it would be great for the beginning of the year!  Check it out for yourself here.

5. And last but not least... This is one of the best videos I've seen in a long time.  It made me so happy for these two and I definitely got teary eyed at the end but for all the right reasons!  And she's a teacher so I feel like that makes it fit into the linky, lol.  Here it is: Brad and Emily get Engaged.!

I hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing weekend and some of you a spring break (SO jealous)!

Sabra