Peek at my Upcoming Week

Do you have a beautiful 3 day weekend?  I do!  I'll probably stay up way too late watching Leverage tonight (it's the newest Netflix series that hubby and I are working through).  Anyhow, this afternoon has been filled with trying to grade my huge pile of stuff....  I made it, but it took all afternoon... 

(of course I also watched a movie during that time).  

Today I wanted to share what I'll be doing this next week, so I'm linking up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings!  

 This week my kiddos are continuing on with learning fractions.  We worked our tails off last week on them, and this week are moving onto identifying mixed numbers.  We'll be using my Frog Fraction Task Cards (again), this time to play Scoot.  LOVE them!  

Before I move on from Math, wanted to remind you about the Educents deal going on.  This weekend there is an extra discount using that code PRES10.  Only $9.99 (normal price $10.99).  It contains 10 different products (14 downloads total) that help intermediate students with those difficult skills.  Super cheap price for a ton of resources.  

Our main writing this week will focus on comparing Abe and George.  Remember last weekend when I mentioned my freebie about the guys... well it's time to use it!  My students will first gather facts about the men on Tuesday, then on Wednesday & Thursday they will be writing informational paragraphs about the guys.  It will end up as a 3 paragraph essay - each man will have his own paragraph, and then 3rd is how they are similar.  The kids will create their own informational booklets and will add in those coordinate graph profile pictures to complete the booklets.   

I'm spending this week focused on the guys in the afternoons, and forgetting about Social Studies and Science.  So much writing... we have to double up triple up our writing because it's almost time for the district writing assessment.  Narrative, Summary, Response to Literature, Biography, Opinion...  we hit everything ALL WEEK LONG.  How do I fit it in?  Well, we do a quick write in the morning (focusing on details and conventions - Rainbow Edit time), another write during our reading lesson (focusing on comprehension), and then the whole week thematic writing assignment that they work on during our afternoon Writing Workshop.  Add in mini lessons on specific skills and they are SO SICK of writing these days.  :)  BUT (and it's a Big BUT) they will someday thank me for pushing them so hard. 

This week our story is about Matthew Henson (the first African American to visit the North Pole). 

 Since it's a biography, I have them focus on the facts of his adventure, and then create an adventure of their own - it's a type of inference writing activity... imagining his difficult circumstances and putting themselves into the story.  This will be a one day write on Thursday.  I know, more writing...  they'll love me for it!  

We are moving onto a new read aloud this week too - Island of the Blue Dolphins. 

Here is the link to my free mini pack in case you need it.  

If you haven't heard about my mini packs before - well, this past summer I made them up for all my own class read alouds, and then I made up more because nice people asked me too.  :)  I have a bunch of free ones over in my TPT store.  They have chapter summary squares and lined paper that go with them.  I find it's easier to keep everything organized (since I save all of my class' read aloud papers for the end of the year) if I have clip art that keeps them organized.  Little thing that makes a big difference to me.

I also found this bookmark from Word Wise Education that I bought for my students.  I'm giving them one of these to keep them organized as we read through the story - it contains basic information about the book, with 25 vocabulary words that they really need to know.  I absolutely love these bookmarks that I already requested bookmarks for the rest of my class read alouds.  She's working on them for me.  :)    

Hope you had a great day!