Book Buffet Book Report

This year I wanted to switch things up a little for our last Book Report of the year.  The kids LOVED this project, and their families were so creative.  

Last year I picked up this bundle from The Peanut Gallery.  In the fall I had my students create the CD's for our Tunes Store, this time around it was the Book Buffet.  

The kids had to answer specific questions on their book - there were certain sections, and each section had to be "hidden" under bites of food.  

Very clever!  There were so many great ones, I would never have thought of a styrofoam round cut into pieces for cake... or styrofoam covered with felt to create a hamburger...    

We had many pizzas too, and quesidillas, sandwiches, scrambled eggs and bacon...!  All in all they did a wonderful job.

Since Open House had a food theme, these were spread around the room for families to admire.  I will definitely be doing this again next year.

Check it out!  What book reports are your favorites to do?

This Year's Cinco de Mayo

This year I did things a little different on May 5th.  I brought in chips and salsa/cheese sauce for kids to snack on during silent reading time.  

They did such a good job making sure to keep things clean.

We also used my Fiesta centers in class during workshop time.  It's a mix of ELA and Math Review, so it was the perfect time of year to use them.  

How do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo?  

Random Classroom Photos

End of the year craziness has hit, and once again the photos have been sitting in my camera and haven't made it to the blog.  Wanted to show you some fun things that I have been up to:

Our Donor's Choose Boogie Boards were funded!  Yes!  We have 5 of them now in our classroom and it's made it extra fun to use during workshop time.

My Amazon order of glue sticks and Expo markers showed up tonight for next year.  I'll be keeping these at home over the summer - things don't tend to dry out as fast... These 12 packs of Expo markers were only a little over $4 each, they were as an add on price.  

We have been studying Greek Mythology in class this week (and will continue next).  It's the first year that Mythology has been in our standards, so I'm trying to make it fun.  I have the Year Long Weekly Reading Homework from Forkin4th and she has numerous Greek Mythology comprehension passages and questions included.  Since I have no curriculum it has been a life saver.  Today was Pandora's box, and after studying it, we tied in math and created boxes/nets from scratch.  Students had to fold, use the ruler to measure, cut it out, and fold it all together.  So much fun!

In all this craziness, I started taking down the stuff on my bulletin boards and saw a bunch of huge stains on my main student work fabric.  EWW!  So after years of using my beautiful blue fabric I had to go out and buy new stuff... and then decided to put it up pronto.  Now it has a lighter color backing  with a nice design that will make me happy.  In August I'll add my student squares and be done.    

I love using fabric!  It's so easy!  How I tackle a huge board like this (it's 9 feet by 10 feet), is taking the fabric, cutting it in half and use push pins to hold it in place on the top and sides until I get everything the way I want.  Then it's a quick staple on top of the edges, add a thick border to just the top and sides, cut the bottom, and add my thick wide ribbon to seal it up. I'm not even really worried about the bottom edge because the trashcans, ball bucket, lunch bin, and sweeper bucket all fit in that space.    

It's that time of year!  Have a Kool Summer!  Winco carried the packets for only 15 cents each... so much cheaper for a full class set.  This year I am giving the kids a package of Kool Aid, a copy of Homework Machine (only $1 from Scholastic - we don't have time to read it during the year so I already had it handy), and a "Have a Good Summer" bracelet from Scholastic's bonus points.  It all goes inside a paper lunch bag with a topper on top.  

Hope you had a great day!