I'm Ready for Spring Break!

Sadly though, Spring Break is still 7 weeks away... and now with the beautiful 3 day weekends of February behind us, it's going to be a very long couple of months.

Anyway, here's a Peek at my Week!  Linking up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings to share.  :)

The kids don't have school tomorrow, but I do!  We actually have Professional Development planned.  The district decided to do half day options, so in the morning I'm going to one workshop that will work with Social Studies & English (turning units into CCSS topics), and the afternoon will be spent learning more about the new math curriculum.  

Tuesday will be spent attending a play in the morning - Beauty in the Beast to be exact.  A couple of my kiddos are in it this year, so that will be extra fun.  :)  

The rest of the time will be spent learning a tsunamis in our weekly story, The Big Wave.  We'll be watching the Brain Pop movie in addition to the normal weekly activities in order to build connections.   

In the afternoon we will start working on our Gold Rush Mining Journal.  I updated it yesterday with the new clip art I bought during the sale.  The download still has the old version too (in case someone liked that better).  If you have bought either this or my big CA bundle make sure to go redownload!  

On Wednesday we are celebrating Dr. Seuss' Birthday at school at NIGHT.  I'm one of those people that always sign up to help out that night - and I have my red & white hat all ready to help serve birthday cake.  Usually I celebrate in class on his actual birthday, but with the weekend, I bumped it to be today too.  

In class I always have a PJ Read In.  Usually I also turn it into a Technology Fundraiser, but this year I really can't ask my families for anything else... so it's just going to be a Read In.  Pillows, blankets, books, and PJs.  We will read in the morning, we will read in the afternoon.  We will use our favorite Dr. Seuss books to identify figurative language examples (which we put on a copy of his striped hat). It will be all about Reading!  

This week in math we are focusing on decimals.  I wasn't worried about fractions since we had been working on them for months - but I am soooo (can't emphasize that enough) nervous about decimals. I'm probably worried for nothing though, I tend to do that.

This week I'm introducing these fun activities to help them with the initial concept:

Decimal Scoot Game by Joanne Miller (Head Over Heels for Teaching)

Jivey's Diving for Decimals

Nicholas Reitz' Addition and Subtraction of Decimals

Ever feel like all you do on Fridays are tests?  Between the story test (with vocabulary separate), the spelling test, grammar, and some type of math quiz - it's all I can do to just breathe when looking at the mountain of grading. 

One little tip that works best for me is to have our Reading Buddies scheduled on Fridays (after testing is completed and I have that 30 minute block of time that I can get a couple of the stacks completed) before lunch.  My reading buddy partner is a first grade teacher - and she came up with the idea of splitting our kids - so we weren't trying to fit 64 kids quietly reading in one room.  Half my class goes to her, and half her class comes to me.  She has time to prep in her room, and I can tackle a bit of the grading in between wandering around the room too.  

For buddies we don't have them just read to each other anymore.  My 4th graders help her kiddos with their math facts, writing, graphing, etc.  There is always a library book that we read to them, and they in turn read their decodable to their buddy.  When we had buddies on Thursday afternoons, my kiddos would also help them with a spelling practice test.  I LOVE buddy time! 

Do you have Reading Buddies too?  

Have a wonderful week!