It's Friday!

As I sit here working hard to get this published on an actual Friday, I have marveled at the contrast in the pictures I edited last week as opposed to this week. Last week...wintry, snowy fun! This week...sunshine and smiles...and I love them both! Only in Arkansas!

This week

Last week 

If you haven't figured it out yet, I love linking up with Doodle Bugs for her Five for Friday linky party! It is truly one of my favorites. 

I started this week under the weather. Well, more like death warmed over, but my sweet kiddos and teammates nursed me through Monday. Tuesday...I stayed home in bed to try to nurse myself. 

While I was coughing away at home, my sweet Katie Byrd dropped by school to give me a late Valentine gift. She wasn't expecting me to be home in bed, so she made her drive in from Conway to Cabot for nothing. Although, she did get to visit with Mrs. Whitt.

Good thing Vilonia is on her way home! The new addition to our Flamingo collection. :) Thank you, Katie Byrd!    

I just have to share the sweet, sweet sunshine and the warmth it brought with it this week, but I'll let the pictures do all the sharing for me!

                                                                                        

 

 

We are a Responsive Classroom! And I LOVE that we are a Responsive Classroom!

A small piece of Responsive Classroom is our Morning Meeting. Each Morning Meeting consists of a greeting, a share, an activity, and a morning message.

Even though we were graced with sunshine and warmth, my kiddos were begging me for a snowball fight. This is one of their favorite activities!

We write our names on a blank piece of paper...wad it up....then Ready, Set, Fire! Snowballs are flying! We laugh (and control the uproar as much as possible) until I call time. 

When I call time, kiddos grab the nearest snowball and find the person to match the name written on it. Sometimes we simply greet each other, and other times I include a share. It may be something as simple as name your favorite book, or something more content driven.

Lots of movement in this activity!

We had a very rare visit by my Justin this week. He had an appointment in Cabot, so I asked him to stop by to say hello to the kiddos. Because they all hear so much about all my own kids, they usually love meeting them.

It didn't take me long to put him to work! Here he is working with a word study group!

Then later, I put him to work for me, labeling all our new books. 

How about some true randomness for you.....

These cute temporary tattoos came in our book order with the book Who Would Win? Rhino vs Hippo....so funny...

Fourth grade birthdays on Friday are always interesting but yummy!

Cleaning up my yard this afternoon, I found this big old girl. Boy did she startle me! I couldn't believe she was still out and about in February. She was easily the biggest black widow I have ever seen. I am sure that's not saying much since I have only personally seen a handful...three of them this year, but still she was honking huge, people!!

Now...let us get bookish!

You all know by now how much I enjoy sharing my love of all things BOOKS! 

Well...I got to thinking....why am I hogging all the book love? I mean the people I really want to share all the love are my kiddos. 

So I have decided that each week one or two of my lovely book lovers will share their own thoughts about their own reading in our very own Critic's Corner!

I know...what took so long, right?!

Here's to our first critics....

Critic's Corner

My sweet dystopian fan has much to share about The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau.

    "In City of Ember, we meet a girl named Lina Mayfleet and her friend, Doon Harrow. Both try to save their dying city, Ember. My favorite character was Lina Mayfleet, an energetic 12 year old girl who cares for and dearly loves her city. I liked this book because it is a fast paced book that keeps you turning pages as Lina and Doon keep discovering shocking and surprising things. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a fast paced, adventurous story. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars!" ~ Georgia

This horror fiction lover is a true fan of Mary Downing Hahn. She tells everyone she sees that she loves Deep and Dark and Dangerous!

"In Deep and Dark and Dangerous, we meet Ali. She is going on a trip with her aunt and her cousin, Emma. They go to a cabin to spend the summer, but when she meets Sissy, her summer changes. My favorite character in the book is Ali because she is always questioning and wanting new information, but she always seems clueless. I liked this book because it inspired me to read horror fiction, and I would definitely recommend it to my brother, Austin, just to scare him! I give this book 5 out of 5 stars" ~ Emma

Moving on...how about some picture book love....

We celebrated President's Day with a reading of So You Want to Be President by Judith St. George. I know this is a true blue classic that has not escaped many of you, so I am sure I am not sharing anything awfully new here. But....ahem....look at the illustrator here... Yes, that would be one Mr. David Small of past posts...including last week's post, and here and here.  Hmmm....have you noticed a pattern?  I do love this illustrator, and his images and illustrations always carry the story even further! 

We read this beautiful and informative story, giggled here and there, and then wrote all about.."If I were president for the day, I would...." Very cute stuff...of course the number one thing all of our precious fourth graders would do is get rid of or close school. Not much job security for me there. :)

Since all the fourth graders want to close the school house down, maybe I should give it a shot as president and tell them school for always!

My Teacher for President by Kay Winters is a cutie patootie! Sure makes me think I have what it takes!

My latest chapter book venture has been a precious little fantasy fiction by Kathi Appelt. I actually picked this one up for a former student because I knew that Ms. Appelt was one of her favorite authors. Then I picked it up for myself and started reading... The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, and I am so glad that I did. This is the colorful story of the myths and legends of Sugar Man Swamp and its true blue scouts, raccoons Bingo and J'miah. Lots of beautiful language in this beauty!

With this one, I have well passed my goal to read the forty books I asked my kiddos to read this year, and honestly, so are many of them. But we all continue to spend our days surrounded by amazing books and the sweet students that love to share them! That makes for one happy teacher!

With that....I will say goodnight, friends. I am oh so tired and up way past my bedtime, and I am thinking I am really not sure that I can consider this published on Friday since it is just after 12... oh well

Happy Reading, friends!

Hopes, dreams, and commitments

Hello sweet friends...

I wanted to drop in with a quick post! We have spent more than our fair share of time focused on procedures and expectations, but the majority of our time has been on building solid, positive relationships with each other. We spend so much time together; we become a family!

This was one of our morning messages last week. After spending so much time the few days before talking about hopes and dreams and reaching our goals, I asked students what we could do to help each other reach them. These are a some of the ideas the kiddos came up with....we used these as a starting point for building our commitments to each other. Both classes participated in these discussions and contributed what commitments were most important to them.

Here is the final result! I am so proud of my kiddos...both my homeroom and Mrs. Whitt's babies! I can honestly say that there are some super, sweet kids in this group! I am excited for the year ahead!

Our commitments to each other....
tomorrow we will all sign this together!

I can just see their precious faces as they said, "Never underestimate!" Or..."Be confident." And ..."Be truthful."

Now...don't get me wrong! No rose-colored glasses here...I have a few non-stop-talking, little toots, too. But they are deep down good kiddos...with just a bit extra in the vocabulary department. No worries...that's were all the procedures practice and practice and practice....and even more practice will come in. hahaha.... I'll make them practice until they are too exhausted to talk anymore. ;)

Just another morning message...I LOVE Responsive classroom. Morning messages are such a quick way to put a finger on where most of my kiddos are in their thoughts and practices of reading and writing, all the while helping me build a positive relationship with them.

Ok...well not exactly sure how "quick" that was, but I just had to take a moment to share.

Happy reading, friends.

Commitment and One Love

The sound of rain outside and the savory smell of beef stew in the crock pot has made for one happy, happy girl this morning. I am blessed to have a relaxing moment to blog and reflect on our week. We had a busy but somewhat normal week. The normalcy of calm and structure helped us accomplish much.

My kiddos are loving these stories...

We are still enjoying The Lightning Thief, more and more each day actually. This has prompted me to buy many more titles in the series as students are clamoring for more! If I have a kiddo asking for a title, I make it my goal to have one ready to put in his hands. (Hence the hoarding tendencies :) 

This time of the year tends to be a bit on the crazy side as we have all become comfortable with each other and sometimes bad habits tend to take root. Last week we took a few minutes during our morning meetings to reestablish some of our commitments to each other and discuss what we might add to this list.

Our Commitments

    

   

Above are a few of our morning messages for the week. I love our messages for a number of reasons. I love getting to connect with the kids on a personal level, all the while slipping in academics here and there. We have focused much on kinds of sentences, prepositional phrases, parts of speech, figurative language and misc. punctuation issues.

Friday's message in particular cracks me up because although I did not require students to respond, after finding that I did not feel well, most kiddos left me a little note of get well....such a precious, sweet class I have!  Their kind thoughts seemed to have work; I am happy to say that I am feeling much better at the moment and have fingers crossed that tomorrow morning will having me feeling more myself.

 

I have much to accomplish this afternoon once I pull myself from my blog hopping! I am still working on some final edits on more than a few research papers, along with responding to many letters in reader's notebooks. As much time as it takes, these letters are one of my favorite things. I love seeing how my kiddos think as they read! So cute some of their think!

Now of course on to some sweet picture books...

I want to start with one that I just had to read last week after the tension of not only a math and reading district wide assessment, but the following frustration of a writing assessment. Not only are my kiddos frustrated with testing, but their poor teacher is missing teaching them! For this alone, I had to share with my kiddos Hooray For Diffendoofer Day! by Dr. Seuss, with the help of Jack Prelutsky and Lane Smith. I hope to one day be as free and confident in all that I teach so that all  might call me Miss Bonkers.... LOL!

I do believe that it was just last week that I mentioned how Dr. Seuss was never one to stray from making a moral stand for what he believed in ~ and oh how I love his writing for it!    How appropriate then to share one of my other Seuss favorites... Yertle the Turtle. Everyone gets their comeuppance in the end, and Yertle is no different! A plain little turtle named Mack gave Yertle the Turtle, king of them all, a lesson he would not soon forget. Seuss pulls you so easily into the themes of his stories...Yertle learns, as we all should, to be happy with what you have.

The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neill and Laura Huliska-Beith is a soft look at bullying, a conversation-starting look at bullying. Mean Jean herself is the recess queen and no one moves without say so from her. This rhyming frolic through the playground opens our eyes to what just might make a bully. A light-hearted look yes ~ but a definite conversation starter!

One last picture book for the night... this one is a sweet addition to our library from the last book fair. I picked this one up for a number of reasons. First, I love Marley's song One Love, but you know what a pushover I am for a good note from the author. Cedella Marley goes on to explain what influenced her to create a picture book, One Love, inspired by her father's song of the same name. We really enjoyed this cute little story, and we loved even more listening to the inspiration behind it later, such a fun little brain break for us. 

One last thought before I tackle my stacks and stacks and stacks of paper LOL....I want to shout out to Deb at Primary in Idaho for sharing our blog with her followers. She had many nice things to say about our own little corner of the blogging world, so be sure to stop by and check hers out. :)

Happy Reading!