Five for Friday!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for five for friday!

I don't know about y'all, but this has been the loooooooongest week of the year! Shesh!
Full moon? I don't know if the lunacy is related, but I will use it as an excuse!
But the show must go on, so here's a peek at what I was up to this week! and be warned this is really random!

I have problems with Instagram, as in I see lots of cute clothes and jewelry and follow the IG'er and subscribe to their liketoknowit accounts, and click LIKE on EVERYthing, get the email about the outfits, and then buy it...
luckily one account I LOVE is a set of twins who love target! Go follow the double take girls! such cute outfits! I would've passed this flannel right up at Target if they had not styled it so many cute ways! oh, and the necklace too of course!

My teammate Katie and I have started switching classes in the afternoons. I LOVE teaching science and she loves SS, so I teach science to her youngins twice a week while she covers all the holiday jazz. Mondays are reserved for Letterland and Library and the other two days I repeat the lessons with my kiddos. She used my Day of the Dead unit and this powerpoint! The kids EATitUP every year. They've never heard of this holiday and it's the perfect followup to Halloween, plus it's just so different than our culture! If you didn't snag it for free earlier in the week, it's included in my unit now, as well as separately!

Now I was across the hall teaching matter. Which I love. When I had a kit to use. Y'all, it's hard to teach matter without my kit! But, I just supply my own little experiments now! I started out with a little refresher of what they learned about in first grade, and after watching BrainPop Jr, we broke out the magazines and searched for examples. Finding gas is always a treat! This activity is from Inspire Me ASAP! I've used it for  years now! Next week we will start with experiments because they sure do not believe air takes up space! =)

While I obviously use my unit for teaching the bulk of this unit, I always supplement with a few other amazing resources, especially ones for any crafts, reading, and more experiments! Here are the ones I use! because 2...or 5 Heads are better than one!

  

My team has tweaked our schedule just a tad to allow for some whole group reading. We actually only had time for our reading groups as it was. So I snagged Cheryl's The Ugly Pumpkin unit and off we went! Oh MY! They LOVED the book (and I do too!) Of course they all thought I was crazy for reading a Halloween book on Monday, Nov. 3, but I promised not all was as it seemed! I won't spoil the story, but it is for THANKSgiving! She focuses on making connections in the unit, so we watched Thank You, Mr. Falker on Storyline today (because Pat writes some great books, but they are long!) and I could believe all the connections they made! And I mean, seriously...look at these gourds! Oh My Gourd! I also love her unit because it has just what I need and not lots of fluff! She has some great book companions! and why yes, I DID hand write that title...I can copy a font like a pro, I just have to look at it and I'm obsessed with this font! I type whatever I want, pull it up on my screen, sit with my sharpie and go!

I also got a couple of tattoos this week. Not great pictures, but the twigs are above my elbow and I just can't get a good one anyway!

Plans for a very short week!

It's true.
God spake saying all teachers deserve a break this Halloween...
at least the teachers in my district!
Woot!
I don't even care that my "fall break" is only two days...
because one of those days is Halloween and the other is the day before Halloween!
Can you hear the angels trumpeting?!
PTL People!!

But we still have 3 days, so here's what we're up to! You'll see lots of practice with rulers...because we really need lots of practice holding and using them! I always forget how hard it is for 7 year olds to handle rulers!

This year I stuck strictly to pumpkins-no bats, no owls, no spiders... not that I didn't want to teach those things, we just have no leeway in our day this year! Right now the only reading instruction is during groups and we have required programs for that time, so pumpkins it is! Which is perfectly ok! I have used the heck out of my Pumpkin No Prep printables!
But you can see I am throwing in a little Frankenstein tomorrow for some extra measurement practice! I snagged a pile of paint chips tonight at Lowe's to make these little guys and figured I could fit some more measuring in!

(source http://parentables.howstuffworks.com/slideshows/nesting/13-frightfully-fun-halloween-crafts-make-kids/page/10/)

I'm also using an activity from my Nightsong book companion tomorrow in science. I love this game! I partner the kids up-one's the bat, the other is the moth. The bat is blindfolded and the moth makes clicking sounds. The bat has to guess the direction the sound is coming from...it really is fun, and hard!
These peter pumpkin eater activities were a hit and hilarious! If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen the interesting writing! haha!

and this work of art as well! Wow! 

I'd love to see what you're doing, so link up with Deedee too!

Pumpkin Week (sorta) and a freebie

I'd love to say I have some pretty visual plans to show you, but I don't! However, I will list a few things and link them! that's close enough!
Honestly, getting plans even in planbook is good for me right now
I planned to do pumpkins last week...didn't happen
I even told those poor babes that we'd have our pumpkin tasting on Friday...didn't happen
I never sent the parent letter home!
Bless!
So this week it's GONNA HAPPEN!
Cross my heart!
Along with a few other pumpkin-y things, we are reading Life Cycle of a Pumpkin from the ye ol' basal. Our basal actually has some pretty great stories and I pull from it every now and again. The story lessons focus on fact and opinion, so I made this little pre-assessment for pumpkins and fact/opinion! You could always cut the bottom off if you just want the pumpkin part! Just click to download!

So....while I have some reading groups a goin', the kiddos will be reviewing lots! We have fall break...can I get an amen!...next week and we need some major reviewing! So I whipped this up...it only took 3 weeks...ugh.
sometimes I just keep thinking of things I want to add and files grow and grow. so that's ok! Pun'kin' printables! No prep! independent review! yes, please!
And it's HALF PRICE right now too! At least through Tuesday since I got it posted late!

Friday we finally took our first unit test in math and up next are polygons! And every year I forget how much they DO NOT KNOW about shapes! So while I will use the lessons from Math Expressions, I supplement a lot. 

a few other things...our Media Specialist and EC dept. are teaching some lessons with Spookley for Disability Awareness Month. So I'm excited to use my Spookley shapes lesson too! Perimeter is not in the curriculum anymore, but I will use this lesson and we measure the sides of the pumpkins. It's too cute not to use! Then we make pumpkins of any shape we want! maybe a pumpkin shape patch or a shapely pumpkin patch?? (I just updated this unit too!)

SO, to review...

pre-assess pumpkins

review with pumpkins

teach fact and opinion

Spookley

describing shapes

AND a pumpkin tasting party!

Yep, we can do this!

five for friday {lots of freebies}

woot! and it IS actually friday!
I only worked three days this week and I am whooped!

Kayla, me, Deana, Jen, and Laura

and here's why I only worked three days!

I got to present at the NCAEE Conference this past Sunday and Monday! and sleep in on Tuesday!

this picture just proves that short teachers rule!

I'm cheating just a little here with more than 5 pictures! We spent this week learning about pumpkin life cycles. I used so much stuff from Alisha's new pack! It will cover about anything you need for pumpkins and was perfecto for my sub plans!

we reviewed perimeter with this sheet from my Hallo-Reads pack {which is freshly updated!}

and made these perimeter pumpkins. Sometimes I love just giving them free reign with cutting! Their only rule was it had to have straight sides so we could measure the perimeter.

they are adorable! Spookley was definitely an inspiration!

and obviously I did not get everything in today...including my pumpkin cutting! So here comes Monday's plans! We will use Nicole's investigation sheet. I liked the format of this for my second graders! We are also playing Pumpkin life cycle war {freebie}! and filling out one.more.booklet {freebie}!

  

and speaking of math, we are in the middle of my least favorite unit...word problems! It's just getting pretty old doing them each day. So today I used our book orders and made some word problems for them to solve while browsing the catalog! {fingers crossed for some parent orders!}

All you need is the primary October catalog and this freebie! 

and we review even and odd numbers in this unit too. I love making the even and odd houses from the teacher wife! The kids had a blast and I may have made one too! All the odd numbered houses should have odd numbers of things...windows, doors, and spooky people {this was a favorite add on with Halloween right around the corner!}

And I'd be remiss if I did not share my lovely gifts from a student this week...plastic jewels!

and last but not least I got word I made the top 50 elementary teacher blogs! Ex.cit.ing! Congrats to all my fellow bloggers!

and that's a big TGIF to you!