Five for Friday 3.11.16

Happy FRIDAY!  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another Five for Friday!  Here we go!

We made these fun Loopy Leprechauns last week!!!  They idea is from The First Grade Parade.  Get the little writing page HERE.  

I created a new product, "Positive Notes Home" last weekend.  I have been doing "good notes" for many years in my classroom.  They were mostly just hand-written.  I decided that I wanted to be more efficient with them, as the end of the day is CRAZY!!  I created a pack with 24 different "positive notes" to send home.  All you need to do is fill in the date, child's name, and your signature. The notes have different behaviors at the top, so if you have a friend who struggles with something in particular, you can watch for it all day and send a good note home with them!  The kids LOVE getting these.  I begin each day by selecting 1-2 students who will work towards taking the "good notes" home.  They have it on their desk to start the day and have to work hard all day to keep it and eventually take it home.  It's amazing what a little note can do for a child!  Check them out HERE.  

A former student of mine just found out this year that he has brain cancer.  Bryson is 9 years old.  So terribly sad.  His family organized a fundraiser for him this past Saturday.  Mr. Wheeler and I went to show our support.  It was awesome to see how the community came together for it!  I've been wearing my t-shirt to support him every Friday to work since we found out.

We've been working on retelling using key words from stories.  Last week we worked on long i and we read the book Fireflies! It's such a great story for read-aloud.  We read it once and then the next day we re-read it and came up with key words for retelling the beginning, middle, and end.  Next, I gave my kids a BME graphic organizer.  We've been doing these together all year and recently, I started having them work independently.  They did FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!  When we were finished, we made firefly jars, inspired by the Mother's Day craft that we did last year.

To see my best-selling graphic organizers, click the cover below!!!  They are a phenomenal resource to have on hand for guided reading, whole group reading, early finishers, centers, and MORE!  Each organizer comes with 2 options {easy and on level}.  This makes differentiating so easy!

See our St. Patrick's Day fun below!  All items shown can be found HERE!  

Happy Fri-Yay!
xo
Megan