Five for Friday-ish

It has been a very long time since I have blogged and even longer since I linked up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. 

I am trying to get back into blogging regularly and think this is the perfect way to start. 

A couple of weeks ago I was inspired by one of my favorite IGers, Rachel at Third Grade Cupcakes. She posted the most adorable countdown to PARCC, so I borrowed and tweaked this idea to use as a countdown to MCAS. 

Monday was 2 days to the test and the kiddos were able to choose their own seats. 

Continuing with our MCAS countdown, one day before testing, kiddos were able to write with pen for the day! 

Wednesday brought the first day of testing. And with the first day of testing came motivational letters from my students parents. Extra Special Teaching has a Parent Testing Letter freebie on TPT that I sent home with all of my students and the looks on their faces when they received their parents' letter were priceless! Click on the link below to check out the great resource! 

I could not believe how hard my kiddos worked this year on THE TEST! In 8 years, I have never had a group of kiddos that worked as long and as hard as these kiddos! These students earned themselves a little treat after testing on Thursday! 

This treat contained a fancy mechanical pencil, scented Crayola marker (we are obsessed with all things smelly!) and a brag tag for Excellent Effort on ELA MCAS. I was able to use the adorable Valentine treat bags that I never used on Valentine's, too! :o)

Finally, it is that time of year in 4th grade when spring fever sets in. I have a handful of difficult boys in my class this year, and lately they are in serious need of taking more control over their behavior. In order to review how to have good character, we have been reviewing character traits with read alouds and finding evidence of these traits in our Wonder read aloud. 

 Thanks for reading! XoXo

Five for *1st Day of Summer Vacation* Friday

HAAAAAAAAAPY SUMMER FRIENDS!

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Five for Friday to share some tidbits about my last week of school. Let's count down this time so that I can start with today. 

I know most of you have been on vacation for quite awhile now, but today was my first official day of vacation. You will never guess how I spent it...AT SCHOOL! Well, sort of at school. This summer is will assisting the director of a summer reading clinic at my college. I will be helping to supervise 5 reading specialist student teachers. So I guess my real, official summer actually begins on August 2nd. Until then, this is a pretty good way to spend the next month! 

Yesterday was our last day of school - half day for kiddos AND teachers! In my district, our elementary school goes to 4th grade and then the kiddos go to middle school for 5th grade. So this was the first time that I said goodbye to my kiddos, knowing that they wouldn't be passing me in the hallway next year. It was quite an emotional morning. Here are a few sweet words and great owl painting from one of my kiddos! 

Wednesday was our kiddos' 4th Grade Graduation. Another first for me, and even more emotional than the last day of school. The kiddos sang "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" and danced to "In My Life." It was such an overwhelming morning that I forgot to bring my phone/camera picture with me, therefore no pictures. :o(

Knowing that graduation would be hectic (parents can sign their kiddos at the end to take them out for the rest of the day) and that not all of my kiddos were coming to school on the last day, I gave them their end of the year treats on Tuesday. We also watched the DVD that I made them together and had some great laughs! 

Finally, I will be participating in a book study with other teachers in my district this summer. We received our books on Monday. We will be reading Writing About Reading by Janet Angelillo. We will be meeting several times throughout the summer to chat about the book and prepare a couple of lessons that we can use next year. 

I am not off to begin my reading! 

Thanks for reading! 

Five for Friday - May 9th

O-M-G! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs' Five for Friday on a FRIDAY!

This has been a pretty exciting week and I am looking forward to sharing...before I head out to our town-wide 4th, 5th, and 6th grade spelling bee. 

First I want to share my teacher appreciation goodies. Between our wonderful PTO and my sweet kiddos, they took very good care of me this week. Here are some pictures of the ways we were honored this week:

This signed greeted us each and every morning on the outside. On Monday, there was a fabulous sidewalk-chalk red carpet leading up to the door with Hollywood stars for each and every one of us - of course I forgot to take a picture of that. 

This is what we saw as soon as we entered the building. Such a special quote. :o)

These were the sweetest little notes of appreciation from our kiddos. This poster was hanging in our classrooms on Tuesday morning. They all wrote the sweetest things! 

And finally, these are some of the sweet treats I received from my kiddos. They all know me so well - so much owl loot! The bottom left photo is a picture that one my little darlings made using oil pastels on leather in her art class - it will be framed, for sure! 

I started my read aloud of Tuck Everlasting to teach theme (based on the CCSS model unit plan) on Monday. At first, the kiddos were complaining because they found the book confusing. We are nearly halfway through the book now and they are LOVING it! I never imagined that they would enjoy the book as much as they are, or that our conversations/their understanding would be as thoughtful and extensive as it is. I am so impressed! I will continue to share these lessons in a separate post though. 

We finished our Mother's Day books. The kiddos got a kick out of the pictures we took with mustaches. It seems like Mother's Day snuck up on me this year...this project was a bit more rushed than usual, but we also plan on taking time to honor all of the moms at our upcoming poetry night with poems and tissue paper flowers. 

We also finished our Student Treasures packets this week! Here they are, all bundled up and ready to go. One of my amazing teams will be mailing them all out this weekend. I cannot wait for the published books to come in! :o)

Finally, last night was the Excellence in Teaching banquet for all of the Teachers of the Year in our area. It was such a wonderful event and I am so glad that my amazing team was able to attend, along with my family. The neatest part was sharing this night with so many of my former teachers. Now that I am teaching in my hometown, it is like one great, big reunion! It was so special to share this night with the people who helped me to get to where I am today and to receive this award. I am so grateful to my family, former teachers, and especially my incredible 4th grade team! 

Our 4th grade team - I love these girls! :o)

As always, thanks for reading! 

Five for Friday - Back at it!!

I know I missed the first Five for Friday of this school year last week, but I am excited to linking up with Doodle Bugs Five for Friday. 

This has been quite the week! 

I had the pleasure of helping my bestie set up some bulletin boards in her classroom on Monday. She is a kindergarten teacher in my old district. While I was there, I found out that I could get into my own classroom this week! Yay! :o)

The purple and green boards are two of the bulletin boards we completed. I love her bright colors!

Getting into my classroom on Tuesday was so exciting...until I started opening closet doors and seeing just how many goodies I had to go through and organize. The retiring teaching left behind some really great resources, but I am a bit OCD and I had to organize everything in my own way. Here are some before and afters. 

I love the great storage space that I have in this classroom. 

I was going to school on Wednesday to drop off my great new rugs. Of course that turned into a couple of hours of working on my classroom. Everything is still a work in progress, but here's the next round of photos. 

Top Left: These are baskets to hold work for each day of the week. The clipboard on easel will hold my guided reading plans. 

Top Right: Supply baskets in my great closet, labeled, of course!

Bottom Left: Classroom Jobs (more on this to come)

Center: Interactive whiteboard, I can statements, and 2 of the 3 rugs. I have always wanted a good whole-group meeting area and I finally have one! :o)

Bottom Right: I can statements

Yesterday, my bestie came to school with me help me out with my bulletin boards. I have one very large green chalkboard...I had the genius idea to cover this board with black contact paper. There is no way I could have done this on my own, so I am so grateful to my dear friend for all of her help! 

I am so pleased with how everything is turning out! 

The weather here is terrible today. Gloomy, rainy, windy, flash floods - a perfect crafting day. I have enjoyed completing several project today, but I'll share those on Monday. I would like to remind you to enter my 100 Bloglovin' Follower/200 Instagram Follower Giveaway! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I am also participating in a giveaway. My Instafriend, Lacey, has launched a brand new, fantabulous blog: The Fabulous Life of an Elementary Teacher.

Lacey is giving away 5 bundles of assorted TPT goodies from some amazing sellers. Head over right now, by clicking on either of the above pictures, and enter the great giveaway! 

Thanks for reading!