Happy Friday... errr I mean SATurDaY!

This week just totally got away from me!  I wanted to finish and get this post out last night, but it just wasn't going to happen.
I'm linking up with Amanda at Teaching Maddenss for her Friday Flashback and also with Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday... If only my act was together enough to PUBLISH the post when needed!

   

#1.. This week was LOOOOONGG... I even had a staff development workshop on Wednesday and it still felt long.  A rep from Harcourt was supposed to come and give us some training on small group reading.  I teach in a middle school and some of my colleagues have never done small group work with students.  It is a struggle because we only have the students for 82 minutes where we need to get a block of reading and writing in.  Long story short we had a little bad weather south of where I live, and SHE CANCELLED!  I can't blame her. I wouldn 't have wanted to drive.  The PROBLEM was, she didn't call until about 45 minutes before we all were supposed to be at the workshop, so they couldn't contact us and cancel.  17 of us showed up with no presenter!  Even though they gave us the morning to talk and work with our TREASURES series, we had to go back to our classrooms in the afternoon.  As much as I love being with my smarties.. my MIND was set for staff developement not being in my room.

#2..My smarites were winter benchmarked last week, and on Friday we went to a team meeting and were given the results.  HUGE disappointment for me.  My smarties improved in many areas.. but not in MATH, and that was upsetting.  They take a test on Concepts and Applications and actually, they did well in that category, but went DOWN in Computation... COMPUTATION!!! I can't belive it.  Now I will have to start back into giving them computation progress monitoring every 2 weeks.  BUMMER!

#3.. In ELA I am splitting my class period between reading novels and reading a short story.  I have a reading teacher that pushes into my classroom, so on those days we focus on novels and literature circles.  Currently, we are reading novels that are set in the Middle Ages because my smarties just finished that unit with the social studies teacher.  This week we focused on SETTING, and specifically how the author uses MOOD and TONE to help create the setting.

Have you seen these two videos?  THEY ARE PERFECT for this!!  The first is the original trailer.. happy go lucky.. Mary Poppins.  The second is called SCARY MARY.  It uses clips from the movie but projects a completely different MOOD and TONE about the story.  It really hit home with my smarties.

#4.. My Little Man scored 3 goals in his soccer game this week!  HAT TRICK!  Woot Woot!

#5..My smarties worked really hard on their goal writing which I based off of a book we read called Salt in His Shoes.. 

I blogged about it {HERE} if you are interested.  I love this book.  Next week we push into our expository writing piece.  First biography style, and then more informative.  Lots of planning to do this weekend!

Thanks for hanging in there with me!  Don't forget to join Amanda or Doodle Bugs Teaching and let everyone know how your week went.