Thankful Five for Friday

Happy Post Turkey Day my friends!  Are you still in your jammies sipping coffee?  Or did you head out with the masses for a little Thrill of the Hunt Black Friday Shopping?
I headed out early with my family and a strong 'cuppa Joe to people watch and let my youngest enjoy his first Black Friday experience.  We made these great t-shirts to wear... so fun!

Meanwhile, I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs to share a little Five for Friday!

1) Before I left last week we worked on finishing up out unit on Independent and Dependent variables.  I'm really proud of my students with this unit.  They seem to have really gotten the relationship between the linear equations, tables and graphs.  This can be really difficult, and I will continue to review this concept with them throughout the year, but I'm impressed by their development, and I hope it will pay off for our middle school teachers next year!


2) We also worked on informational and media text with articles about Turkey Hatchery's from one of my blog buddies, Erin at I'm Lovin Lit.  She has great activities that are perfect for teaching the argumentative informational article.  My kids get so incensed by the inhumane treatment of turkeys.  I love this discussion every year.  I follow up the article and media activities by having my class visit our special educator.  He actually has a small farm and raises turkeys.  He brings them into school for a few days every year, so we headed out to the pen where he was able to talk to us a little about small time turkey processing.  This is such a great way to really sum up the articles!

3) While we were working on our turkey activities we also created a class book:  A catalog to help turkeys survive Thanksgiving.   They loved this project, and they came up with some really fun ideas for saving the turkeys including invisibility cloaks (Harry Potter fan made that one) or a map to a camp just for turkeys? (someone is reading The Lightning Thief).

This activity is from my Thanksgiving Turkey Survival Kit pack.  Which, btw is in the process of getting a HUGE makeover.  So if you like the idea you may want to put it on your wish list over at TpT.

4) We finished up with a viewing Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and some popcorn.  I was amazed that I had students in my class that had never seen an air popper before!  They were such a big help at the end of the day.  Popcorn of course had flown everywhere, but the class pitched in and helped make the room tidy for our return.  I think there may be more popcorn parties in their future!

5) Finally, I am enjoying a wonderful week with my family.  We have had a great time dancing, eating and watching a tree lighting ceremony.  Today as I said earlier we are off with the masses getting those great Black Friday bargains!

I hope you all have a wonderful long weekend with your families.  Eat lots of turkey sandwiches, gobble up some pie, and wear some yoga pants!  

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Five for Friday: Almost Back to School!

Hello friends!  Can you believe people are already heading back to school?  I start back with a week of teacher professional development on Monday, but my own kids start classes.  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for a little week in review.

1)  First off, have you entered this AWESOME GIVEAWAY yet?  There are only a few short hours left to enter to win the Kindle Fire!  There are so many great books out there.  You can go {HERE} to read about a great Back to School book and enter!

2) With Back to School looming, I took my kids to visit my Seester and enjoy a day or two at the beach.  It rained for 4 days... BUT on the last full day we managed to sneak in a little beach time!

3)  While at the beach I finished this great book:  The Copernicus Legacy: The Forbidden Stone

 

I picked this book up at the library and loved it from the start.  It's kind of like a kids version of The Da Vinci Code.  A group of kids are off on an adventure around the world using clues from Copernicus' diary and an ancient map. I'm going to order it for my classroom and share it when I get back to school. 

4) Of course, I did some shopping with my Seester.. because I hate shopping and I don't go very often.  She helps me to update my wardrobe.  I got this fabulous shirt from her by Lilly Pulitzer... SHHH don't tell her.. I really SHOPPED in her closet.. it's a Braylen shirt and the print is called Palm Reader.

5)  Finally, I must admit, I may have a leeeetle problem with my favorite ice cream.  Have you tried The Tonight Dough from Ben and Jerry's?  It has become my all time favorite, but it is limited edition.  What's a girl to do?  Buy out the whole store of what's left of course! #dontjudge

Thanks again to Doodle Bugs for hosting this great linky!  How are you spending you last week or weeks before school begins?  Eating ice cream I hope!!

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Last Week of School: Championships, Mean Absolute Deviation and Go Noodle

Friday was my last day of school with students!

I wanted to share a little of why I've been a little busy lately:

1)  My daughter and her high school softball team won the state championship in softball last week.  STATE CHAMPIONSHIP my friends, STATE CHAMPIONSHIP!  I am so proud of her!  She is just a freshman, so we are really honored that she was asked to move up to Varsity for play-offs.  The coaching staff is amazing, and these were a great group of girls. I can't wait to see what 3 more years will bring us!  If you need a tax write off and want to help this team, you can go {HERE} to GO FUND ME and make a donation to the team.  We are trying to fund raise championship rings for the girls!  

2)  We spent time early in the week finishing up our Statistics Unit by completing a lab.  I needed to keep my Smarties engaged and occupied.  Last week we flew paper airplanes.  Instead of measuring how far they flew, I had students design them to see how long they would last in the air, and we measured the time in seconds.  This week we did a second lab to reinforce mean absolute deviation and interquartile range.  I had students long jump, and we measured the distance in feet and inches. I had students convert to all inches and then find the mean, mean absolute deviation, create a box and whisker plot, and then find the interquartile range.  My Smarties were so good!  We had a great time enjoying the sunshine.  If you teach these topics, you may want to pick up the printable worksheets to do both the airplane and long jump lab.  You can grab them for just $1.00 in my TpT store.

3)  We also finished up our Chasing Vermeer mystery unit.  There are so many great clues about mysteries in this story.  The secret codes they have to decipher really kept them on their toes, and they loved playing with the pentaminoes.  I'm really happy with the way their character analysis posters came out! Please excuse the bottom the cabinet in this picture.. there were three days of school left people. :)

The author just came out with a new book using the main characters, Calder and Petra.  Pieces and Players is a great mystery using PRIME NUMBERS!  Love it!  Add it to your summer reading list.  I know you'll enjoy the math/literature connection.

4)  We had a great time on our last day of school with a little Go Noodle!  My class loves the Ice Cream and Guacamole song.  

5) To leave you on a personal note, my son also has had amazing accomplishments this week.  He was asked to be part of the Junior Honor Society, and was then awarded honors for the highest ELA average in the 7th grade.  I'm one proud momma!

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Five for Saturday: Theme, Crawfish Boils, Books, Geometry Video, and Field Trips

  We have had a really busy week in the land of Coffee Cups and Lesson Plans!

1)  We have spent our ELA time talking about the characters in our novel, Flying Solo by Ralph Fletcher, and discussing possible themes.  I love when it gets to this time of year in sixth grade.  Yes, it is stressful because testing is coming up.  Yes, it is difficult to keep everyone on task and paying attention, but YES they are capable of digging deep into literature and THINKING about the nuances of what they read.  I live for these moments, and we had one this week when we were talking about THEME!  I had previously done an intro lesson, discussing the difference between a theme TOPIC, and an actual theme.  I also show my students a video that has a pretty straight forward message to make sure they "get it."  These lessons are from Erin at I'm Lovin Lit.  They are in her Interactive Notebook for Literature.   She also has them individually {HERE}

  After a day or so with the basics, I used the same tree visual and gave my students five themes from Flying Solo.  We talked about how each theme would relate to the story.  Then I picked one of the five, and gave them the theme sentence.  They had to work in pairs to come up with four pieces of evidence from the book to support the sentence.  This my friends is where the magic happened.  They dug deep!

For example, a theme topic for this book is Grief.  I gave them the theme statement  Grief is about loss and a return to life.  We talked for a few minutes about the OBVIOUS, LITERAL evidence that would exist.  (For those not familiar with the book, a classmate dies, and the class during the novel is still dealing with and grieving for him).  But they dug deeper!  They talked about the grief another student was carrying over having to quarantine his dog, and even deeper over the grief a third student had over the time he does not have with his father.  I was so proud.  Fear not teachers feeling the push of testing. Students are digging deep!  Be a guide..don't give up on them!

2) We went to a Crawfish Boil last weekend at a friend's house. Being a native New Yorker transplanted into the South, this was a totally new thing for me.  Everyone around here is talking about crawfish lately.  I think the season for eating them is starting.  Our friends have a HUGE pot to boil the crawfish and invited us over to join them.  My kids were in awe over this!  We loved every single minute of it.  If the season is just starting, it is going to be a good one!

3)  I finished reading the first book in The Testing Series by Joelle Charbonneau.  If you have students that like the dystopian literature, I think they will love these books.  The heroine Cia, is a great problem solver, and intuitive thinker.  I great role model to teach character traits and the Hero's Journey circle.  Speaking of the Hero's Journey, if you teach this common story analysis in your classroom.  I used it last year while teaching The Lightning Thief and there is a freebie {HERE} if you need a graphic organizer.   The blog post contains a video that I used to introduce the concept, and a link to the organizer.  I hear they will be making movies out of the series.

4)  We started Area this week in Math.  I introduced it with this neat song to help students remember the difference between Area and Perimeter

5)  Finally, at the end of the week I took my class on a field trip to learn about The Bankhead Tunnel and Geology.  My students thought the tunnel was really cool, although we had to walk down about 4 stories of steep steps to reach tunnel level.  Yikes!

We also went to the University of South Alabama to the Archeology Museum.  There we participated in a huge geology lab, identifying rocks and minerals using scratch tests, observations, and even taste.  We also learned about how archaeologists study people, and layers of earth to learn the history of our city.  My students LOVED eating in the campus dining hall.  If you have a college campus near you, check out the programs they may have to offer.  It was an amazing field trip!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs today!  

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Five for Saturday.. Math Centers.. Mardi Gras and a little Teacher Love

Happy Saturday my friends!  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for a little Five For Friday.. a little late.
#1:  Math Centers:  I am loving the ability to have math centers this year.  My schedule permits me to teach about 45 minutes of whole group math, and then I get about 30 more minutes of math centers.   We've recently started our unit on Integers and Rational Numbers, and we've been digging deep into vocabulary.  I love using these Integer Phrase Task Cards in groups.  My students each take a card, read it and find the space on the number line.  We then find the opposite integer and then the absolute value as well.

We also have been working on mental math computation.  I need my students to get quicker at completing basic computation skills.  We started out doing these 4-5 step problems using a Hundreds Chart as visual reference.  As we progressed during the year, I have moved my students off the Hundreds Chart and into dry erase boards.  Most of them have moved completely to mental math, but I still have a few that work problems on the dry erase boards.  Right now, we are using my Marching 'Round the Hundreds Board for Mardi Gras to help us with this.

#2:  Speaking of Mardi Gras.. we went to our first Mardi Gras parade in Mobile this week!  How fun!  We loved seeing all the beads, parade floats and marching bands.  We also tried our first Moon Pies! I can't wait to see a few more this weekend.

#3:  We've also been busy starting pre-season for softball.  My beautful "24" is the starting catcher for her JV team.  We have loved the new softball family we are getting to know.

#4: For Valentines Day a local church stopped by and gave all of the teachers in our little school a donut and Starbucks. It was so kind of them to think of each of us, and it was a nice little pick me up on a busy busy day.

#5:  I'm pretty close to a 1,000 Facebook Followers!  I'm planning to have a little rafflecopter givewaway, so if you aren't following me on FB, stop by and like the Coffee Cups and Lesson Plans page!

Thanks to Doodle Bugs for letting me link up for Five for Friday!

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Five for "Fraterday": Pickle Pops and ALS challenge

I guess showing up late to the party is better than not showing up at all!  Happy LONG weekend my friends!  We've been in school for two weeks, but I'm thinking of my Yankee friends this weekend who are just getting ready to go back to school!  I can't wait to see all those beautiful classrooms!
I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs, for a little rewind of my week as I try to get back into the blogging swing of things:

1)  How can you beat this beautiful sunrise that I get to experience every day on my way to work!  I have to drive over the causeway and across the bay, and I have found that I am really enjoying the quiet.

I like listening to audiobooks, so in the morning I try to listen to something that is educational or motivating.  Right now I'm listening to Ron Clark's book:  The End of Molasses Classes.  In the afternoon, I like listening something non educational..LOL so it's George Martin's A Feast for Crows (Game of Thrones).  If you have any suggestions for future audiobooks, leave me a comment, I'm almost done with both of these!

2:  I am loving my class!   This is the 16th year I will be teaching sixth grade, but the first time I have been in a self-contained classroom.  My class is coming together and I think it will be a great year.  They have never worked with interactive notebooks before, so I'm loving introducing them to this new experience and teaching them how to use the notebooks to study.

3.  We are still adjusting to all things new in the South.  My daughter found a travel softball team to continue playing in, and we recently had our first tournament.. the average temperature was 105 degrees!  YIKES!  We played four games that day!  This was new to us.  Usually if the heat index is above 90 things are cancelled.

I can't wait for her to get her"24" jersey numbers, but I am not looking forward to scrubbing the red clay dirt out of those white pants!  We also learned about these beauties... do you know what this is?

It's called a Pickle Pop, and it's frozen pickle juice.. I'm totally thinking YUCK YUCK YUCK!

I guess they are pretty popular down here at tournaments.  The concession stands sell the big dill pickles and then freeze and sell the juice.  Apparently they help to prevent stomach and leg cramps from the heat.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to get my rock star catcher to try one, but we'll see.

4.  I rounded out the school week with a school ALS challenge.  

Our school was challenged by another elementary  school in the area to raise money and face the ice bucket. Of course I chided my class that they could not raise enough $$ to put us in the top three.  And of course, like every good sixth grader, they met the challenge.  We came in second and brought in almost $75.00 which is a lot for my little community.  I faced the ice on Friday afternoon.  

5.  Last, but certainly not LEAST, my Little Man made the Mobile Youth Symphony Orchestra!  This group is based on audition and they usually take students in grades 8-12.  Being a seventh grader we weren't sure, but wanted to give him the opportunity to try because his school doesn't have an orchestra and he has to play bass within his school band.  HE MADE IT!  WOOT WOOT!  I'm so proud of him! (He's the bass player in yellow)

Did you have an awesome week?  Are you ready to go back to school?  Enjoy the last weekend of summer!

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Five for Friday 2.5 Weeks to Go!

Happy Friday My Friends!  I'm so excited that I have managed to blog every day this week!  Yay me!
I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for a Five for Friday recap!

1.  I want to share a new project my Brother In Law is working on.  He is a clip art designer, and he is creating avatars as part of his product line.  Look how cute this example is!

I love the idea of the avatar, for my blog, but I was also thinking, how cool would this be for a birthday or Christmas gift!  You can go {HERE} for the product page.

2.  Hip Hip Hooray for my Florida Gators Softball team!  They became NCAA World Series Champions on Tuesday!  It was so exciting to watch them make Gator Bait out of 'BAMA!

3.  We spent some time in class this week working through our Central Tendencies unit.  In sixth grade we focus closely on Measures of Center, Variability, and Interquartile Range.  Sorry I don't have any pictures of this oh so fun concept... can you hear the sarcasm in my voice?  That will happen when my students are tired of math with 2 1/2 weeks to go!

4.  We were run over with Band and Orchestra Concerts this week too.  I love hearing my own children play, and this year it is extra special because my son is a sixth grader, so I can hear my students play as well!

5.  My wonderful BBB Jessica over at I {HEART} Recess is celebrating a major milestone with 1,000 followers.  She is having an awesome giveaway that I am so thankful to be a part of.  Stop by and enter her giveaway!

Visit Doodle Bugs and see what everyone has been up to.  

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