It’s 5 for Friday Time!
That needs a theme song, we think.
We’re finding it one of our favorite days of the week, actually.
Yep, totally love Friday.
Here’s a glimpse at our 5.
People.it.is.freaking.March…That is all.
No, that’s not really all. That would be a total waste of number one.
Okay, it is March!!!
Which means we’re getting our March Sharing Pages prepped and ready.
The kids feel like old pros by now, and are nearly running our Sharing Page time themselves. They are even complimenting each other on their writing and illustrations without prompting.
Love that!
We have kicked things up a notch, and are now holding them more accountable for their reading and presentation skills than ever before. Most of them are reading now, so they should be able to practice at home and be prepared to read in class.
For those who are unable to read their sharing page, we send this note home for extra practice.
Speaking of Friday and how we totally love it…
Do you have your class do anything special on Friday just because it’s Friday?
We do a Friday cheer!
Pretty sure we blogged about it here, but if you’re tired like us here’s the lazy man’s version:
{Arms in a cabbage patch style dance ~
push both arms out in front of you and make a large circle motion like your stirring a pot}
It’s Friday. It’s Friday.
{Thumbs Up twice}
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
{Show your best muscles}
We’re strong.
{Strike your smartest pose}
We’re smart.
{Put both hands up around your face and smile}
We’re cool.
They eat it up.
Beg for it.
And, we’re happy to oblige because we LOVE Friday!
Today was our “Wonderful Weather Performance”. That’s what the kids call it.
We call it “Who Needs to Teach Anyways?”
We love the end result, but getting there is a little tough sometimes.
It consumes an entire month of our time.
Singing. Dancing. Learning to speak on a microphone.
Standing still. Not sitting down in the middle of the show.
Not asking to leave the stage to go to the bathroom 5 times.
Figuring out what to do when you sneeze and have no tissue and are on a stage with an audience and a mess. It’s a true work of art, we tell you.
And, clearly we may be breeding some future American Idols folks so the sacrifice is worth it. HA!
Today’s dress rehearsal gave us gray hairs had us slightly concerned. Suddenly lyrics were lost.
Lines were forgotten. It was a mess. With an hour to go before showtime, we mustered our best pep talk and let them go to recess.
When all else fails, just go play…All of us.
They played kickball and we kicked up our feet…Yeah, right…Do teachers ever kick up their feet?
We’ve come to learn, these things miraculously have a way of working themselves out each and every year. For when they returned from their recess rant, they were a little herd of deer caught in headlights at the sight of a full audience that wasn’t there just moments before.
Score!
What followed was all their hard work paying off.
Somehow, someway they pulled it all together and delivered an Oscar worthy performance…
Proud Mama Deer we are…
But, the absolute best part of the entire thing was that not a single kid picked their nose they worked together beautifully and were so proud of themselves!
YAY!
Here fishy fishy…
This is our class fish tank. We’ve been setting them up for about 5 years now.
It is a labor of love class effort and a great opportunity for us to build some class community by working together.
We spend several days reading non-fiction books and doing some online “research” to gather how to set up an aquarium. After we feel like aquatic experts, we put our class tank together.
The actual set up, allowing each child to dump some gravel and pour water, takes about an hour from start to finish.
The hardest part is the wait…
After all that hard, exciting work, we have to explain that our aquarium ecosystem needs time to develop. So, we wait about 2 weeks before adding fish.
It’s a lesson in science and patience and we like the drama suspense. It’s a healthy anticipation for them and a total power trip teachable moment for us. We don’t always get what we want, when we want it. And, by “we”, we mean us…We don’t. Ever.
During the ecosystem evolution (or whatever it’s called but that sounds super scientific so we’ll go with it), we do research on the types of fish that we want in our tank.
There are thousands of kinds to choose from, and half the fun is planning which ones we might want to add.
Disclaimers are issued:
No sharks. No whales. No dolphins. No killer whales. No lobsters. No killer killer whales. No seahorses.
And, seriously kids you wouldn’t want anything of the sort when you could have this…
Come on now!
Did this fish know how much kids would love him?
Or her…who really knows? But, Minnie has a bow, so we just assumed.
Move over Rainbow Fish. There’s a new fin in town!
We use our class fish tank for lots of activities.
They read to our fish.
Write to our fish.
Talk to our fish.
Even calm down by our fish.
Seriously…
We have used our tank with behavior concerns and namely kids who have difficulties keeping focused or are diagnosed with ADD or ADHD.
It has a very calming effect and provides a place in the classroom where they can regroup.
We call it “Fish Tank Fun”.
So, since it has “fun” in the name it has to be…fun! And what is “fun” to them actually is tons of learning to us.
Speaking of calming down and fun…
We love Friday!
And, an occasional glass of good wine. And an occasional always dessert.
So, why not just combine them together?
Happy Friday!
