Five for Friday!

I am joining in for a Five for Friday this week!

1.  Activity days.  Just trying to keep my first graders busy and making it a little meaningful.  My students are done, finished, finito.  I tried teaching a new lesson.  I think I saw their brains explode in their heads!  At that point I decided not to drag them and myself through mud.  I planned a theme for each day.  It would be fun and it had them learning just a little bit at a time.  Flip flop day went rather well.  Then lemonade day came.  My first block loved it.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lets-Have-a-Lemonade-Tasting-Common-Core-Aligned-249534

They got to create their own lemonade.  We had sherbet lemonade and grape lemonade.  One of my boys decided to be funny and created meat lemonade.

Then we did our lemonade tasting.  The first block loved yellow while the last block loved pink.  (The story about the 3rd block is coming...)

Check out Aimee's lemonade day here.

2.  The rest of the story....

At the end of the year two of my groups are the most challenging, the bottom group and the top group.  Yes we do ability group (according to reading, which means little for math).  These two groups just could not settle down into routine on Thursday.  I could not get the activities leading up to the tasting done.  Then one of my students said very loudly, "Activites suck!".  My jaw dropped.  Not that I haven't heard it before, but this was my top group AND one of my top students.  I was really hurt.  I had went out, bought the lemonade, made it, made copies of the sheets we needed.  So they worked.  I guess they were happy.

3.  Noggle



Today I tried to adapt Noggle to addition with my two higher groups.  Some of my students absolutely loved it!  Others did not like it.  I was forcing them to use those addition facts they had worked so hard on and I was seeing how far they could go.  I have told all my students for all the years I have taught.  The answer should be your last worry.  The strategy is your second worry.  The first thing I want you to do is TRY!!!!!!  This was definitely their challenge today!



4. A Place for Zero.  I read this book to my lower two groups instead of Noggle.  They really liked it.  It grabbed their attention and kept it for about 10 minutes.  That is a small miracle for this time of year.  They may have learned a little math too.

 
The book is all about zero.  He feels like he is nothing.  Then he learns that he actually has three very important jobs.  It covers adding zero, multiplying zero, and place value!



5.  Concerts and Testing!

Both of my boys had concerts this week.  My oldest plays the drums and bells in band on Wednesday.  My middle son sang in an elementary concert on Thursday night.  The we add in testing for all students 3-8 on both Tuesday and Wednesday.  Yes it has been an exhausting week!

5 days and awards day left!

Crystal