Hey everyone, Lindsey here. I am dragging myself up from laying on my couch nursing this nasty cold to bring you my Five for Friday! I love linking up with Kacey at Doodlebugs teaching for this linky party that I can’t skip it, even when I am living in a foggy, head-cold world:)
So, this week we have been working on word choice. I got this really cute activity a few years ago from one of my former teammates who happens to be so awesome. The kiddos have to decorate a mitten and then use describing words to describe their mittens. Like this…
Before the kiddos glue them on the paper, I put all their mittens in a pocket chart. Then I read their descriptions and the class has to try and figure out what mitten I am describing. Well, I’ve got a little kiddo that has been like a ping pong ball bouncing back between Mexico and here throughout his school life. Here’s his mitten…
All he could write were the colors and do you know what? I read his description and the rest of the kiddos picked his mitten right out! Ha! So much for my huge speech about using a bunch of descriptive words!
I have a weird affinity for pens, especially colored pens. But, these are BY FAR the best pens! They are Bic Cristal pens and talk about smooth writing! Holy smokes! These are my very favorite! I know that this is a random one…but see… I was doing progress monitoring this week and I was using these pens and as I was doing that I was just thinking…man, these are great pens.
You have to be inside my head to really understand it.
See this? This is the wheel on my car. See that red arrow? It’s pointing to a screw. Know what that screw is supposed to be holding on? The cap that covers my lug nuts. Know where that cap is? Me neither. Apparently, it came off somewhere. Awesome. I have no idea where or even when but somewhere, someone has the cover to my lug nuts:(
I love Scholastic News. In years past, our school would buy subscriptions for us. But, you know how it goes, budget, budget, budget. So now we add it to our supply lists and the kiddos get to keep them. We used to have to keep them when the school paid for them so we could use them for more than one year. I LOVE the fact that the kiddos get to take them home. AND I love them even more when they align with the passages that we have written. Now, we can read about the topic whole class using our Scholastic News and then continue to learn about the topic in reading groups. Perfect!
GO HAWKS!
That’s all I have to say about that:)
I hope you all have a fantastic, THREE DAY weekend! Woohoo!
Author
Another literacy blog! How awesome! I'm Carla from Comprehension Connection. My husband is traveling this weekend for work, so I'm actually taking time to go through and read blog posts that I often don't get the time to do. I've found three new lit bloggers with Five for Friday…crazy!! I love your Scholastic News passages. I've gotten into using Close Reading this year, and I've just tried my hand at making two of my own. They seem to be pretty well received. (one is a penguin freebie if you can use it). I have 4/5 currently (1/2 time), so you know we work quite a bit with comprehension. Well, glad I found you. Hope you'll drop by sometime.
Carla
Comprehension Connection
Author
I feel like this is the start of the pen war. Nooo to the Bic Cristal pens! Yes to Paper Mate Flair Pens!
Cheers,
Mrs. Harris
Mrs. Harris Teaches
Author
Ha! I do love the colors of the flairs. But the smoothness of the Cristals is just awesome! It's a toss up for sure!
Author
I love Scholastic News! And I absolutely love how you align them to your classroom activities, genius! I wish our school could afford them for first grade, the upper grades get them…jealous!!! Hope you start feeling better and get over that nasty cold!
Author
We had to add the cost to our supply list, which is a bummer. But the kiddos get to take them home and since they practice them in class, I know that they will be able to access them at home. Plus they also get to take home the passages so their parents can see how they are connected. It's definitely a bummer you can't get them! They are my fav!
Author
I love the way you use Scholastic News. When I taught third grade we subscribed to Time for Kids. It was an awesome way to work on non-fiction text features and reading skills at the same time- not to mention current events! Love that colorful mitten. too!
Carol
Teachers Are Terrific!
Author
Thanks! Time for kids is great too! They are such a great thing for the kiddos and they like the idea that they are reading the "news."