Five for....Sunday

   I'm a bit late for Five for Friday but I'm still linking up anyway.  I learned a lot about my students last week and have a lot of differentiation I'm going to have to start planning.  On to my top 5 events of the week.

{One)

This week I started to teach plot and sequence of events.   I had my students write stories about superheroes, which they loved. My advanced class was able to use the iPads to turn their stories into cartoon films.   Toontastic is a free app which sets up a story by using the plot diagram for each scene.   Here is one of the films a pair of students created.

 

{two}

In social studies we finished the 5 Themes of Geography and I gave an assessment.  I was very happy that both classes scored very well.  We are now starting archeology and then will go into early humans. To get my students hooked into the unit I started with an "Iceman Murder Mystery" in which I turned my classroom into a lab where students had to try to solve the mystery of how & why Iceman was killed.  They turned their social studies notebooks into lab manuals and recorded information from the artifacts I gave them.  

{three}

During our homeroom time our school is doing a bully free program.  One of the activities we were supposed to do involved creating a note to the teacher box where students can leave reports of bullying or just positive notes to the teacher.  Some of my students left the sweetest notes which really brightened my day.

I think building a classroom community is so important so I wrote my team a brief letter and posted it on class Instagram.

More than anything I want my students to feel safe and comfortable in my classroom.  I know that they can't learn when they are worried about other things, so I am glad we are doing this bully-free program.

{four}

Yesterday, my mom and I had a mother-daughter date to a heritage festival and to a local butterfly farm.  The festival had gospel music and lots of vendors set up with crafts and other goods.  We didn't end up finding too much but I always love going to festivals and getting craft ideas.  At the butterfly farm we learned a lot about Monarch butterflies and then were about to go inside a butterfly house and feed them.  It was a really neat experience and would be a great school field trip for anyone teaching life cycles.

{five}

A couple of weeks ago we had a stray kitten come up that we started to feed.  She has stayed around and is just so sweet and playful, that I'm just going to have to keep her.  I decided to name her Lucy after my favorite T.V. show, I Love Lucy.  

It's never too late to link up and share your week, or to look at what other teachers are up. Click the button below to join in on the fun!