five for friday

I am excited to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for this Five for Friday linky party!  As this is my first Five for Friday, I didn't take a whole lot of classroom pics.  Note to self for next time.

                             



This week was a crazy one.  I was one sick puppy all week and the kids were jumping out of their skin with excitement for April vacation to begin.  But thankfully, we all made it through in one piece.



1. We continued our reading groups this week.  This is the second full week and so the kids are really getting   into them.  Below are the books we are reading:

                                           


                                   

In addition to reading their assignment, they all have to fill out a "Think Book" which helps them brainstorm topics to discuss when we meet.  One requirement is for them to record any new words they come across.  We discuss the strategies they used to discover the meaning or if they still don't know, we figure it out together as a group.  In particular, this set of books contain many words that are specific to the culture, location, or time period where the book takes place.  The kids are having fun pointing out these new words to their classmates.



2. We finished up our dividing fractions unit this week.  Since this was the last operation we studied on fractions, the kids had the chance to put them all together.  They worked in partners to solve word problems that included all operations on fractions.  To help them remember the steps, they used a top down web they created.

                                           





3. In Social Studies, we finished learning about how the 13 colonies were formed (I'll blog more about this later).  Instead of making them memorize the colonies, the kids learned where each one is located by piecing together their own maps.

4. A small group of teachers and I are training for the Tough Mudder in June.  We met a couple times after school this week to run together in addition to training individually.  It's so nice to have workout buddies!!

                                              

5. The third book in The Infernal Devices series came out last month, and I finally had the chance to begin it this week.  It's a young adult fantasy series and the second from this author.  I always like reading books that I know my students will be interested in because it makes my book talks much less contrived.  So I'll be excited when I finish this one and can add it to our classroom library. 

                                       

I hope everyone in the New England area has a wonderful April vacation!!