Five For Friday: May 15th, 2015

What happens when you do a Five for Friday on Saturday? :D

Linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for some cool and random things from this week!

As we are closing out the school year, we thought it would be fun to do a Book Recommendation Snow Ball Fight in class. We did a regular snowball fight at the BOY to get to know one another, this one was even better. We wrote a short synopsis for a favorite book we've read this school year, crinkled up our papers, had a snowball fight {mind the open windows please} and then picked up the nearest snowball to check out our rec. Then we worked together in small groups to see if the recs were books we might be interested in trying.

Donalyn Miller's May 4th post about upcoming summer reading really struck a chord with me. Everything she writes does. The post reminded teachers that there should not be incentives attached to reading. It's the time of year where people start to offer treats and rewards for reading and it has been proven through research that the act of attaching any type of reward or consequence to reading can have detrimental effects on kids and building life-long reading habits. You should really take a few minutes to read the post!

I have a student this year who is really loving Stephanie Bodeen's books. He devoured The Compund and is now reading Fallout. He is probably finishing as I type this post. His reading response letters have been some of my favorite to read and respond to this school year. He is an excellent writer and Stephanie has retweeted his posts a few times this year, so he's kind of a celebrity in our classroom.

Our 5th Grade is putting our their Annual EOY Play and man, it is getting intense. This is my first year in 5th grade, but apparently we have not had nearly the same amount of practice time as years past. A lot of that is due to PARCC testing {boo!} The kids are working hard and I'm hoping that things will come together soon. We have been practicing at my old High School and it has been nostalgic for me to be back where I spent so much of my time as a student. Loved Theatre!

This year, I organized a Book Drive so all of our K-5 students could take home 1-3 books for the summer. The students get to keep the books and the rest of them are going to a Cincinnati area school in dire need of many things. Teachers cleaned out their libraries and lockers and we ended up having so many donations! It was really a cool thing to see. I can't wait to really get it organized next year so we can have some newer books for the kids to keep at home.

The organization was really simple. I asked teachers to donate old books they didn't want anymore. I sent out a school-wide email with times for each grade level. Then, teachers were responsible for bringing down their own classes and letting their kids choose books. Besides the emails and storing the books until it was time, it was pretty painless. I had students help me set-up and our librarian helped me pack the remaining books up to be donated to Millvale Elementary.

A super eventful week! I can't believe we have less than 2 weeks until summer. I'm ready for a little break to rejuvenate my mind and spirit. Next year will be even better.