First Week in Pictures {Linky}

2nd week DOWN.
Highlights:

• Completely IN LOVE with this group of kiddos - best group! {Confession: maybe I say this every year} ha! 
• Open house went great! Pretty good turn out for 5th grade (see Open House post)
• LOVING my theme this year - the kids are having a great time with it and the room decor makes me happy every morning {Truth: I will become very sick of it come February and will be mentally planning next year!}

Works in progress:

• Still working on our daily 5 routines. Kids are making good progress on their stamina in each section. 
• Sitting on the carpet is still a challenge for this group .. interesting. 
• Setting up and practicing guided reading next week - crossing my fingers! 

Linking up with Clutter Free Classroom's Week in Pictures to show you a little more about our 2nd week at the Art of Learning. 

 Choosing a "Just Right" Book - modeled the strategy myself with books that "fit" and don't fit me. Kids LOVED when I read to them from my college copy of MacBeth. Fun book to demonstrate a "challenging" teacher book.

Side note: Had a really good time with one quote from the book: 

"And shall we lose? Stuff and nonsense!" - Shakespeare 

"Stuff and Nonsense" has become a common phrase in our room! HA! Love it. 

Playing the timeless game of 4-square with my boys at recess 

Mini-lesson on Classroom Library expectations 

Social Studies: Learned about how Government affects us by creating paper plate diagrams

Who is "in charge" and what are the "rules/laws" followed at each level 

Home-School-Local/Community-State-Federal  

Mini-lesson on what we CAN already do as readers ... and three ways to read a book. 

  Beginning of week 2 Stamina ... proud to say we were up to 20 minutes by Friday {notice there are two times, the B is for my class the S is for my partner teachers class - get your mind out of the gutter all ya'll who chuckled when you saw BS!}

Took notes {top squares} in our writers notebooks about what needed to be in the beginning, middle and end of a narrative. On the bottom we wrote our brainstorming bullet points that lay out our "squiggle" stories {I'll post on these later} 

Please ignore my MESSY writing ... my original charts are not always the prettiest! 

Had to share my new "teacher bag" that my dear 4th grade friend got for me! Matches my Superhero theme PERFECTLY! Thank you Linda! 

Ended the week camping at Warren Dunes State Park with dear friends. Fabulous week.