Fantastic Five For Friday!

It's Five for Friday so it's time to link up with Kacey!

 
Finally, we had

days of school in a row!  Also, the arctic cold has let up to the point that the kids can go out for recess!  We actually had a busy and successful week in school.  More importantly, today is Chinese New Year! 

This is the year of the Horse.  Since it's the weekend, the above Horse can sit down.   Actually, I'm a Rat according to the Chinese Zodiac, but if I were a Horse, I would be sitting down just like the above horse.

 We have read A LOT of books about Chinese New Year.  I have to say that I especially loved The Runaway Wok byYing Chang Compestine:

In this story, a young boy finds a magical wok that is the "Robin Hood" of woks.  This wok takes food, gifts and money from the rich and greedy Li family to give to the poor families who work at Mr. Li's factory.  It's truly an adorable story that can be enjoyed at any time because it teaches an important lesson and tells about Chinese New Year.

We also enjoyed reading Sam and the Lucky Money and using the flipchart I made to go along with this story and Chinese New Year.  Here's the link for the flipchart if you want to check it out:

  http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en/Resources/Item/242567/celebrate-and-learn-about-the-chinese-new-year#.UurgA7TanIU

Also, here are some examples from the Chinese New Year/Sam and the Lucky Money flipchart.  This first one shows a vocabulary review page:

This slide is a comprehension review question:

This page is actually for other teachers who might want/need additional books that tell about Chinese New Year:

Every day I put a morning message on my Promethean Board.  Since I'm "late to the program" (according to my younger son), I've recently discovered the Hump Day commercial.  On Wednesday, I took a picture of my colleague, Bonnie, in front of my morning message:

 

Of course, all the kids are quite familiar with Hump Day.  Even our principal LOVES this commercial.  He shared a picture of himself holding his son at the zoo.  In the background, there was a CAMEL!

The kids have been making these Big Words books:

 

This project went so well with MLK Day and Chinese New Year.  Dr. King improved and changed the world while Chinese New Year represents a new beginning for everyone to make positive changes in their own lives.  The class made a list of important words like respect, appreciation, neatness,...  Then each student chose three words, looked up the definition of each word in the dictionary and wrote why that word was important to them.

This activity was part of a bigger package from TPT that you can check out here:

 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-Mini-Unit-Craftivity-278138

We are learning about weather.  This is a perfect time to study weather because the weather has been so changeable and unpredictable.  Here is an example of an anchor chart using two column notes:

I make these charts while we are reading the science book together.  There is a tremendous amount of vocabulary to learn in Science and Social Studies.  These charts keep the new vocabulary visible and accessible so the kids can become familiar with these words.

The new washing machine and dryer have arrived!

 

The plumber even hooked up the gas dryer.  Now I just have to figure out how to operate these new machines.

Happy Weekend and Happy Chinese New Year!