March 2016

Happy Good Friday!

Happy Friday! Welcome to another weekly installment of this link-up sponsored by Doodle Bugs!

http://doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com/2016/03/five-for-friday-linky-party-march-25th.html

This week we dove right into the Boston Massacre; the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere's Ride!

This is a picture I took of the site of the Boston Massacre!

We had a great assembly with Dinoman (click here to learn more). He had our whole school engaged and entertained. Check out these amazing dinosaurs:

He made a timeline using a clothesline. The clothesline showed the evolution of single-cell being to dinosaurs. I'm thinking of adapting this idea for Social Studies.

The kids continue to astound me with their computer and creativity skills in Computer Lab. They're working on a variety of presentations:

I'm pretty impressed and proud of how quickly they learned how to make Powerpoints!

There's been a tremendous amount of fraction action. We've been making equivalent fractions and learning how to show fractions on a number line.

Spring arrived in the form of a delayed opening on Monday due to snow! Hopefully, winter is really over now!

Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate!

Fabulous Five For Friday!

Hello there! Sunday appears to be the day I make my post for the weekly link-up with Doodle Bugs Teaching:

http://doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com/2016/03/five-for-friday-linky-party-march-18th.html

We're preparing for National Poetry Month which is in April. I just love the way poet Doug Florian uses words so creatively.

We also read a poem, Rain, by Robert Louis Stevenson:

I found the best poem by Eileen Spinelli for St. Patrick's Day (I changed Canadian to American):

We also wrote paragraphs about why we're lucky.

We continue to work on rounding to the nearest 100, and we dove right into fractions:

We previewed our next chapter in Social Studies - Massachusetts and the Road to the Revolution:

I love this chapter because so many of the places are right in our area - like Paul Revere's house!

Spring!

Happiness is Five For Friday!

Happy Sunday! I'm happy to finally link-up with Doodle Bugs for:

http://doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com/2016/03/five-for-friday-linky-party-march-11th.html

This is our classroom door decorated for Read Across America week. We did the Fox in Socks theme along with writing an informational paragraph about red foxes:

If you're interested in the fox template, you can check it out here.

I love teaching about the Puritans and colonial life. I grew up in Winthrop so I have a fondness for John Winthrop - first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Thanks to his detailed diaries, we know so much about this time period:

The kids completed a citywide writing prompt about the Pilgrims. They wrote an informational piece about the Pilgrims and their way of life. They've been sharing their writing on the rug:

I used this poem by Doug Florian to review poetry and figurative language:

We've also been working on opinion writing. The prompt is: do you like the first day or the last day of school better? We'll continue to work on this next week as well!

Have a wonderful week!

Currently it's March!

Happy Friday! Today I'm linking up with Farley for:

My father passed away on Monday, February 29th. He had been in a Hospice House for 2 weeks and was really in distress that last day. We had his wake yesterday (Thursday) and his funeral today (Friday). He planned his whole funeral and church service.

Now it's time to get back to work - I've been on a Family Medical Leave since mid-January to care for my father both at my home and then at the Hospice House. I now have a bunch of his "stuff" to sort through plus I need to get organized to go back to work. Right now I'm just trying to relax and take it all in.

Our school is a polling place, and we had last Tuesday off from school due to security concerns.

Have a wonderful weekend!

March Pinterest Picks!

I LOVE this pin about making a timeline about the American Revolution. I've started teaching about the Puritans, and we'll be going straight into the Road to the Revolution chapter: