Simple Spelling Fun

To help the kids practice their spelling words before Friday's test, we do something called "Quiz Me". One kid gets to be the teacher and the other is the student. (You have to use the words "teacher" and "student" because for some reason they don't think it's as fun if you just say test a "friend". ha!) The teacher has the list of spelling words and says a word for the student to spell. The student writes the word on his/her whiteboard and shows the teacher when done. If the word is correct, they move on to the next word. If it's wrong, the teacher tells the student the correct way to write the word and the student has to write it correctly 3 times on the whiteboard.  When all the words have been spelled, the kids change roles (the teacher becomes the student and vice versa). It's kind of silly what activities they love to do but if it's simple, fun, and they like it...then I'm all for it!

Open House

We had our Open House a week ago. We studied weather and the four seasons in our science units. Our classroom was divided into 4 squares--each square with a different season represented.  The kids had so much fun recreating the seasons in our classroom. Here's a few pictures of how our room looked that night for the families.

This is the view of spring as you come in our front door. 

(You'll notice some Pinterest projects of course!)

 

Summer comes next

Autumn is in the front corner of the room

Last is winter...brrrr!

 

The kids each made a paper version of themselves to sit at their desks. The parents loved seeing these. One of my students is a huge San Francisco Giants fan, so he put a Giants hat and orange shirt on his paper person. Well that night, he came dressed exactly as his paper person! It was too cute!! (Love the eyes on the girl next to his! ha)

The day after Open House all of the classes take part in a parade through the classrooms. This is the best part of Open House! It's so fun to see all the classrooms. The kids like to see their old rooms, the 2nd grade rooms that they might be in next year, and their siblings' rooms. Everyone's hard work was well worth it!! 

Testing, Observations, Open House...oh my!!

The past few weeks have been CRAY-ZEE!! We have been inundated with testing. We had 2 common assessments about 3 weeks ago and now we're going to be giving 2 more this week. I'm so done with testing my kids! Our grade level also had to be observed by our reform coaches that we've had on campus all year. This was our second lesson observation but have had many drop ins throughout the year. These lessons and drop ins have added a lot of unwanted stress for everybody...but I'm happy to say that we're ALL DONE with them!! yay!!! We've been getting ready for Open House which is this Thursday. We've been busy little bees for the past 6 weeks getting prepared for this special night. I divided the classroom into 4 squares and in each square is a different season that we've learned about. I'll have pictures for you later this week. I'm as excited as the kids for Thursday night to be here!


I hope all is going well with everyone. The end of the school year is getting near!! Only 17 more days for us! Woohoo! Can't wait for summer to begin! Have a great week everyone!