more after the fact.

Making a class book, "Down By the Bay..." 

I had them work with a partner to test their teamwork. They worked together to decide on a rhyme for their page and then figured out how to share the illustrations. It was fun to see how some of them divided up the drawing...

"Did you ever see a rabbit, doing a habit?"

Do you see him biting his nails? =)

Making symmetrical designs and figuring out where the line of symmetry would be...

Read to Someone... (these old Science textbooks are some of their favorite things to read during Read to Someone. I even snagged a couple 2nd grade ones before they were thrown out.)

Envelope puppets... (business size envelope, sealed, then cut in half. Each kid chose 2 characters and drew one on each side. Then they hold them up and say that character's "lines" during our big book.)

I've made all our basal stories into big books. Lots of $$ for the enlarged color copies and posterboard, but it's the only way I feel good about teaching from a basal series. I am so. grateful. for the freedom my principal has given me this year. She has trusted that I knew what I was doing and gave me the flexibility of doing things a little bit differently than everyone else. I will be forever grateful to her for that.

Practicing fact families...

Do you see the little green "vine" and ladybug on the far left side of this picture? It's our compliment bug. Whenever my kids get a compliment from someone, it moves up a leaf. (It moves 1 leaf for a compliment from me, and 2 leaves for a compliment from someone else.) When it gets up to the flower (10) they earn some kind of "celebration." Sometimes we vote and sometimes I choose.

We had a little painting party this day as a celebration. (Which may have gone right along with our basal story for that week, "The Dot.") {I LOVE this story! So sweet.} They were creating dot paintings, just like the main character in our story. It all went together. (Shh... don't tell them that! I'm usually pretty sneaky with our "celebrations.")

Measurement activity in math...

All school "Read Out" celebration. Each teacher has a "reading team" with kids from each grade level. They all brought snacks, drinks, blankets, favorite books and spent an hour reading with their reading team. So simple, yet so fun.

Encouragement for our 5th grade buddies during state assessments. We did something fun for them each day of their testing. (3 days of math and 3 days of reading.)

This was one of my favorite science activities from the entire year. I had never done this before, so it was kind of a gamble. But, it turned out great! I got the idea from here and here. (I just wet 2 paper towels, laid the seed on top of them and put them in a ZipLoc bag.) So simple, but the results were so fun! The kids loved it!

I wish I would have taken pictures again when school was out. The green bean had grown up over the top of the paper towel and the pumpkin was 3 or 4 inches tall. So cool to see the sprout, the seed and the roots. We will definitely be doing this again next year!

School has been out for 10 days now and my room is somewhat clean and organized. =)
I was one of the lucky ones who didn't get new carpet and paint. (New carpet and paint requires the ENTIRE room to be emptied. Ugh. NOT something I wanted to do this summer. Next summer I'll get to do it, though.)

Already thinking of new ideas and ways to rearrange things for next year. Lots of school things I want to accomplish this summer. But I'll also enjoy lots of time not thinking about school. =) Yay for summer!