My FIRST Five for Friday

hi y'all! 

Happy Friday. I'm so excited to participate in my first Linky Party and Five for Friday! Thanks, Doodlebugs Teaching!

Introducing: my new classroom library! We used to be required to use a leveled book system but after adopting Daily 5 and teaching the process of choosing good-fit books, we were able to restructure our classroom libraries. Now I have a mix of leveled books as well as genre, series, and authors. The kids are so much more excited about choosing books for their book box! I'm so glad I took the time to change things up. 

This week I used Amy Lemon's fabulous "It's About Time" bundle! The kids have loved all the activities so far and I love how organized everything is. I highly recommend grabbing this bundle which can be used all year long. :)

I'm a huge fan of Skype Classroom and try to connect my class with speakers or other classrooms as often as possible. This week we had the opportunity to Skype with world-changer Emily-Anne Rigal, founder of We Stop Hate! My kids interviewed her and she gave them awesome advice on bullying prevention and how to spread kindness. Thanks, Em! 

This week was the first week of my afterschool class called Books in the Garden! Each week we'll taste organic, locally-grown food, learn about gardening, read books related to gardening, and of course--when it's warm enough--work in the garden beds of our school. Next week the kids will be designing fairy houses and creating them on our school's playground. To say they're excited is an understatement. :)

This week we launched our new classroom job system--Classroom Crews--thanks to Teacher Trap! Several teachers in my school are implementing this new system which goes along perfectly with the sense of choice and accountability students have been practicing through our implementation of Daily 5. They filled out job applications and met with their crews to designate specific responsibilities. Today my Kindness Crew came up with the idea to make a "Caught Being Kind" poster. Students can give "shout outs" to their peers by writing acts of kindness on sticky notes. By the end of the day, there were probably 20 sticky notes on the poster. I'm always impressed by their creativity and huge hearts.

I hope you enjoyed these pics! I'm excited about Read Across America and Dr.Seuss Day next week, What are you looking forward to next week? Let me know in the comments below. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a relaxing weekend!