A Peek at My Week {1-26-14}

Brrrrr....Baby, it's cold outside.  The polar vortex has returned to Wisconsin....again. The forecasted high temp for both Monday and Tuesday is -3 degrees.  At this point, I'm reluctant to share what I've got going on this week at school because there's a good chance that we will have a snow day or two heading our way.

But the snow must go on.  Oops, I mean "show!"

Monday is my birthday!  (A good reason to have the day off of school, right?)  It's not a major birthday, but every year on earth is a reason to celebrate!  I received a very cool bracelet in the mail today from my niece, Gracie, who moved to Dallas this past summer.

It's called "Rose Garden" and she wrote a note with the bracelet to not let my daughter Kara steal this one because she worked "really hard" on it.  I can tell!

To celebrate my big day, why not throw a sale in my TpT Store???  Now through Monday, my entire store is 20% off.   This would be a great time to pick up my Word Parts We Know program to help your students master some vocabulary or my Reading Challenge Genre Tags to motivate them to keep reading!

This week at school, I plan to begin working on text structure with my students.  I'm going to tie writing in with this and as we study one kind of text structure, we will write a short paragraph to demonstrate that structure.

I also wanted to give you an update on Writing Circles that I wrote about last weekend.  I have to say, the students are REALLY enjoying them!  They love that they are not tied to any one project for longer than two days, they still get a choice in what they write, and they can give and receive feedback from their friends.  I love that it has gotten even my most reluctant writers writing!  We are going to keep doing Writing Circles through this week.  Then everyone will choose one of their drafts from a Writing Circle, revise it, and publish it for a grade.  Can't wait!!

And perhaps the best part of this week is that we will be sending January packing and welcoming in the short month of February!  Winter is a very tough time for me.  I don't do well with the short days and being home bound because of extreme cold, especially with these polar vortexes coming around.  February means that March will be here soon....then spring.  Ahhhh...I can do this!  :)

Wishing you a blessed and warm week!  :)