A Peek at My Week {6-08-14}

It's my last week!!!  Wahoo!!!  Sorry this post is late.  (Thanks to Ana at Mrs. Bentin's Blackboard for the text message and reminder that I hadn't posted this week's linky yet.  I guess that even though there's one week left, my brain has already left the building.  :)  So please link up your plans for the week.  I'm guessing most of you have "home" plans because you are already on break and that is good too!

Being the last week of school, there are a lot of end-of-the-year loose ends to tie up.  We will have our awards assembly, AR goal ice cream party, a talent show and field day.  Thankfully, there is something going on almost every day to help keep us busy.

In the classroom, we will be finishing up our read aloud of this wonderful book.

Love this book and the beautiful story of August.  I also love how the story end on the last day of school, about the same exact day we will read this part and end our story this year.

We've done quite a few readers theater scripts this year to work on fluency.  This week, I'm going to have the students work in groups and write their own script.  It should be interesting to see what they come up with.

Today, I found this fun pin on Pinterest.  I love this project (anything that incorporates writing and art is awesome!) and will find somewhere to work this into our schedule.  Students write about their year then decorate their hand print and the border.  I think it would make a great memory of our year.

I'm working on making Goodbye Bags for the kids.  I went to Walmart and the dollar store this morning and loaded up on lots of fun things.  When I get it all together, I will post about it.

I was thinking of continuing the A Peek at My Week linky party throughout the summer, linking up to share our fun summertime plans, but I was wondering what you think.  Do you want to see A Peek at My Week continue?  Please leave me your thoughts in a comment below.  (Also, my Thursday linky party, Positive Thinking Thursday, will continue throughout the summer.  Thanks to all of you who encouraged me to do so!)

An InLinkz Link-up

Taking Time for Reflection

This past week, I wrapped up writing class.  This year, I have been teaching writing to two classes while one of my team members taught math to my class. It was a great arrangement and it allowed me to really dive into writing instruction, something I love!

I am a big believer in reflecting.  It is important to take time to think about where we've been and where we are now.  This is something that is also important for our students.  In the busyness of the day and year, we sometimes forget to have our students stop and reflect on their growth.

On Thursday, I handed back each student's Treasure Chest.  These are the writing portfolios we used to keep all of our writing projects safe.  At the beginning of the year, I gave each student a manila folder and asked them to decorate it with the things that were important to them.

Throughout the year, we would add writing pieces to the Treasure Chest.  On Thursday, the students had a chance to go back and see all of their writing from the beginning of the year up until now.  I gave them about 30 minutes to look through their Treasure Chest.  It was so exciting to watch them!  You could almost feel the excitement in the room as they went back and reread their mystery book they wrote, their poetry or their biography reports, among many other things.

The best part is listening to the students talk about how much they grew as writers this year.  Looking at pieces from the beginning of the year, I heard comments like "Well, that's not a good lead", "My story doesn't go anywhere", or "Where are my paragraphs?"  While I reminded them that they did the best they could at the time, the real celebration is in that they now recognize and use qualities of good writing.  They can see their growth right before their eyes.

Simply amazing!

Student Wordles

Just a quick post today to share a very fun activity we did today in class involving Wordle and our end-of-year reflections. 

I always have my students write a year-end ABC Memory Book about things they learned each year.  This year, I found a fantastic ABC book from Fifth in the Middle that was so cute, I just had to use it!  If you are looking to complete a project like this, check it out!

As a part of this activity, I had my students complete a Wordle.  We went into the computer lab, each of us logged onto Wordle, then typed our names three times into a new project so our name would appear the largest word on the page.  We then rotated around the lab and typed one word or phrase into each student's project.

When thinking of words to include, I asked students to consider:

• What do you think each student is good at?
• What word could describe each student?
• Is there something each student is known for?

I was truly impressed with some of the thoughtful words my students came up with!

By the time we were finished, we had our name (typed three times) and a list of 18 adjectives that could be used to describe us. Once we got back to our own Wordle, we could mess around with the fonts and colors until we found one we liked.  Here's a sample:

I especially like mine!  :)  Although I'm not sure what "The Big Boss" means....

 

I then collected the Wordles and we will glue them onto our ABC Memory books when we are finished with them.  I will then let my students autograph each other's memory books on the back cover, kind of like you do in a yearbook.  I think this will be a nice memory of their 4th grade year!

So what kinds of projects do you do to end the year?  Leave a comment and let me know!