Book orders, matter, and penguin books!

Happy Friday!! Did y'all make it through the week??? yikes!! what a week it was...

I wanted to show you a new take on my scholastic book orders activity.  

One of my most popular posts is from my author's purpose activity....

Check out the post {here}

Well, this week, I had them go through and cut out five books that were non-fiction 

and five books that were fiction

THEN, their "reading test" was to pick one book from each and write WHY they thought it would be fiction or non-fiction. It is AMAZING how difficult it is for kids to explain HOW they know the answer. I would say 90% of my kids KNOW really well fiction vs non-fiction...and about 1/2 of those kids had SUCH a hard time explaining WHY it was non-fiction.

Cute story though  - I had a handful of kids paste books about Santa onto the non-fiction side...hehe. At first I was like, "REALLY!? You think all these books are non-fiction??" And one little girl was like - umm... yes, Mrs. Ross - they're all true stories...

OMGosh - that's right - Santa is real to them!!

lol. I had to run to another teacher to figure out how to get them to move the books to the fiction side..lol

Luckily, there was a picture of a sheep in the sled in one and little dressed mouse in the other...So I just told them to look at the pictures closely to see if they thought EVERYTHING in the picture was real. lol

And part of my small group instruction was summarizing using our Reading AtoZ books

I'm telling you what - summarizing is 1,000 times easier using....

Somebody

Wanted

But

So

Finally

And they wrote it out WHILE we practiced handwriting...I think I need to find a pack to help me teach handwriting because let me tell ya - some kids STILL can not form their letters the proper way! blarg!

So, I busted out my personal alphabet chart (found in my classroom theme sets) so they could see how letters were formed properly. And they wrote out their summary - and they look SO purtty! lol

And I had to show you this - so cute!!

Since we've been doing snowmen and snow and states of matter, I had them draw how a snowman would look in all the different states of matter....

hehe - look at the gas stage - LOVE it!!

(freebie from my visual plans post HERE)

and in other news - we've FINALLY started finishing our penguin books!!!

You've seen the sequence of penguin activities...

 HERE and HERE

My kids have been working really hard to get these finished...

I've had their books laying out and the other kids have started reading them like they were real books - and asking to take A.R. quizzes on them! lol

Take a look-see

(I went through an highlighted four words that I wanted them to have in their glossary)

(this picture makes me want to cry - haha!)

This is found in my penguin pack 

We've still got about half the class that needs to finish - and are THIS close to finishing.... so next week is the week for them to get done - and that's it! lol

And I leave you with some of my favorite pix of the week - 

Family night!

(look at my score- ha!)

B had her first bow in her hair...and she was SOOO excited about it!!

(for all of 3 seconds, then it was on the floor - ha!)

And Tuesday, I took a personal day  (I NEVER take days off) - we had to get our taxes done and do a few errands that you just can't do on the weekends or with kids....

well, we ended up here for a little bit....

ahhh.... doesn't that just SCREAM serenity?!

Yes - I think I love it here.

Happy Friday, friends!

Make sure you come back tomorrow - I have a HUGE surprise for you!!!!