Moving on from Elections

This week hasn't really gone according to "PLAN."

I blame going on a field trip on a MONDAY.  ha!! That really just kind of set my tone for the week - a different tone than what I had planned for...

BUT, I did actually do SOME things that were on my plans....

They are finally starting to finish their "Vote Me for President" writing (get the freebie HERE)

And the last few days, we've been working on some SERIOUS map skills.

We colored in the states the color that they ended up being for the voting....

They are now EXCELLENT at directions, and even regions. Every time we had to color in a state, they had to tell me where it was located on the map - they even got how to say the NW/NE and SW/SE really well. 

map skills - check!

(get the map freebie HERE)

THEN, they had to glue the direction cards down on the paper, and they had to write a sentence about the data on the map.

Did you notice???

FL is not colored in...lol.

Our poor state is SO notorious during elections...hahaha!

While it is leaning as if our state will be a blue colored state, the totals have not yet been calculated.  

It just cracks me up!

THEN, I decided I was over teaching about the election....

So I scrapped my plans, and changed it up...

I busted out one of my favorite books to read during this time of year.

Since I hadn't planned on actually teaching this right then and there, I improvised.

We use our spirals - which are becoming more and more like a learning log, and I'm LOVING it!

We discussed the beginning, middle and end.

Tomorrow, we're going to be doing a quilt based on this book - I doubt we will finish it tomorrow, but maybe I'll have a picture or two for ya! :)

Y'all know that we do the currently linkies with my girl, Farley.

Well, part of their writing homework this week was to write their currently - using COMPLETE sentences! 

This one is from one of the most sweetest kids I have EVER had!!

And no - NOT just because I was the subject of his writing, BUT because he really is.

So our chickies are quickly growing - I'm super loving them!!

Look...they are getting smart - climbing up on top of their water container to try and get out - ahhh!!

And I am leaving you with this thought:

how do Floridians handle the cold???

hahaha!

Happy Thursday, ya'll!!

I'll be back tomorrow with some good finds from some of my friends that I found and can't wait to use!!

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Election Week (continued) visual plans

Here are this week's visual plans!  It's a continuation of Election week...

First off...I just want say thanks for all the comments about these plans.

I LOVE how you guys love these plans.

I LOVE them too!! So thanks to my girl Reagan for "helping" me out with them, and for DeeDee for starting this "whole thing."

I find it really does help ME, especially since I'm such a visual person.

Ok, so here we go!!

(don't forget to click on the lesson plan pix and download the pdf so you can click on the links/pics in the plans to go to the site or to grab the freebie!!
You know I always have a freebie or two for ya!)

You can see that there aren't any ELA centers this week - that's because we have a field trip on Monday morning and awards on Wednesday Morning, so I figured I'd just take this week to do some big(ger) projects...

I've only read 2 out of my 4 books that I want to read for Election, and we need to discuss and compare those still.  AND we still need to talk about Mitt and Barack, and on Tuesday the students will vote for them. By the end of the week, they will vote for either Duck, Grace, or "My" Teacher for president too....I'm adding in some of Cara's Presidential pack too.

AND they will be writing about why THEY should be president - that's actually a freebie! (Make sure you download it from the plans!) I'm still using the writing-plan style of Lori, because it seems to be  really working for my kiddos!

There are 3 different versions (Vote Me for President, My teacher for President, and If I were President) with planning pages and writing pages....

Also, for writing, they are going to be taking one of the centers they did from Kelley's Heroes pack and doing a writing/craft project with that...super excited!

Also....and don't shoot me....

but it's time to start writing the PGP (ahh!!!)

And mine is going to be on writing...

You've heard me complain about how my students can write sentences...they just can't write more than one sentence together without forgetting how and where to end a sentence. soooo....

I found Sarah's Reading Response pack that has rubrics and everything....(she has a writing one too!) So...I'm going to start using these as their reading (and writing) tests after certain stories...

Since I don't use the textbook series, I can't use those tests...not that those are actual reading tests anyway, with all kinds of grammar and phonics included...grrr...I think there'r like THREE actual questions that pertain to the stories inside the reading test.

Anywhoskies....

Onto Math and Social Studies....

For math this week, we're still doing subtraction with 2-digit numbers.

In our Numbers Every day folders, I'm swapping out some pages-

We're going to start working on rounding and adding with regrouping. YIKES!

I'm still using my Adding Tens pack and the 3-addend center we did at my guided math group last week from Susan's pack, will become a center this week.

And I'm still using Gladys' pack for Election activities!

I also made this freebie...

I want the kids to understand the whole process of election, so I want to really go through and have them color in the states that were "red" or "blue" states.

I envision this will take more than one day, because...

A) they don't really know what a state is, much less where they are

B) there's going to be a lot "following directions" and well...hmmmm....lol

And for all of you who have been wondering to see...

HERE is the new me!!

I can't decide if I like it....or if I LOVE it!! hehe

I think I will miss the length sometimes, but for right now, it NEEDED to be done!

I have all these NEW hairs growing in (thanks Baby B!) and it was just making my hair look HORRIBLE, so I needed to match it somehow - so bangs, and then shortening it so the little hairs could kind of "Catch up" to the rest...

it's still curly...just not in this picture - she decided to blow dry it to see if I liked the actual cut.

So what do you think???

And as for the laptop??

Thanks for all the suggestions!

still working on that one....so let me know what your favorite laptop is!

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