A Peek At Last Week - TACK, Fractions, and Characterization

When I went through my pictures to write this post, I couldn't believe that St. Patrick's Day happened on Monday - it seems so long ago now.  It's been the longest week ever ...

I was so excited that St. Patrick's Day fell on a school day.  It's almost always during our March Break, and although I do love making the day special at home for my own kiddos, it was a lot of fun in the classroom, too.  I grabbed a couple of freebies on TPT and added in some activities of my own, and leapt in to some lucky learning.  ;)

(Do you see the piles on my desk?  Yikes!  I really need to find some time to organize)

We're diving into fractions right now.  We started our new unit on Monday, and with a lot of hands-on activities planned, the kids are going to love learning.  I think the I also started my new TACK board on Monday.  You can read more about it in a blog post I wrote HERE.  It's a great way to keep track of current learning goals and success criteria.

 I think the highlight of their week in fractions was creating these adorable Reducing Fractions Mr. Potato Heads from For The Love of Teaching Math.

In Language we finished the second book in our Shadow Children series, and started on the third.  I never planned to read past the first book (I like to hook them with the first book of a series, in hopes a few of them want to continue reading on their own) ... but they are literally BEGGING me to keep reading ... so how can I refuse?  (Happy Teacher!!!).  We're looking at characterization right now in these novels.  I do these novels as a read aloud, so I provide them with sticky notes and the purpose for reading before we begin each read aloud session.  This week we built an anchor chart on characterization, looking at physical characteristics, character traits, growth/change, and conflict (within or with the character).  Each day we talked about our focus, and while I was reading they would make notes on their sticky notes.  At the end of the session, they would add their notes to the chart.  We also started on our Paper Bag Character Projects - this one is always a hit and the kids are so excited to be making them!  I can't wait until they finish up and present them next week!

Which brings us to the end of the week ... and the official start of Spring.  It's not looking like Spring here, that's for sure (and it's still snowing today).  So, if you can't beat the weather, embrace it.  My two oldest girls had their Cross Country Ski Meet on Friday ... and loved every minute of it.

Happy Saturday!  YAY for weekends!!!