The End is Near!! (Five for Friday)

Hello ladies and gents! It is the end of yet another week and time for yet another link up. I will be joining a good 'ol fashion Five for Friday party with Doodle Bugs! (Yes, I posted this on Thursday. Approx. 2 hours and 28 minutes before Friday arrives. EEP! Sorry.)

 Living History Museum

The fourth graders in my current building put together one of the best research projects ever! They have to pick and research a famous Missourian, write a paper about them, and then put together a presentation. The best part of the whole project is that their presentations required them to BECOME the famous Missourian! 

During this "Living History Museum" other students, teachers, and parents pick a "famous Missourian", push the button on their hands (which is a sticker) and off they go.

Most (but not all) students memorized the facts about their famous Missourian and used posters as guides.

These kiddos are always SO creative and excited for this project and I have a BLAST seeing and hearing everyone portray their famous person. Some students put together presentation using other resources such as emaze.com and prezi.com instead of taking part in the Living History Museum. However, they still had to present and show their work to guests.

Art Show!

This week is the annual art show in my building. I love seeing all of the work that they are most proud of. Plus, our art teacher does a fabulous job putting together a great show

Rockin' the Rainforest

Bringing the focus down to my specific class (ELL)... Our second graders read the fiction and non-fiction Magic School Bus Books about the rainforest (we even let them watch the actual episode).

After we finished, we had them pick a rainforest layer (Emergent, Understory, Canopy, & Forest Floor). They had to find out what types of plants and animals reside in that layer and put it together in a poster. Each poster is a piece of one isolated tree in the rainforest.

Now, it took a little work on my part to help them draw the tree in a way that would allow them all to puzzle piece together, but the rest was all on them!

Despite the coloring being a little wack-a-doodle, the giant poster came together quite nicely. They were 10x more excited than I thought they would be to see each piece put together at the end. The lead teacher and I were proud of their work.

SUMMER PARTAAAAY!

Our last day of school is the 21st, but the last day we pull kiddos for ELL was this week. That means it is PARTY TIME!!

We decorated the room in a Summer/Beach/Hawaiian theme to get the kiddos excited and ready for their upcoming break. We also watched an episode of Magic School Bus while they had fruit snacks, juice, and popcorn.

 The lead teacher and I wanted to give our students the opportunity to keep their reading and comprehension skills sharp over the summer. So, as a part of the party, we had each student choose 3-4 books from our classroom library to take home and read over break. We gave them all a couple of addressed and stamped envelopes with a sheet of general comprehension questions. We asked that after they finished each book, they mail us their responses throughout the summer. They were THRILLED at the idea of sending us mail! I am overjoyed by their motivation.

Now, before everyone's stomach turns, we did not spend all of our money on these books. A lot of them were donated and the lead teacher set up a donation fund on DonorsChoose.org to raise money for them. Also, we asked that they please return them to us next year. (The ones who were graduating out of the building or moving next year just got to keep them for good.)

WHOA! Gettin' Fancy Over Here!

So in my last post I had a comment from this lovely lady name Deb Maxwell, who runs the Not Very Fancy In First blog (Go check out her blog. Now. Do it now. Please?). She pointed out that I did not have a visible BlogLovin' button so she couldn't follow me.

WELL DRAT!

I hadn't realized that my novice little blog was missing these social media links. So, of course, I was on a mission to add them! Sooooooooooo....

VIOLA!
(Scroll up to the top of my sidebar to find the actual buttons!)

You can now follow me on BlogLovin and Pinterest, you can shoot me an e-mail, and you can visit (and "like') my Facebook Page. Now, if you go to the Facebook page, don't judge it too hard. I just recently created it so its pretty barren. Bare with this wee-little newbie! :-)

Now, my next order of business will be to create a blog button! Don't worry, y'all, it's comin' along nicely here at this Dog-Gone Good Blog! :-)

Don't forget to visit the DoodleBugs and Not Very Fancy In First blogs!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!