Five For Friday December 13, 2013

Another week in the books and only one more week until Christmas vacation!  Not like I'm counting or anything!  Here is a peek at my week, as I link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday:

We took multiple, multiple, multiple pictures for our class Christmas card and the one above may be the CLOSEST we are going to get to perfect - it is so hard to get 23 fourth graders to smile at the same time.  Oh, and forget the fact that I forgot two of the kiddos for the first ten shots because I had sent them in the hallway to work since they were being a little distracting during Daily 5.  OOPS! We also had to take a few silly shots for good measure.

And in keeping with the holiday spirit, we have been getting in some much needed math fact practice holiday style!  You can read more about this Cookies for Santa math fact practice here.

And other than that, I am feeling a bit Grinchy this year.  With all the craziness of holidays it is hard to get everything done.  I am directing the drama club at another school, and we have our performance next week, so I am already feeling additional pressure, AND today, we got an email with a list of Christmas activities for next week that is about a mile long - we have a door decorating contest, a Christmas tree decorating contest, a candy cane exchange, Christmas caroling, a Christmas concert and rehearsals of our own, several Christmas parties, dress up days for every day of the week, AHHHHH!!! Calgon take me away!  Is it just me or  does that seem a bit too much all at once?  I would like to have a regular week with just holiday fun on Friday.  Am I alone in thinking this?

Thank you for letting me vent, now back to our regularly scheduled programming:

We also have our monthly awards ceremony next week, and I was having a hard time narrowing down my recipients, so, I let the students nominate students along with a reason why.  I told them they had to be persuasive!  They came up with some great reasons, and I chose the students with the most votes.  But.. I also shared all of the compliments with the class  They really enjoyed hearing nice things that their fellow students wrote about them.  I think I might make this a regular way of choosing awards.  That way more of them are recognized, and they really learn what criteria makes an award winning student.

We have been working hard on mastering long division.  A few of  the students needed some additional hands on practice, and I ended up having everyone use the base ten blocks - it really cemented the process for even my advanced learners.

We will be getting in some additional practice with my new Duck Dynasty inspired game - Don't Duck Division next week.

And we ended today on a different note with some Fun Friday activities.  We usually have clubs right after lunch, but I found out as we were walking back to the classroom that clubs had been canceled.  Awesome!  I had nothing planned, so I decided to give them some free time.I let the students make choices to: play on the computers, play board games, color, or make bracelets.  The bracelet making was a BIG hit!

Hope you had a great week!  Wishing you the best of luck in surviving the holiday craziness before vacation!