Five for Friday, First Annual Cookie Swap, and Book Talk Thursday

Happy Friday! Can you believe that Thanksgiving was over a week ago?! Where did this week go? I've been busy, busy, busy at work and home and wanted to share some of my fun adventures for the week with you. I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday event. You'll also find links to a fun cookie recipe linky and a winter storybook linky! So much fun in 1 little post =D

The wonderful Emily, from  The Reading Tutor/OG, is hosting a sweet cookie recipe linky. These are truly the most delicious sugar cookies I've ever eaten. When I discovered this recipe 2 years ago I made a batch for my family; in less than 24 hours they had consumed over 3 dozen cookies! They are so moist and chewy. I make them every year for our family Christmas get-togethers and I take them in as special treats for my students. My younger sister, niece and nephew love decorating these every year. Its such a fun family activity! These cookies are so good you might look like this after eating them all...

You gotta love nephews! 

The amazing Andrea, of Reading Toward the Stars, is hosting a Book Talk Thursday for winter themed books! Check out some fun reviews and link up too! 

Are you sick of the same ol Night Before Christmas story? Have your students heard it a million time? Why not give this fun book, A Pirate's Night Before Christmas, a try? I just LOVE this book! I stumbled upon it while I was in college and just knew that it would be the perfect addition to my future classroom's library! 

It's a fun and fresh Christmas story full of pirates who dream of treasure chest, a peg-legged and hook armed Santa,  named Sir Peggedy, and a sleigh pulled by eight giant seahorses: Salty, Scurvy, Sinbad, Mollie, Cutthroat, Cross-Eyes, Roger, and Jolly. 

I know your students will LOVE this story and so will you!

You can check out more books on the linky party by clicking the image below.

My first graders are just too cute! We've been working on CVC words as a whole group. After completing our group activity we break up into centers and I'm able to work one-on-one with my littlest babies; They are loving this week's rotations. 

My firsties normally fight over who get to use the iPad mini first but this week they are all fighting over who gets to play the "sock game" first. They absolutely love sorting their short a cvc words and they have made such great progress learning these new words! I couldn't be more proud of them. 

You can find Short A Stocking Word Sort here or on the image below. 

Our second center was working on blends and vowels using the iPad mini. I honestly can't believe how careful my little ones are with the iPad! They act like it's the most precious treasure in the world. I can just put them on it, walk away and know that they are learning, without having to worry about them breaking it. 

For our third center we are still practicing  decoding skills. The students have been using these cards once a week for about a month now and still love them. I haven't had anyone complete the entire activity in one sitting yet and some are still struggling with writing the correct letter to match the sound. 

My 3rd graders have been working very hard on learning about how, when, and why to ask and answer questions while reading. Using the article "Don't Miss The Supermoon" by Lakeshore, we worked on asking questions before, during, and after reading. I taught them how to ask questions that are relevant to the text they are reading or about to read. They then wrote all the questions they had in the interactive notebooks. Before we read our questions I had each student select one of their questions to write on a sticky note and place on our "What Are My Questions?" anchor chart. After they all had their questions up I read them to the class. Amazingly enough no one had the same question posted.

Next, I read the first paragraph aloud to them. After reading I modeled how to ask a question during reading and had them create their own questions based on what we just read. We repeated the process of placing a question on a sticky note and then on the anchor chart. I then had the students read the article independently, stopping to write down any questions they had during reading. I allowed each student to pick one additional questions to place on the "during reading" section of the chart. We read the questions and discussed if we had the required information available to answer each question. I had the students locate answers in the text or tell me when they would be able to find an answer if it wasn't in the text. 

Finally, we talked about what it means to ask questions after reading: what do you still want to know, what don't you understand, etc. and they recorded as many questions as they had in the interactive notebooks. Again, I allowed them to place a question on the chart. 

I just loved our chart so much that I decided to use it as this months hallway bulletin board display! The students don't know that it's on the board yet but I know they will be super excited when they come in Monday and see their work displayed for all to see! I copied a few pages from student's notebooks and displayed these on the board as well. On Monday, we will work on answering all the questions that we had and I will have the students write answer to display on the board. 

Last but not least, have you started the December Facebook Frenzy Hop yet? 

If not, don't wait until the last minute! This month their are 13 different hops happening! You can click the image above to go to the hop map to begin downloading all of this month's wonderful freebies! I'm participating in the 1st grade ELA/SS group. 

Well, that's all for now! I hope you all had a wonderful week and enjoy your weekend off! Don't forget to check out Educents this weekend either. They currently have 54 deals available with a number of them being free items! They offer great deals on a wide variety of educational products.