Five for Friday

Hi, all.  I'm linking up with Doodle Bug's Five for Friday linky party.  My very first linky party ever...kinda nervous.  Hope I do it right!

1.  We were learning about making inferences, and I just could not find a graphic organizer that I wanted to use, so I created this little one for my firsties.  Feel free to click the picture and grab yourself a copy if you can use it too.

2.  Our students are learning how to find our country, state, and community on a map this week during social studies.  Of course we pull out the globe and explore, pull down the big maps and explore, but this is still difficult for them to keep straight sometimes.  Thanks to an idea from my sweet friend at a neighboring school, I got maps from http://www.nationalatlas.gov/printable/reference.html#list and had the kids use three crayons to outline the US, Texas, and then place a dot just south of Austin to represent our little city of Buda.  Then we practice tracing the crayon lines with our fingers to get a little more kinesthetic input in there. I also used said maps to create the tracers you see below. (click to get a copy)  The students use the tracers to draw the outlines of the country, state, and city, and then they add labels and decorate.  This really helps them remember where the borders are.  Plus, they are adorable to hang outside our classroom!

3.  I am trying to get (empty) cereal boxes to create the valentine containers you can see here on Mrs.Morrow's blog for a change from my usual this year.  I have had the notice in my newsletter for two weeks, and I only have 5 boxes.  I'm starting to get worried.  I'm about raid all of my friends' pantries, Ziploc bag their cereal, and take off with the boxes.  

4.  I am the sucker who said yes yearbook coordinator for my school.  :)  Ever since the yearbook company sent our bill, and I saw how much we owed, I have been stressing about these orders all week!  But here they are: opened, recorded, counted, and balanced.  I am happy to be done with that!  (for now anyways)

5.  Last, but not least, we used the Magic e Read and Write the room from my last blog post.  My kids love this, y'all.  I'm serious.  I want to find a way to make a read and write the room for every part of my day.  Okay, maybe not THAT much, but still.  ;)  You can pick this little activity up in my TpT store here.

All in all, it's been a great week.  I'm not gonna lie though, I'm pumped about the three day weekend ahead of me!!!  Hope you have a great one too!