Wild and Windy!

Can you tell we're studying adjectives?  Well, that and it reflects the weather outside.  We haven't gotten the full effects of Hurricane Sandy (rain is supposed to start tomorrow) but the temps have definitely dropped and we're on a wind advisory until Tuesday!  Whew!

This week has been absolutely crazy!!!  Between being out one day for a meeting, leaving 2 days early, my daughter getting chicken pox (YES!  CHICKEN POX!  and YES she had the vaccine!  Two days out of school on Thursday and Friday for her!), and the general craziness of this time of year....it's enough to drive you to drink chocolate!  I swear, I will never keep to my diet! :P

On Thursday, we celebrated the 50th Day of School.  Of course I was in a meeting that day (but at least it was a planning one...although I had to leave early to take care of my daughter), but I planned some fun things for the kiddos!  During Math, I kept to my groups, but planned a rotation to help review our Geometry unit:  50 pattern blocks to make symmetrical designs, 50 shapes to create on the geoboard, and find 50 objects and determine their shape.  The kids had a lot of fun - oh, and it was "pajama day" for Red Ribbon Week....why can't every day be pajama day - or at least once a week?  I wore mine, even tho I was in a meeting.  (I rarely pass up pajama day!).  

For Writing, they continued by listing 50 adjectives inspired by the book "Hairy Scary Ordinary Adjectives" (I think that's the title) which the sub read to them.  They also did a review on proper nouns and had to list what ended up being a total number of 50 for things such as names of stores, restaurants, books, etc.  They were also supposed to do 25 verbs and 25 nouns, but apparently did not get to that.  It was great for review!

We are studying adjectives, so we did Mrs. Lemon's "All About Me" adjective idea.  The kids turned out better than I thought! (I always hesitate doing these with subs, since I have a general idea of what I want...but fortunately a teammate had done the same activity, so I had one of hers as a sample!).  We also read "Goodnight Goon" (a parody of Goodnight Moon) and created our own goons, adding adjectives to describe it.

We're also studying Community Changes:  Past and Present (SOL 2.3 for you VA people!) so here are our trioramas on the 3 different types of communities.  We did this after watching "The Little House."  I have the book, but LOVE watching the video.  It's on my wiki page....I feel like it gives the kids a little more experience since we are definitely a rural community - they need to hear the hustle and bustle of the urban community!  We also did a follow-up worksheet on The Little House.  I will try to put up my Community Changes unit things soon as a little bundle - I have to take a pic of my triorama pattern since I drew it.  I'll throw it up on TpT and TN for ya! :)

As for the goon, that was actually my little drawing on Word using the shape tools (freehand!).  This is a freebie you can download {here} in PDF.  Please let me know if it doesn't work...I'm still kinda new to Google Docs/Drive!
  I'm sure I'm forgetting something else!  My brain has been a bit scattered...and on top of that, I've started this Math Investigations course we were told to take that was recommended.  I think I need one of those time thingies that Hermoine had in Harry Potter where I can turn back time and use it to fit everything in! :(