Merry Christmas!

This has been a wonderful month!

My students created Character Posters of their favorite character from Number the Stars.

On Monday our wonderful principal threw us a Christmas breakfast party!

 We had our faculty Christmas party on Monday at Country Tavern! We revealed our secret Santa. Mine was my principal! She's so awesome! I received wonderful gifts!

Our pajama party was Thursday. We listened to our novel read aloud on audio tape. The students brought blankets and pillows to lay out on while listening to the book! It was fun!

Wednesday my students made Star of David ornaments! We have been reading Number the Stars and the Star of David plays a huge role in the novel. I also took the opportunity to teach my students about Hanukkah. I picked a great day too, because it was the second day of Hanukkah!

I received wonderful gifts from my students (sorry forgot to take pictures). This letter was by far my favorite! It was a tough week due to all the hyper kiddos, but he really made my year with this letter! This is why I do what I do!

(This is a picture of the sweet student who wrote the letter!)

We had our 5th grade Christmas party in the cafeteria on Friday. This year we sponsored a needy family for Christmas. The family has 5 children, one is a new born baby girl who is terminally ill. Our students donated over 100 canned goods and tons of Christmas presents. At the party, they wrapped the gifts, made ornaments for their parents, and decorated cookies to eat with coco! 

When we come back from the break I'll be focusing on writing and PARCC practice. But, in the mean time, I'm enjoying my couch and Netflix!

Merry Christmas everyone!

My TpT Store on Sale!!!

Hello everyone! I'm throwing a Christmas Sale at my TpT store December 22-25! I have also created a couple new Fan Freebies, so check them out!

I know I haven't been blogging too much, but I promise I'll give y'all a classroom update during our break! I hope you all have a fantastic break! Happy Holidays!

My TpT Store Fall Sale!

Fall Sale everyone!!!!! Enjoy!

Update!!! :)

Hello everyone!!! I know it's been quite a while! Here are a few updates from the last month or so! I have been extremely busy, as I'm sure you all can relate!

This week my students made predictions about what would happen next in our novel. The students really enjoyed this little activity! They had to write a paragraph describing hat would happen next and draw a picture.

One of my fantastic 5th graders received 1st place for an art competition! The contest's theme was "The World Will be a Better Place if...". Amelia chose to do an anti-bullying theme. Isn't it awesome?She even made me a colored copy that I laminated! It will forever hang in my room! Did I mention she's in talented arts?

We've been giving "Cold Read" assessments, or comprehension passages, as required by our parish. I think they are rigorous and a great preparation for the PARRC assessment. However, I think they are extremely difficult and many of my students are struggling. My top students are failing the assessments. I'm not sure how I feel about PARRC, but I fear that these cold reads are taking away the love of reading. It's a good thing that I refuse to just teach from the text book! My students are really enjoying our novel, Number the Stars. Some have even finished the book already at home! They still have to read along with us though until we finish! haha

My 5th graders are also doing a great job with writing for our school newspaper, The Gator Gazette. I'm really enjoying working with them on this! 

We had a great time at our school fall carnival! Have I told y'all that I am blessed to work here? I work with the best faculty and staff who have become my friends, and we have amazing parents!!! I still have days that are stressful, but overall this school makes me so happy!!!

The 5th grade team and a fantastic student!

I had fun dressing up as Katniss form The Hunger Games on Halloween! My students really got a kick out of it too! They know I'm obsessed with it! This is a picture of Ms. Berry and me!! :)

I presented at a mini RTI workshop. I'm really liking the opportunities I am receiving to continue to present and grow in my career. I'm still a newbie at it, but hopefully more experience will come my way! :)

Well that's all folks! I'll try to update again soon! 

Update :)

Hello all!
I just wanted to share some things that have been going on this week!

First, I'd like to announce that my email will be changing November 1st to kabuckner@caddoschools.org.

I recently purchased these adorable mouse pads! They match the classroom theme! :-p

I have the sweetest students! This sweetie pie brought me a red velvet cupcake for no reason! It was awesome!

We recently started our new novel study on Number the Stars by Lowis Lowry! My students are so excited about it! This is a picture of one of my students who shared his great-grandfather's history in WWII. He was so excited to learn about history in English class! lol The students are really getting into the Holocaust and WWII history!

You can check out the chapter tests and research project I created at my TPT store [HERE] AND [HERE]!

I will update again soon! 

Five For Friday... On Saturday 10/4

This weekend is going to be awesome! I am officiating a wedding for two of my awesome friends!!! :) 

I have the best students ever! They are so sweet!

My ver sweet mother-in-law made this frame for me! How adorable is this? I added the quote at the bottom. :)

This week we started on a narrative. Students were able to choose whatever they wanted to write about! We brainstormed using a word-web and played Fan-N-Pick with these Prewriting Story HOTS Kagan cards! The students have writing notebooks where they brainstorm, write their rough drafts, and revise & edit their writing. Most students are super excited about their stories! I will let them read them to the class when they're finished.

Next week is my observation lesson, and I'm super nervous... as usual. I will be teaching a lesson on Text-Evidence. In order to give choices to my students, I purchased this product from TPT! I will be using the October themed passages. I'm really happy with this purchase!

I attended the Project Read training this week. I learned a lot. I won't be able to apply all of what I learned to my 5th graders though. These are some sock puppets they gave me. lol I'll be donating these to our new 1st grade teacher. I think she can make better use of them! 

This week my students turned in a huge project from me. I forgot to snap some pictures of the project, so I'll take pictures next week to show you all!