Heading Back To Work!

As I lesson plan today, I decided to share what we are doing in our classroom this week.  I figure as long as I am blogging I can put off the laundry and shopping I need to do for a new week of school… {choking back sobs}

 This year my family escaped to Lake Tahoe for Thanksgiving.  We had planned this trip 6 months ago so it was something we had been looking forward to like crazy!

 Ok so back to lesson planning… {sob}

We always begin or day with daily data and Rise and Shine before announcements…
We are going to start our December math and literacy Review too!

Next we move on to a new phonics/spelling focus of the week. This week is:

In our LEARN to read stations, students will be independently working

For our over arching reading theme this week, we will be reading different versions of The Gingerbread Man to compare and contrast. We will work on various comprehension skills throughout the week which also overlap with our writing, reading, and phonics of course.  You know how it is!

In math we are jumping into coins!

During guided math, students will work through math tubs and math journal activities found in these units:

I will be pulling from both of these monthly journal packs.

 For Social Studies {and Math} we will focus on the following:

 If you teach in Texas, financial literacy is required in every grade
level K-12.  Because stores and families are focused on shopping and
spending during December, this is a great time to cover this standard.
We also tie it into social studies and community.

Beyond the writing center, we also have writer’s workshop.  During this time we are working more on the actual writing process.

I love using the December theme to pull excellent writing from my students.  This week we will be wrapped up in our Gingerbread Man learning so our writing process will be to create our own gingerbread story! This will be a process throughout the week. 

Then next up is science!  At this time of year we focus on magnets, force and motion!

This unit is one of my favorites because the students experiment and then create a paper bar magnet full of their hands on experiment results!  Cheers erupt when this comes out!

 This is a picture from last year of this unit in action.  They were SO engaged!

whew…no wonder we teachers are a tired bunch!

 I hope this helps you in some way prepare to go back!

If you have to display your objectives like we do, here’s an editable pack!  We slide the new ones into a plastic sleeve {from oriental trading} on our front focus boards.