Reading Challenge, Coast to Coast

Our school participates in the Accelerated Reader program and we decided to be a part of the "Coast to Coast" challenge on February 28th.  We read and tested ALL day long.  (With the exception of taking our weekly assessments.) In order to make it fun I called for "Flashlight Friday". I came up with the idea Thursday after school so I emailed as many parents as I could and asked them to send their child with a flashlight if they had one.  Then I stopped by my favorite supply resource store (a.k.a Dollar Tree) and bought glow stick bracelets.  Talk about the CHEAPEST way to motivate a student to read and track!  They LOVED it!  I will for sure bring "Flashlight Friday" back to the classroom often!

Our school even gave out prizes to kids participating in the AR challenge.  (These were randomly draw but the kids got some good gifts!

 

I think this fella is still surprised at his awesome football! I kinda wanted it!

Mr. President

I have always done an informative writing with Washington and Lincoln each year but I wanted to be extra cute after we made our MLK Jr. Writings.  So I did a little research (a.k.a Pinterest stalking) and got a few ideas for these president studies!

First we start with a few NF books and Unitedstreaming videos then we make a simple bubble map for each president.

 

Then we used Washington and Lincoln to talk about analogies.  I was able to get a lot of out of the presidents!

Won't you be my Sweetheart!

Well, now that school is out and my brain can slow down and think I decided to share the rest of my pictures before I deleted them off my phone! I had every intention this year to be a better blogger but reality set in and I got totally distracted! Until right now I always wondered how people like Mrs. Carrol could keep up.....and then I discovered blogger on my phone! Bahaha- I've had it on my phone all year but never sat down to use it! Until now....

So - here is our valentine craft that we love to do each year! I've done it in kindergarten and in first grade and it's always a hit! 

I think this was a cat?

So there you have the cheapest craft ever! Paper and 1 box of sweet hearts :)