Five for Friday

I. Am. Exhausted. Doesn't it always seem like the weeks leading up to Spring Break take the longest? Or are at least the most draining? I stayed late yesterday writing lesson plans and today as well... and still brought work home. Craziness!

Anyway, Here is my FIRST Five for Friday Linky Party! If you'd like to join, click on the picture and link up!

1. Fraction Word Problems

If you've read any of my recent blog posts, you'll know we're in the middle of some fraction lovin'. I feel like fractions have consumed my classroom. It can be so easy to have activities/games/lessons with the basics of fractions, such as how to add or subtract--yet neglect to incorporate these same skills in word problems. I don't know why, but every year it seems like my kids can do super-duper great with the skills until they see a word problem .Then it's like they're trying to read Chinese... ugh. So we've done fraction word problems most every day. Usually only one, but the goal is for them to be very comfortable with them. Today we worked with partner and completed "four squares" with fraction word problems. Box 1 is for writing or gluing the word problem. Box 2 is for taking notes on the "important stuff." Box 3 is where they solve by writing an equation, drawing a picture or any other method they can think of. Finally, box 4 is for explaining their answer. It takes a while to get students used to this, but it's beneficial once they have it down. Here's an example of one paper that was turned in today. Sloppy, but you get the point.

2. Civic Oration Speeches

The 5th graders at my school compete in civic oration contests each year. They compete in their homeroom classes, then the top 12 give their stages in front of the school. Today was that day. The topic of the speech had to be "Someone who has overcome adversity." One of my babies from a previous year almost brought me to tears! He told the story of his brother who had overcome being in a gang and going to jail. He has since turned his life around and is about to get married, in an attempt to set a good example for his daughter. My former student spoke of how he was going down the same track as his brother, until taking a trip to a prison with our SRO (school resource officer). Wow. Wow! It's so hard to believe that our babies... that are only in 5th grade know more street-wise than we do. Another girl spoke of her mom overcoming living with what seemed like an abusive boyfriend for 3 years... of which she saw. She asked the question, "Do you know what it's like to see your mom get her head smashed through a mirror? Because I do." Again, wow. These students come to school with all this baggage... let me stop. The mom in me is about to get emotional over here! 

3. On My Honor

This was our second week reading this novel. So far my students LOVE it! It's so nice to hear them want to keep reading. "No, Mrs. Lopez, let's keep going!" They're learning TONS of vocabulary words and having great discussions about character traits, theme and they're making connections. 

4. Speaking of Word Webs...
We are somewhat off and on using word webs. I've tried really hard to read their sentences daily to make sure they truly understand what the word means and use it correctly in a sentence. I read this particular sentence using the word sparse and HAD to take a picture and send it to the kid's mom.

"My mom's hair is sparse."

Now technically he didn't give any context clues, so he wouldn't get credit for the sentence... but man it made me laugh! His mom sent me text and said she would have to make herself a hair appointment this week for sure. I guess she's being bumming it... too funny! I doubt he means his mom is thin like traffic can be, but it's still funny. :)

5. "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

Okay... so this may be totally inappropriate, but inappropriate things tend to make me smile. I've seen videos posted on Facebook recently that said the phrase, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" I felt like I was missing out on something, so I asked my husband and he showed me the video of a woman whose house or possibly apartment was on fire, and she was saying "ain't nobody got time for that!" I think it was just the way in which she said it that made it so funny. Anyway, I saw this picture floating around and HAD to share. 

And here's the video if you haven't seen it... now the picture should make sense. :)

Hahahah! :)

Have a fabulous weekend!