Today is the last day to enter my Weekend Wishlist Giveaway for the fabulous Maggie Tote! The winner will be announced tomorrow morning! Let's link up to share what happened in our classrooms this week. Me first! :) In math, we are working on our place value unit. Students practiced writing expanded form by playing "Bull's Eye" using a target and paperclips. They wrote their scores in expanded form (ex. 100+30+2=132). Students are also learning to write numbers in word form. To make sure they are mastering the spelling of these words, we made flashcards and "Mastery Pockets." We'll save these to use for MANY activities this year! Here's how to make a "Mastery Pocket": Step 1: Take a 2-pocket folder. Cut a semi-circle shape ABOVE the inside pockets. Step 2: Cut down the fold along the white semi-circles (in pic above) so it creates two flaps. Fold flaps down. Step 3: Use velcro dots to secure flaps down so that they create pockets that can open and close. I got these Velcro mini-dots that worked PERFECTLY at Wal-Mart in the craft section. Step 4: Print labels that say "Practice" and "Mastered" to go on each pocket. You can download mine here! Voila! Now you have a cheap, easy solution to storing flashcards that students are using to master skills. And, students LOVE being able to move cards from the "practice" pocket to the "mastered" pocket! They also love to decorate them and make them their own. ;) In science, we're still learning about animals. This week we finished up learning about all of the animal classification groups. Students created flipbooks to help them remember the characteristics of the different animal groups. I love using different textures to represent the animals' body coverings! Mammals - fur fabric from a craft store to represent hair/fur Reptiles - onion sack to represent scales Amphibians - wax paper to represent smooth, moist skin Birds - craft feather to represent feathers Fish - onion sack to represent scales Insects - a piece from a hard plastic 3-ringed folder to represent an exoskeleton Inside they wrote examples of animals that would belong in each group and characteristics of that group. (Animal Groups Flipbook from Teacher's Clubhouse) I ended my week by taking one of my SWEET students to Frankie's Fun Park for putt-putt, bowling, and games! She won a date with me from the silent auction at our school's carnival. It was a fun time and a perfect ending to the week! She won over 2,000 tickets and insisted on buying me something with them - a Gamecock Hello Kitty! I'm pretty sure it's going to bring my Cocks good luck tomorrow...maybe I'll take it to the game -ha! Gotta love those sweet students! ;) What happened in your classroom this week?