Family & Friends Night

Towards the end of every year, the students in our school put on what we call Family & Friends Night. {It's basically an open house, but the students also perform in a short program.}  Ours was April 30th this year.  And yes, I know that was quite a while ago, but I am so proud of my students that I wanted to share it with you anyway.

After a delicious pizza supper, we started our program.  This year our songs and reading parts were all patriotic themed.  

I loved hearing the students read about the founding of our country, the making of our flag, and the fight for our freedom.

After the program, everyone headed to our elementary classrooms.  Our rooms and hallways were filled with student projects for the parents to see.

 

One class made dioramas from different habitats.

The older elementary classes brought in science projects.  This student researched eggs and chickens.  He even brought in a live chick!

The second grade class made a combined bug collection. {Although I am pretty sure that the boys from several grades were bringing in bugs during recess for a while.}

  We also displayed several of the projects and papers from our Roald Dahl author study.

 

Our Memorial Day agamographs were a big hit as parents walked down the hallway toward our classroom.

 

 

Another parental favorite is our student writing binders.  In each binder, I include a copy of everything the student has written throughout the year from journal entries to research reports.  Not only are these fun to look at, but parents love having all their student's writing for the year in one easy to keep collection.

 

 

We end the evening with our yearbook dedication.  Then every student gets a yearbook.  Most of them start the signing process right then.  It's so cute to watch the younger kids signing their names in huge letters in each others' books.  Of course, it's also a little bittersweet to be asked to sign the yearbooks of your students who are growing up right before your eyes.  

 

All in all, Family & Friends Night is a huge amount of work for both students and teachers.  But it is always worth it to see the pride the students take in showing off their hard work to their friends and family members!

Five for Friday... and a Giveaway!

I am especially excited about today's Five for Friday!  {The title should give the reason away.}

Make sure you hop on over to Doodlebugs Teaching to read more Five for Friday posts when you are done here!

 One of my goals for this year was to finally reorganize and clean out our guest room.  I had been using it to store anything and everything which meant that it had to be completely emptied anytime we had overnight guests.  Well, I finished that project last weekend!  It felt good to finally have that room cleaned out.

 I started an author study with my 3rd grade reading class.  We are going to be reading lots of books by Roald Dahl.  We started this week with James and the Giant Peach.  We are using the book to explore the traits of different characters.  {The bugs are fun characters to discuss and learn from.}  We have also started making mobiles to hang up when we finish the book.  The top of the mobile has a giant peach with the book title and author on it.  We are going to hang pictures of each character under the peach with words describing that character on the picture.

 

My 6th grade Science class has been talking about earthquakes this chapter.  We had our first experiment yesterday. {We do History for half a year and Science for the other half.}

Students had to use marshmallows and fettuccine noodles to design and build a building that would withstand an earthquake.  This is always a favorite experiment of the students and me. {They like working with food, and I like how easy it is for me.}

Once they are done with their constructions, I get to simulate an earthquake by shaking the desk a certain number of times to see if it will fall over or stay standing.  

I finished a new TPT product - classroom reward coupons.  I don't like spending money on candy and small prizes that kids will just throw away.  So this year, I decided to use coupons as rewards instead.  I have been wanting to make chevron coupons to match the rest of my classroom, and I have finally finished them.  I love the way they turned out, and my kids love getting to do special things like sit at my desk or wear slippers to school!

And...as a special reward for all of my readers, I have decided to throw a giveaway!  I am giving away a $10 gift certificate to TeachersPayTeachers.  I know how much I enjoy finding useful teaching tools for my classroom so I am sure that you do too.  Enter the giveaway below, and I will announce the winner right here on my blog next Friday!  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway