Five for Friday: Lots of Reading and Grammar!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share what my language arts instruction has looked like this week and a few other things. 

So I think this week was less crazy, but more stressful than last week. It's report card time. Yeay! The time when I realize I don't have enough assessments to judge how students are progressing towards meeting the end of the year goals and trying to figure out how the benchmarks align. Ay yai yai!

Despite all of this we have been getting so much work done in the classroom. We have been focusing more on non-fiction as of late. I know it's early in the year, but we've been learning how to approach non-fiction books (which my kiddos LOVE). I just noticed I left a word out in that chart. ARG!

We did a close read of Ponies by Laura Marsh this week. Thank you Tara West from Little Minds at Work!!! I've been using her format of close reading and it's going so well. I am loving it! I've been able to differentiate instruction for my readers and non-readers. 

You can see above that my students became detectives this week. They were so excited when I whipped out those magnifying glasses. They searched for evidence within the text and photographs to answer the question: How are ponies and horses different from one another? This was their first time citing evidence and I know they are going to get better at it. Can't wait!

Our focus for Grammar was asking questions. I began to worry once we started brainstorming question words. There were a few kiddos that offered me words, but I was getting the craziest responses from the rest of the group. So, I decided to take the reins and give students clues. Crisis averted. Phew! Once we had a bank of question words it was smooth sailing (for the most part). 

We got a new student on Halloween. Yeup, Halloween!!! So, I thought it would be fun for students to ask him questions. Luckily, he's not shy and was willing to sit in the hot seat. I gave each pair of students a question word and they practiced saying questions. Then, they asked our new student.

We summed up our week by heading outdoors with all the other firsties and asked each other questions. They loved walking around with their mustaches and asking their friends (and teachers) silly questions. #toocute

Click {HERE} to see the pack in TpT shop.

Now technically this was last week, but I wanted to share my Halloween costume. I was a minion! The kids at school sure got a kick out of it.

Well, it's time to print my turkey pack and prep for next week. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!