Shoooooeeeeee, what a week!  I don’t remember if I told y’all or not – I very well could have – but I was observed on Halloween!  Halloween!!!!  What’s even more surprising?  It was by choice.  I just figured, What the heck?  Might as well get it over with.  Also, it was towards the end of the time frame I was given to schedule my observation 🙂   Read: procrastinator.  Since our reading series was working on predictions this week and I’d already introduced this skill with The Candy Corn Bandit, I decided to press on with predicting for my observation (in addition to some Long A Word Work activities)…

We read the story Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg, which is a *super* book for using picture and text clues for making predictions, since the book is told from the POV of the ants.  I made this super unimpressive chart to record our clues and predictions…

When we got to the fountain part of the book, I read about it but did not show the students the pictures.  They had to use the text clues to illustrate what they predicted the “fountain” was.  Aaaaand, no pictures.  Boo.  I used it as a formative assessment.  Above all, the kids’ behavior was ah-mazing.  Seriously, it was totally extra recess worthy.  For it being Halloween, I couldn’t have asked for a better day! After my observation, but continuing with the whole predicting theme I broke out the old Mystery Box!

After the students recorded the clue cards and made their predictions, we met as a whole group to discuss…

Of course, inside the Mystery Box was…

This week, we also started learning about that sneaky silent E.  That quiet guy gave my pumpkins a little trouble as we learned the a_e spelling pattern.  So, needless to say, we’re going to be doing a lot of review during Word Work this week.  I made up a week’s worth of independent word work activities that I feel confident my kiddos can complete by themselves during Daily 5 to reinforce this spelling pattern.  If you’re interested in this supplemental activity pack, you can purchase it at my TpT store for $2.

Lastly, we worked on our Veteran’s Day writing pieces.  The whole first grade had to write about how Veterans show bravery, and then we chose to make a little finger painted American flag to go with it.  This was actually a very impromptu art project {one of those times where you’re like,  Hmmmmm, I think we should totally do this idea I have RIGHT NOW.}  This might not be the first time an art project like this has been done, but I just love the way they turned out!!!!

Well, that’s all I got.  I’m off for the next 3 days (until Wednesday! gah!), and will be consumed by grad school garbage.  However, you can’t beat a 4-day break regardless what you spend doing during it!  Have a great rest of your weekend 🙂