November Currently!!

O.M.G.

It's that time again, Currently with everybody's favorite fourth grade teacher....Farley!!

Listening:  The puppies.  Things I've learned with these two: anything on the floor near the floor, or touching the floor is fair game.
God makes em cute, so we won't kill them.  These two sure are cute....inferences?!

Gator. 

Izzy.

Loving: Best Halloween story EVER.   My brother is father to my niece and nephew, ages 9 and 4 respectively.  My niece insisted that it was ok they wear their Halloween costume to school on Friday.  As soon as he drove up with her in her Elsa costume, he knew they were NOT, in fact, allowed to wear costumes to school.  Rather than let her go in unnoticed with her rogue costume.  she was allowed out of the car, given a loving wave goodbye as he rolled down the windows.....and BLASTED "Let it Go" (which is of course on autoplay.) This caused just enough commotion that everyones eyes immediately fell on her.  She was sooooooo embarassed, I'm pretty sure she won't be telling anymore little white lies anytime soon.

Wanting:  Let's talk about this. iPhone 6.  I've been holding out with my old (but perfectly good) 4S.  I powered through the release of the 5 and the 5C because I knew that magical 6 would be out soon.  Now where has all this patience gotten me?  A big fat nowhere.  I have been up to Apple no less than 3 times a week since it's release, put my name on every list known to man, but still......no phone for me.  I almost got one last night, but it wasn't the color I wanted.  The associate thought I was silly, but I've been waiting too long & am going to pay too much $ to NOT get exactly what I want.  I'm about to go all Veruca Salt on these Apple people if they don't get some more product....SOON!  

Reading:  finishing the One and Only Ivan.  Love that she just released a narrative nonfiction story to pair with the novel! 

#isItJuneYet?

Have you ever....

No, this isn't about THAT game. 

This is a post about that AHA moment!  You know, the kind you have when something actually clicks.  Mine tend to happen not independently, but rather when I'm with a group.  I guess it's no fun to AHA by yourself?!

This is about an idea that my team came up with together.  We were trying to come up with an idea for our kids to explore characterization.  None of our ideas were really gelling.  Meh.

Then, the magic happened!  Like rainbows shooting out of a unicorn's ......

The chain of events that followed was nothing short of magical.  Every person on my team contributed something to make this lesson meaningful.  What, you ask is this lesson all about? 

Well, it was a characterization activity for our novel study, Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan.  

Here's what we did: We gave each table a scenario, a "what would you do" situation.  BUT....they had to think about it from their character's perspective.  Taking into account past thoughts, actions, and feelings; they came up with a response to the scenario as that character from the book.   

This proved to be an epic and thought-provoking task!  We had each group design a poster, which had the situation in the middle, and all 4 of the characters reactions/ why around.  

Naomi Character Scenarios 

Click the link to download the "What would you do" situations

Virtual Hi-five to my team for our collective brainpower!

What about you?  What awesome lessons have evolved in your classroom? Two heads ARE DEFINITELY better than one! 

#collaborate