5 For Friday! Book Review, Blogiversary, & More!

Finishing up classroom materials, celebrations, giveaways, and a sneak peak a new book are all taking part in this 5 for Friday post!

 

1

I'm soaking up my last week without officially having to be back at school for professional development and staff meetings before our school year begins. Of course, that meant spending time trying to get my room looking good and working on some new classroom materials too!

I forgot to take pictures the last time I was in my room, so here is another look at my desk redo using  colorful duct tape.

2

Along with getting my room ready, I've been trying to get some classroom materials ready too. I was reminded of a an activity when I received my new school computer with my old files on it. One day towards the end of the school year, my teaching partner and I needed something to give our students some extra practice with figurative language, as well as a way to do a quick assessment.

Quickly during plan time I typed up some examples of figurative language. Students cut, sorted, and pasted. Great activity, but bland. So I dressed it up a bit for a center activity, included a version that can still be cut and pasted, and the answer key.

3

A little while ago, I was asked if I had some math centers in the camping theme that were a little more challenging; involving decimals and fractions. Since I'm no longer teaching math (I'm surprising going to miss teaching the subject) the centers were a little slow in being put together, but I think these centers turned out well!

4

This week marks 1 year of blogging! Wonderful experience and I'm celebrating on the blog with a big giveaway and daily giveaways from my Facebook page. Click the picture below to see what all the festivities are!

5

Last, but most certainly not  least... 

I was emailed by Julia Dweck last week to review a book of hers that's soon to be released. {Can I just say how honored I feel to do a book review!} Julia, is also a teacher along with being a published author; you can find more of her works at www.juleloves2write.com. The book she shared with me is Blucy. {Note, the following views are my own, and I am not being reimbursed for these views}.

A brief synopsis:  Mandy is looking for a pet at the pound, and she finds the perfect one. A little kitten the girl names Lucy, but something is different about this cat! This feline can turn the blue, thus the cat is dubbed Blucy (blue + Lucy) and the book follows the cats antics. Mandy and Blucy make quite the pair. 

Julia's text reads in an almost sing-song way. The rhyming lines add some fun to the text, as she plays with the text structure. Erika Lebarre did a fabulous job in her illustrations as well. Even with the low-resolution files I was given, the illustrations still bring that element of whimsy that perfectly accentuate Mrs. Dweck's words. At the end of the book there are even trivia and fun activities too.

As I was reading, I was wishing that this text had been printed last year. For one of my reading intervention groups, there was a young lady who loved anything to do with cats. I think that this book would have been fun to take apart in little passages to do some work with fluency. That student would have ate it up.

The book could also be used as a launching point for a writing prompt. What if you actually turned different shades with emotion? What if your pet had the ability to change to a different color? What color would it change to? How would changing to these colors make your pet react in different ways? These ideas are just off the top of my head, but I'm thinking with as imaginative and fun as this text is, it could be a launching point in some way.

If you'd like to pre-order the book you can do so here: http://ow.ly/n3nxq.  It's on pre-sale until 8/12 and go live for sale on 8/13.