Apple Slices

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Still frozen

A birthday treat one of our students brought in! 
I LOVE birthdays 🙂
We are still stuck in below freezing weather.  It hasn’t reached above 32 degrees since December 18th!  Eeeeek!  As I write I am curled up on my couch with a delicious coffee, a cold mixture of emergency, and am decked out in my most comfortable pajama pants!  It is ONE degree out there.  ONE!!  Holy cow, that’s cold.  Now, I know it could be much worse.  And I know I shouldn’t be complaining.  I do love me some puffy jackets, chunky scarves, and snuggling on the couch with a perfect {chilly} reason to not go anywhere.  But my spirits were lifted when I woke up and checked out our weekly forecast. 
 


Brrrrrr
 You see, like I mentioned in a previous post, one degree means our students are stuck indoors.  No outdoor recess.  No break for the teachers.  No sanity for anyone.  Whatsoever.    I really do love my class and am grateful that I am stuck indoors with these wonderful kids.  They make me smile each and every day.  But I still am hoping for a quick break from them.  I’m hoping that the freezing weather trend will reach its’ end this upcoming week, as it looks like it may!  Woohoo 37 degrees!  Heat wave!
 
While we’ve been stuck indoors, I’ve been trying to make the most of our time in the classroom.  I feel truly blessed to be at my school.  I have a fabulous co-teacher this year.  Without her, I would be drowning.  Simple as that.  She started out as a student teacher and turned into a co-teacher/ in house substitute when needed.  PTL!  She kindly offered to lead this upcoming science unit.  It’s all about the human body and body systems.  Soooo not my thing.  But {absolutely} her thing.  So on Thursday she had all the students get into small groups and trace their bodies onto butcher paper.  They LOVED it.  I always forget that 5th graders need to draw and color too.  We plan on having students fill their “bodies” in with the different systems as we’re learning about them.  I am hoping I can learn a thing or two during the unit too 😉 
 
 Students trace and cut out their bodies to kick off our unit!
 

As we march our way towards March, we get closer and closer to the beautiful Colorado state testing, known as TCAP.  I made an effort to start doing small TCAP-y things at the beginning of the school year so that I wouldn’t feel so concerned and nervous right now.  But, nonetheless, I’m still feeling that yucky, anxious, feeling that comes with this time of year.  I trust my students and know they are capable of doing amazing things on the test- it’s just hard to think that one test on one day in March has such a large impact!! 

So, on Tuesday we took some time to play a little review game, Jeopardy style!  I pulled together some review problems for Reading, Math, and Science, as well as some Random Knowledge type questions, just to keep them on their toes!  The questions were each assigned points- 100, 200, 300, 400, or 500.  And students were divided into 3 teams.  They had so much fun pushing each other to think deeply and correctly answer the questions.  I’m hoping to make a game Review game for all 5th grade teachers, so be on the lookout for that at my Teachers Pay Teachers store! 

Happy Saturday!  Here’s to a long weekend 🙂

XO, Kelly Anne