Five For Friday {January 15}

I'm linking up with Kasey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly Five for Friday linky.

Last week I introduced the new "research center."  My kiddos love it!  I put a small table with 2 stools out, a basket of pencils and crayons, some nonfiction books related to our theme and graphic organizers.  The kids are encouraged to visit the center to read and write about what interests them.  I'm excited to see all they discover as the topics change throughout the day.

We have been using Deanna Jump & Deedee Wills' Guiding Readers units since November.  I love that they engage my kiddos and help them grow as readers.  We have loved our 2 January stories thus far: A Snowy Day and Snowmen at Night.  

Prompt: Have you ever made something that did not last?  Write about what happened.
Response: "My playdoh did not last because my brother left it out on the table."

We also used A Smiling Teacher's Pattern Block centers.  My kiddos love anything with building and games.  This week we made the snowman to go with our reading of Snowmen at Night.

We broke out our Dash robot from Wonder Workshop as well.  I had students work in partners for their first time with this.  Working on Tynker and the app "The Foos" prior to pulling out Dash was certainly a benefit.

Our theme this week is outer space.  One of my kiddos requested to learn more about space.  She chose a friend and we learned about constellations by reading a book about constellations.  The girls then chose 3 constellations and drew them on the outside of a large box.  My student teacher took a string of lights and poked them through the box to create the 3 constellations inside the box.  I printed photos off Google images of each constellation.  Students took turns one at a time going in the box to "view" the constellations.  

Thanks for catching up with my kiddos and I.  Have a great weekend!