Five For Friday Fun, FREEBIE contest, & Mystery Marathon Blog Hop!

FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY YAAAA!!!

Man I just love Friday!

Today, Stacy and I are joining forces for our Five for Friday post! We're so excited to be linking up with Doodle Bugs again! We just love to 'meet' new blogging friends through this awesome linky! 

Numbers 1 and 2 are from me (Colleen) and 3 and 4 are from Stacy. AND thennnnn, number 5 is a big announcement from us both! 

 So get excited and get reading :) 

I don't know about you, but for me, the beginning of this week seemed to drag on forever. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday seemed to be just tough days for my class as a whole. By Thursday, I was exhausted and feeling overwhelmed. When I went to grab my mail on Thursday morning there was a card in my mailbox. When I opened it, it was from my principal! Hand written and thanking me for being a community builder... it turned my attitude right around and really made me smile! There's definitely something powerful and amazing about simple encouragement! 

And then yesterday and today were such awesome days. Today we started the day out with an enrichment program and then my class got compliments ALL DAY! We got awesome compliments from our specials teachers AND in the hallway, a second grade teacher came out from her room and said that she saw bodies moving outside but didn't hear any voices at all and she couldn't even believe how awesome my class was in the hall. YESSSS!!!! Proudest moment of the day! I gave out a class bucket gram to my 24 friends and we packed up and walked down to the office where, every day at 2:30, children who've received bucket grams can come down and sign 'The Book of Names'. Then, one of my students wrote "Miss McBride's class" on a cut out leaf and we all walked out to a wall in the entryway of the school painted with a giant mural of a tree where we placed our leaf. I SO wish I had pictures of this... it was special. The kids really loved it. And I was so proud of them! 

I've been waiting for a good time to post about this... but a couple of weeks ago, when school started, my 24 munchkins and I learned about this special group of people called the 2nd grade expert club! If it's not obvious by now, or you don't know yet, I'll tell you again... I'm basically obsessed with everything that Lyndsey from A Year of Many Firsts makes. This phenomenal idea was from her We're Back For Seconds pack and I would highly recommend it!

First, I introduced the members of the expert club: Responsible Ryan, Ready To Learn Robert, Respectful Rachel and Really Safe Rita. We spent time talking about what it meant to be like them and how to be responsible, ready to learn, respectful and really safe. I then explained to the kids that the 2nd grade expert club contacted ME and told me they needed more members and they wanted my 24 kiddies to apply because they heard that my class was the best second grade class in the world! I told my kids that if they could model for me that week that they knew what it looked like to be members, we could apply.

So... we applied. And I took the applications to the post office, and I had them mailed back to the school sent them to the 2nd grade expert club! When we got them back, the excitement in the room was amazing! I told my kids that we needed to see if we were approved all together! So I had them cover their eyes with their hands so they couldn't touch and I handed out each of the applications face down on their desks. When everyone got one, we did a little drum roll and then opened our eyes, flipped over our papers and saw that we were approved! There were cheers, high fives, fist pumps and smiles and it filled my heart big time! Just observe the pictures above... amazing!

We still talk about the expert club all the time and I often remind my friends to model for me 2nd grade expert behavior! They also have tons of questions about the club. Their biggest question this week... "Miss McBride, at the end of the year can we take a field trip to meet them if we're really good and behave like they told us to allllll year?".... Welp kids, we'll just have to see about that one won't we.. :)

 And now for some news from Stacy in the Reading Room!

I was really excited to start my second grade groups this week.  The Reading Tutor and I will be targeting ten students that were identified with weaknesses on the fall DIBELS and Fountas & Pinnell assessments.  I always like to start off the year by having the students complete a Reading Inventory to get a sense of their feelings towards reading, interests, and dislikes.  This year I used a FREE Reading Interest Snapshot from A Rocky Top Teacher.  It was quick and easy for my students to complete. 

I was relieved when the majority of their responses looked like these.......

And concerned when I had responses like these.....

Yikes!  I'm definitely going to spend more time with the last little guy building his confidence while trying to bring back that love of reading!  I was actually VERY surprised that this particular child wrote this response.  He is one of my quiet students that always seems to go with the flow.  It confirms the importance of surveying students at the beginning of the year because you may not have a true sense of how their feeling.  My assumptions were WAY off on this one!

I had a second "ah-hah" moment when I completed my "Good Fit" book lesson using A Year of Many Firsts' FREE Daily 5 Classroom Resources.  First, I used the shoe images to emphasize the connection between choosing the correct shoes and the correct book when reading.  Boy!  They were rolling on the floor when I asked them to visualize me shoveling a foot of snow in my high heels!  Second, we brainstormed what we thought makes a book a good fit while I modeled different scenarios (easy read, difficult read).  I concluded the lesson by giving each student a basket of books to see if they could independently choose a "Good Fit" book.  I purposely chose titles that were significantly above and significantly below their actual reading level while mixing in a few appropriate titles.  Can you guess what the majority of my struggling readers chose as their "Good Fit" book?  THE FIRST 2 PEOPLE TO COMMENT BELOW WITH THE CORRECT ANSWER WIN A PRODUCT OF CHOICE IN OUR TPT STORE!  DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE YOUR EMAIL!

And finally!! Our big finale! 

Grab your calendars, friends!  From Friday, October 25 through Sunday, October 27th, we will be co-hosting a Mystery Marathon Blog Hop with Carla from Comprehension Connection!  Approximately 25 Reading Specialists and Literacy Coaches will be featuring a spectacular adventure where participants will collect clues to crack a mysterious reading code which unlocks some FABULOUS FREEBIES AND PRIZES!!  Jump on over to Carla's blog and read this post to take a sneak peek at the bloggers who will be participating!  I bet you will recognize a few faces!   

TGIF, friends!  We hope you have an awesome weekend!!