passing notes & yellow pants day

Someone has been passing notes in class lately. 

This little someone is pretty sneaky too. 

I found this note on my desk one afternoon. This note came at just the right time ~ just when I was feeling a little frustrated and blue.

This little Shakespeare has left me several other notes as well.  All have some sort of sweet message. Today he requested to learn cursive soon.

In other, unrelated, news. One day the kids were coloring a series little of pictures that related to neighborhoods that they would later cut out and glue on a worksheet.  The Artist comes over to me and tells me her strategy for coloring these pictures. She explained that she used one color at a time, coloring everything in all the pictures that needed that color.

I told her what a great idea she had.

A little while later she showed me her work again and declared, "Look, it's yellow pants day!" Sure enough, all the people in the pictures had yellow pants.

Awesome!

     

columbus day

Columbus Day didn't sneak up on me like it usually does. In years past I have hastily read a book and done a worksheet or two to settle my guilt of forgetting Columbus Day even existed until a day or two beforehand.

This year, I was on top of things because we started our Columbus Day activities last week. My kids are slow pokes and we just finished. Sweet, yes. But definitely slow pokes.

Good thing we started early.

We watched a movie and took a movie quiz for a listening grade. This little activity confirmed my worst suspicions ~ these guys don't listen so well. They hear me alright, but listening? Not so much. 

The main thing we did was get into groups to read about Columbus and find important facts. After they researched for a couple of days, they wrote an informational paragraph {just 5 sentences this time}. Then, they made this adorable craftivity from A Cupcake for the Teacher.  This was my example.

They look so Columbusy & festive! Not everyone is finished just yet, but we left room at the bottom for them.

I love how even though they essentially all did the same thing, they each came out just a little different.

I told them to glue the writing on first, leaving a little bit of a black border all the way around. This little monkey clearly doesn't have the listening part down yet.

Or the neatness part.

Gotta love the stripped pants and shoes though.

This boat is obviously experiencing some rough seas! Nevertheless, Columbus is stylin' in his stripped coat.

Overall, the kids did pretty well on their first little research project. Most were able to write the five sentences I requested. But we do need to work on what is a super important fact and what is merely interesting to you and no one else.