A Teacher's Heart: My first Five for Friday!

This week flew by and we weren't even in school that much! Here's my first five for Friday post...hopefully the first of more to come!

Last weekend I finished my first run of 2015. I was super happy with my time, and even happier that it was a Valentine run with a chocolate buffet afterwards! It gave a whole new meaning to the expression "Will run for chocolate!" I'm looking forward to my March run for St. Patrick's Day...now if the weather would just cooperate a little better....

Speaking of the weather, thanks to President's Day, snow and single digit temperatures, we've had approximately 1.5 days of school this week. I'm not complaining, but it will be nice to hopefully get back into a normal routine next week! We managed to get in some President's Day activities and keep working on subtraction in math. I used some of the pages from Ship Shape First Grade's free download (below) and put together a little packet for my students to work on. It was perfect because the week was so short and unpredictable that we were able to work on it a little bit at a time. Their Abraham Lincoln writing turned out so cute! I was really pleased with how they responded to my picture book read alouds and put together a few sentences of their own!

Really not liking the whole canned template thing of this blog right now. Maybe that will change soon...just sayin.'

Ash Wednesday was this week. This year for Lent, I'm following Matthew Kelly's Best Lent Ever. Basically, you are emailed a short reflection, quote, or video to reflect upon every day. I'm trying to get into a better habit of starting my day off right before heading off to work and the kiddos, so hopefully this will help. I really like it so far.

(I also made broccoli cheddar soup on Wednesday following a "Panera knock-off" recipe, and it is delicious! I did not make the bread bowls however. Maybe another time!)

I'm reading the book The Daily 5 and hoping to start implementing it soon...maybe next week if we actually get back to school! I've known about the Daily 5 for quite some time, read about it a lot and known that I want to take my classroom in this direction for awhile now, but with being new to the grade level there were just other things on my plate that took precedence. I know I am late in the year starting this, but we're going to give it a try. I really appreciate the time that is taken to build in the classroom management piece. It looks like it will take some time to get going, but once it is implemented successfully it will be worth it...especially for planning and management! Do you use the Daily 5? What would be some advice you would have for someone just starting out like me?