Five for Friday!

Hooray!  It's the weekend!  There's only one more week of school left before our Spring break - I can see those two weeks of glorious rest and relaxation on the horizon.  Before I get too excited about that, here's a glimpse into what's up with me this week. :)

We had lots of fun this week using one of Marsha's freebies - Dinosaur Bone Diggers!  My plan was to grab some sand from the sandpit and mix it with some pebbles we use as counters for the kidlets to dig in, but when I arrived at school on Monday it had been raining so we used our rainbow rice instead.  Kidlets took turns to dig up a card and read the word, deciding if it was a real or nonsense word.  

As with all of her resources, Marsha has allowed for this one to be differentiated - one of my groups worked on CVC words, while the others read CCVC/CVCC words.  I love this activity as a way for kidlets to practise their 'sounding out' skills.

When each group came to me for their Guided Reading time this week, I introduced a new reading fluency game!  We l-o-v-e these as a way to warm up to reading, or as a fast finisher when we're done. We had lots of fun reading 'Magic E' words with 'Hey Presto!'

As usual, the 'freebie' cards (in this game, a rabbit in the magician's hat) were highly prized, but we had lots of fun calling 'hey presto!' when the magician had made our word (and as a result, all of our cards!) disappear.  The top photo shows me winning - the kidlets love it when I join their game and especially when they beat me! :)

Speaking of 'sounding out' and reading practice...

...I saw this pic on FB and it made me giggle, just because I can relate so well!!

Twelve days into Spring and the weather here has certainly warmed up!  After school this afternoon the lovebird and I went on a long beach walk and then enjoyed a drink on the patio.

To get ready for my morning on the beach tomorrow as soon as I've finished this post I'm off to paint my nails Essie 'Plumberry'.

I love this colour for warm weather!

Thanks for sticking with me through a pretty random Five for Friday.  Happy weekend, friends! :)