Halloween! 

I've always loved Halloween, both as a child and an adult. My childhood memories are filled with memories of cold trick or treating nights with best friends, candy counting and trading with my little sister, and my mom and her best friends getting into fabulous costumes to take us out in the neighborhood. As I got older and "too cool" to dress up, my Halloween nights became full of shaving creaming each other, silly stringing, and watching Thriller in a friend's basement. It never got old. My husband and I got into the spirit last year, had a Halloween party, and dressed up as Fred and Wilma. 

I find it so very fun to be able to relive Halloween through the eyes of children every year at school. When I first started out working in a special education department as a teaching assistant, I organized twenty staff members into  "Where's Waldo" themed costumes. I always try to get my grade level team members to get into the spirit. Where's Waldo has come in quite handy in school. This year, our entire faculty is dressing as different EMOJIs! The fifth grade team decided to be the smiling one with heart-eyes. Here I am before the kids arrived:

We managed to get through all of the lessons I wanted to get through this morning (we have a LONG morning), and so we were able to get a little festive and have some fun. I threw on some favorite Halloween music and we got to work making masks:

We also had a party - how adorable are these treats the parents provided? I can't get enough of them!

Of course I also had a reading comprehension and math activity Halloween-themed packet ready to go for the entire class. 

The afternoon is our Halloween sing-a-long and then parade.

How'd you celebrate with your class?

Wow! It's been over a year since I last posted here. And A LOT has changed!

For starters, I finished my 1-year leave replacement in the district I worked in last year. The building and district could not place me anywhere else, so I was forced to go back on the job interview circuit.

After a grueling 4-month interview process, I landed my dream job in my dream district, teaching my dream grade level.

Not a lot has changed for us personally, we've been settling into life in the suburbs and are looking forward to our second Christmas in our house. Some friends have bought houses close to us, and it's fun "adulting" along with them.

I'm currently brainstorming a way to make this blog be more interactive with my students. I haven't told them about it just yet, but I would like to use it with them. Yes, I can make it  a place for the parents to reference for announcements and to see what we're up to in our classroom, but that doesn't make it interactive. I would love any ideas or feedback from anyone who has done this before! It is unchartered territory for me, but I think it is something my school would embrace and enjoy. I would love it to be an accomplishment I can bring to them and show off!

Anyway, a little bit about my class. I teach 18 adorable 5th graders in a general education setting. They are little rockstars. They have great strengths and work hard through their weaknesses. Every day they teach me something new. We have fun during every lesson, and it is such a joy watching their little minds at work.

I survived my first back to school night in the new school, and the parental support is amazing. The entire fifth grade created their own "selfie profiles" - they included some personal information information as well as goals for the year. They were so sweet to read and the kids loved them!

We're about to begin a reading unit on fiction. We're currently in the middle of our memoir unit in writing, and they are going to be deciding on a memoir to begin the writing process with this week! They are loving it. We've read some really great mentor texts throughout the unit. You can get a glimpse of them here:

The Dot has always been, and will forever be a special book to me. It is my go-to book for demonstration lessons, and has helped me land my last two jobs. It also happens to be an awesome read to help explain and support lessons about growth mindset. If you haven't read Mindset by Carol Dweck, stop everything and do so now. It is amazing what making a few small changes in your thinking and vocabulary can do for your classroom.

In math we reviewed multiplication and division, and have moved on to our unit about fractions. I love teaching fractions and I think the kids can see that. There are so many ways to get them up and excited. We started the unit by thinking about all the things in our lives that need fractions. We made a bulletin board full of them. Here are some samples: Fractions!

We're wrapping up our microscope unit in science, after having studied all about the history of microscopes, how to use them, and then all about cells. The kids loved labeling plant and animal cells and figuring out how they are alike and different.

As for our read aloud, we just met Albie in Absolutely Almost. This is my third year reading this book and it is always very well received. I love it as much as the kids love it.

Tomorrow is Halloween, and our entire faculty is dressing up as different emojis. The fifth grade team is doing the emoji with the eyes as hearts. I can't wait to see us all dressed up. Hopefully I'll get around to posting some pictures. Here's a sneak peek:

I am going to try really really really hard to keep this blog more up to date, and continue to brainstorm ways to use it with my class. Please comment below if you have any suggestions.

Don't forget to check out my Instagram page: MrsFranksClassroom to see what else we've been up to in fifth grade!MrsFranksClassroom

Happy Halloween all!