poetry in coop's class

So we have been working on poetry all year....

reading, memorizing, reciting, connecting to, writing about, 

drawing about, and using poems to hunt for great language.  

Now that testing is upon us I wanted our writing to be a bit 

of fun and a bit of different....bring on poetry!  

These kids are amazing....they have no fear 

and love to share what they have created too!

We began with what we already know about poetry...

Then, each day we learn a new form....

W even have a fun poetry tree where students can hang up their poems....

During computer lab and COWs we have been publishing our favorites...

This one cracks me up....."ketchup not allowed"...

Oh and I love the candy poems.....we are reading Candymakers by Wendy Mass right now!

Here is my favorite, do you know why?

Tomorrow is our first official testing day....wish me luck!

dress like your teacher day

So.....Friday was dress like your teacher day at school....

How cute is this?  Notice the jean jacket and tons of bracelets.....of course I only wear my jean jacket with a cute dress or with khaki pants.....but she got it!  The apple and coffee crack me up!  Love seeing how I look through the eyes of a third grader!

what i'm lovin about wednesday

Hi boggy friends!  

Hope you are having a great week!

Can you believe it is Wednesday?

So here is what I am loving today:

My super cute wreath given to me through the teacher blogger pinterest exchange...

You can check out all the cute items that teacher exchanged at the teacher blogger exchange blog

http://teacherbloggerexchange.blogspot.com/2012/04/pinterest-exchange-linky-party.html 

while we were working on some test prep I noticed what one of my kids drew on the front

of this fun packet....I think we all feel like this about "the test"!

Also loving my brand new silver crochet TOMS....and dreaming about some wedges for mothers day....

  

Reading the Lucky One....in preparation for movie night with my sister on Friday!  

Super excited about my newest iPad app....splash top and my cool stylus....thanks to our fab tech!

And of course....I still love my Hey girl......

found some new ones that I plan to send to my grade level...

I wish the above one was true....I am released once a week from my classroom

to hold SST and 504 meetings.....why do they get so crazy at the end of the year?

  

50 followers!

Woohoo.....

I hit 50 followers today!

So awesome that I have 50 boggy pals who 

enjoy listening to my tales of multitasking 

mom and teacher...

Thank you so much for all of your lovely comments!

Here is the cutest moment happening right now....

I hate to disrupt them.....but it is almost time to pick up Caroline and go to swim lessons!

Happy Monday to my 50 followers....

Date night...at home!

Today I am heading back to school....so glad that I got up and ran this morning, but I am thinking about what an awesome date we had...in our home over the weekend!  


My hubby works super hard at work and at home....he never quits really and I felt that he needed a treat!  I found a couple of recipes on Pinterest and I went to town....

This was an amazing meal...I have NEVER cooked a filet mignon but I will do it again....it was TOO easy!  

I covered both sides with Kosher salt and ground pepper, then seared it in olive oil and butter over HIGH heat for a few minutes per side.  Then into the oven for about 10 minutes...or to your liking of redness/pinkness...it was SO good!  

Then, on the top was a butter compote with fresh parsley, thyme, garlic, and lemon zest....it melted into the steak....YUM!  The twice baked potato was easy too, but I have done that before.  

Must pair it with a good Cab....the bottle of wine I got at whole foods was ridigulously good!  I am going to have to pick this up again sometime...pricey but well worth it.  

We played some Dave Matthews in the background and my littles watched a show and had a dinner date with a TV tray in the back room....they were good!

Look at this cuteness!!!  Wouldn't you make him a nice meal too?  

This is a picture we took at the A's game over spring break....he got us free tickets and signed himself up to work OT (he knew he would enjoy the game more, lol).  We ended up in a luxary box....it was ridiculous!  What a fun game!


Summer is just 9 weeks away.....how many weeks do you have until summer???

Cinnamon Rolls...LOVE!

So the tradition in our family goes...when it is your birthday or a special holiday we have yummy cinnamon rolls!  They are not from that can you whack with a spoon....they are truly from scratch....well almost!  Pillsbury has an amazing Hot Roll Mix which helps with all that silly measuring etc....but you do have to knead, let them rise, mix, roll up, cut, etc.  My children begged me all week for these and I finally made them today!  They are really pretty easy and take about an hour from start to finish....

You can pick up this mix at your local Safeway in the Baking Aisle

Dough resting under the bowl after I kneaded it for five minutes...

Roll out the dough and then layer with softened butter and a cinnamon/sugar mixture

 

Roll up the dough into a log and then slice and place these yummy morsels into a greased pan, then they have to rise for 30 minutes....during that time I usually clean up my mess and wash up the dishes!

Bake for about 18 minutes...then take them out of the pan immediatley to cool for five minutes.

Drizzle powdered sugar/milk/vanilla mixture over the top and voila!

Here was my yummy breakfast today!

Look how happy my littles are!!  They LOVE these!!!

12 on the 12th

 Fun....I am linking up with Kacey at doodlebugs....here are some pictures about my day...

1. Breakfast in bed...made by my sweet hubby...what a treat!
2. My pup Hank, peering over the bed while I ate....hoping I would share!
3.  Took a family bikeride to starbucks...I road with Caroline (my youngest) most of the way....kindof like riding with grandma, but fun!
4.  My three littles enjoying some hot cocoa!
5.  Spring cleaned a bit today....took the eggs out of my cute little holder that my mom gave us for Easter and put some lemons in, looks fun on the kitchen table.
6.  Blogged about the Expert Books we wrote before spring break (which means this is my 2nd post today, but I really wanted to join this cute Linky)!!
7.  Took my littlest to gymnastics....so fun to watch her wave after each trick...making sure I saw her in action!
8.  Helped my oldest to rearrange her room so that she has more places for her trinkets....cleaned out the closet and turned our old changing table into a great shelf for her....she is so EXCITED!
9.  Dessert!
10.  Catching up on my soap opera while eating and drinking (#9 & #11)!
11.  Ahhhhh.....my favorite end of the day treat while blogstalking!
12.  Gonna finish this up (our book club book for April) before I go to bed so I can get on to reading the last book of the 50 shades of Grey series...I thought I would have read a WHOLE lot more over my spring break but I guess summer is only 9 weeks away!


Go ahead and link on up with Kacey....this is such a cute idea!

Expert Books

We just finished up our unit on Expert books (also known as All About or Informational books) and I thought you might love to SEE what they look like!  I was so excited at how engaged the children were....ALL of them....with this writing unit...if you would like a copy of the unit/mini lessons please leave me your email in the comments section and I will send it your way!

The following pages are from the two books pictured above...the students chose a topic they knew a lot about and then wrote several different types of chapters using different formats of writing.  They had to have a persuasive, narrative, and "how-to" in their book.

 I have one student (who normally isn't as excited about writing) that wrote 12 chapters and then asked if he could take home more paper and work on other chapters over our spring break...that is so AWESOME!  Below are my anchor charts if you didn't see them before and again, please let me know if you want a more detailed copy of the unit/mini lessons!  

 After break we are going to work on our editing skills as we think about using writing strategies/conventions in our state test prep packets...I am going to throw in some poetry reading and writing to mix it up a bit!!