5 For Friday {October 31st}

The week began on Saturday when some of my BC blogger friends got together for a Meet Up in Vancouver.  It was a great afternoon of chatting and laughing.

Front far left and going clockwise:  Elyse (Proud to Be Primary), Terri  (Terri’s Teaching Treasures) Nicole, Barbara (Gradeonderful) Addie (Addie Education) Me! Charlene (Diamond Mom’s Treasury) our special guest from Seattle Rachel (Minds in Bloom) and Susanna (Whimsy Workshop Teaching) .

I finished a project I was working on to try and stream-line the Genius Hour process:  Genius Hour Interactive Notebooks. Woot!  After doing our Passion Projects last year, I designed a notebook to keep the inquiry process on-going.  It should make the whole organization of it much more fun and easy.

Well, you know, it’s Halloween!  Our school decided to do the Thriller Skeleton Dance in the gym before our Halloween parade so we practiced this week. They loved it! Unfortunately, I was sick for the end of the week so I didn’t get to do my Halloween writing centers myself and I missed all the kiddos’ costumes today. 🙁

We were supposed to get Tropical Storm Anna which was a big deal because we don’t often get that kind of weather. Well Anna didn’t come to the party but look what showed up!  We don’t get rainbows very often either. This is a shot right outside our staffroom window. Awesome!

That rainbow inspired a new project I had been thinking about for a while.  I created My Happy Place. It’s a little “office-like” space set up for students to go when they would like to give kindness to someone in the form of heart notes or bucket filling or to receive kindness if they are feeling down.  It’s also a self-regulation station where students can identify how they are feeling that day.  (Too fast  and unfocussed like the rabbit, too slow, tired and unfocussed like the turtle or just right like the cool cat.)  There are self-assessment right on, wipe off papers and brain-break type ideas for slowing down or energizing if that is what the student needs or a mini-daily goal idea for students that are just right and ready to learn! I’m excited to finish this up tomorrow. It should be posted by late afternoon at TheWriteStuff on TPT and I will be giving one away on my Facebook page so stay tuned! You can follow me there to be first to know about new products and giveaways.