Five for Friday ~ April Fool's #2

OK, I know it's April 8th, but does Mother Nature?? We've had rain, sun, snow, sleet, rain, snow, sun, rain, snow, sleet, snow, rain, more snow... All TODAY! Seriously! What is happening???

This is what the Weather Channel says our overnight/early morning forecast looks like. Ahh ~ April in northwest Indiana! Tomorrow my daughters & I are participating in a "Chocolate Walk" downtown. Twenty + businesses will be giving out chocolate delights. I can't wait ~ but I wish it was warmer.

I love picture books! I'm a serious picture book junkie. I can't go into Barnes & Noble without coming out with a bag of them, my Amazon cart usually has several of them every time. But, there is nothing better than FREE picture books! This is my latest haul. My order came in the same day that we got our freebies from the book fair (our PTO runs three book fairs per year & they let teachers order books based upon the sales. This year we each got to choose about $120 worth of books, so I got a bunch of hardcover books).

Do you use interactive notebooks? I really hadn't until this year and I love them! So do my students. They provide engaging practice of important skills, and because they are in a notebook the kids can go back to refer to them as needed. Below are some examples of my CVCe interactive notebook. 

I like how the little cutie labeled this page as a "book about lazy e and not lazy e." :-) 

Click HERE to purchase my CVC & CVCe bundle.

It's Science Fair time again! In the past few years participating has been required. The primary grades do grade level projects ~ we do my Watching the Grass Grow project. It has all the elements of the scientific process, is easy & cheap to do, and the kids have fun doing it. Here are some pictures of my Kinders working on their observations. I created our display board the first time we did this project and kept it so we only have to plant seeds & print out the booklets each year. It's a pretty easy peasy science fair project!

Differentiation! The little darling on the left is typing her observations on an iPad using the Super Duper Story Maker app. It's a great app that lets her create stories and write responses with ease. 

Click HERE to purchase.

I've started to revamp some of my older products. I've learned so much about creating products, making things look nice, and what to include in products since I've started selling on TpT. This is a before & after shot of one of my very first products. EEK! It didn't even have a cover! When I created it I didn't own much clip art or fonts so my products weren't as cute. This freebie has been download well over 1,000 times in its old form. Hopefully the new version will be downloaded (and rated, please) even more times! Check it out HERE.

BONUS!! Recently we took our darling Amelia somewhere nearby for the day ~ can you guess where we went? The picture clues below include: Amelia on a John Deere harvester, at the wheel of a big ship, sitting on a trolley, and the attic of a Fairy Castle. One more clue: we were in Chicago. Leave a comment if you know where we were. :-)

In addition to the regular displays we took in an amazing Lego display. There were some incredible structures, but this replica of Cinderella's castle was our very favorite creation. 

Now be sure to hop over to Doodle Bugs Teaching to link up your own Five for Friday. Have a great weekend!