Five for Friday with a Friday FREEBIE

I can NOT believe that it is Friday already! Where does the time go? I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for...

This has been an INTERESTING week...

Monday started out with beautiful fall weather, sunny and warm but not stifling. We got new mentor sentences in all my classes, continued reading our books, received new spelling words, learned about the kingdom of fungi, and just had a great day!

Then Tuesday rolled in with sweltering temperatures. My room had to reach at least 90 degrees Fahrenheit. PHEW! Beyond hot... Do you know how nasty a room full of sixth graders can smell when they get hot? YIKES! They were even complaining. I couldn't wait to get home to air conditioning.

Wednesday was even hotter! I am in a classroom that was totally refurbished when we moved into the building last year. My ceiling was lowered and new lighting was installed. It is beautiful and the sound quality in the room is awesome; however, there is no air circulation and the hot air has no place to rise. I do have a fan that on normal hot days dispurses the air around the room. Not on HOT days though! It might as well have been turned off. Our wonderful janitor tried to help out by bringing two BIG fans upstairs. He placed one at the end of the hallway to help draw the hot air out, and he placed one outside my door to blow cool air through my room. It worked a little, at least near the front of the room. I had the kiddos sit at their seats for a quick lesson, then move their chairs near the front of the room, near the circulating air, to do some practice with the lesson. Back and forth all day. We made a game of it. The only problem was that the fan was LOUD! I couldn't wait to get home to the air conditioning AGAIN. Except...

When I got home, I decided to do some laundry... so... down to the basement I went.... and smelled gas. Uh oh! I decided I'd better call the gas company... sigh! They came, checked out the smell, and discovered several small leaks along my gas line in the basement... so, they had to shut off the gas until I could get it repaired. This is now past five o'clock and no contractor was available until Thursday... double sigh! I have no hot water and no way to cook until this gets repaired. I MUST stay home on Thursday to make arrangements. OK, call the secretary to arrange for a sub and BACK to the hot box school I go to get things ready... triple sigh! I was already taking Friday for a personal day. Thursday was my day to get the kiddos where I wanted them for the sub activities.... REVISE that plan. Two hours later, I drive back home, wringing wet from all the sweat because the fan was no longer outside my room. My a/c at home never felt so good!

Thursday was spent waiting for the repairman to arrive, then waiting for the repairman to finish, then waiting for the gas company to return, inspect, and reconnect my gas.

While I was doing all this waiting, I kept busy with teacher stuff. First I made a brand new set of brag tags. I forgot how much fun using these as behavior incentives can be. I used to use them years ago but then I got tired of them. I was reminded of them by seeing them on Pinterest and a couple of blogs this past spring. My kiddos this year are lovin' them and working really hard to earn them. Some wear their tags all the time while others like to hang them in the room.

 My newest set features literary genre. As my kids read independently, they can earn a tag by completing a brief book report for the type of book they finish. There are 17 different genre represented in this set: historical fiction, science fiction, adventure, drama/play, memoir/journal/diary, autobiography/biography, science nonfiction, historical nonfiction, poetry, travel, how to, humorous fiction, realistic fiction, mystery, folklore, fantasy. Click on the picture to read more about them.

I also worked on a "book order" activity for my sixers. Each time I pass out a book order, I have them do some Language Arts related skill drill with it, like searching for parts of speech, particular punctuation marks, verb tenses, and more. Here's my newest one. It's yours for the grabbing. Just click HERE or on the pic to download it.

Friday will be is my personal day so I may visit my former pastor and boss who is still my GREAT friend. He left my town/parish two years ago at the bidding of the bishop when our diocese did a lot or reorganization. I miss him horribly and jump at the chance to visit him whenever possible. I actually wrote this post on Thursday night since I knew I wouldn't get home on Friday until LATE. I can't wait for Friday!

I also can't wait for Friday because of Freebie Friday's hosted by Fern Smith over at Teaching Blog Addict. I've been visiting this site each Friday for as long as I've been visiting bloggyland, and when I started blogging I tried to make sure that I shared a freebie each Friday as well. I've gained much from bloggers who share freely; I want to share in return. That's the best part of blogging and bloggyland. I am so excited to be TBA's featured blogger this week. THANK YOU, TBA!!!! Head on over to find LOADS of great FREEBIES created by teachers like you and me.



Happy Friday,
Happy Teaching,
Angela
The Teacher's Desk 6