Five for Friday... and it's Friday!

I truly enjoy joining this fun weekly linky, but once the school  year begins I usually don't find the time to actually post on a Friday. I sometimes don't make it until Saturday or even Sunday, and I often miss the linky all together! This week, ha! For whatever reason I had photos and the time to put my post together on Thursday night, in time for an actual Friday post! YAY!!!

ONE... One of our Friday rituals is Flashlight Friday. Last Friday was the first time that this year's crop of fifth graders took part. They LOVED it and have been begging to use the tiny lights during the week. Gotta love kids who get excited at simple things!

TWO... I am not a cook. I can cook, but I don't care to cook. My idea of cooking is five ingredients or less, no real recipe, and virtually no prep time. Crock pot cooking meets all those criteria. This past week  I made a family favorite and had my niece and her family over for dinner. This recipe is so simple: layer tater tots in the bottom of your crock; layer diced boneless chicken breast over the tots; salt and pepper, then layer shredded Colby Jack cheese over the chicken. Repeat until the crock is full. On top of the last layer of cheese, spread a pouch of REAL bacon bits, and pour milk over the mixture until you can just see the milk along the side. Cook in the crock for 8 hours on low. YUM!

THREE... Speaking of recipes, we had a recipe for a wonderfully successful science lesson... The Chemistry of Lemons. My sixth graders learned how to use litmus paper and test lemon juice for ph level. They then added baking soda at periodic levels and tested several times again until they turned the juice into a base.  Great fun, great learning!

FOUR...I LOVE music! I ALWAYS have a song or melody floating through my head. I walk to a beat, I rock to a rhythm, I dance in my chair... all unconsciously! However, I consciously add music to my lessons as often as I can. Learning tough academic content via a song helps information stick much quicker and more easily than an hour of plain studying. This week we learned two big chunks of material via songs: The books of the Bible in order (all of them) and the Taxonomy levels for Carl von Linne's Classification System. Here my sixers were taking a bit of a brain break while dancing and singing the books of the Bible song. Such fun... AND all twenty-eight kiddos know the books! Interested in the video? Here's the link: https://youtu.be/ixMvFdeo-F0

FIVE... I am the Gadget Queen, or at least that's what my friends call me. I have loads of fun technology toys and am often on the lookout for the next, new gadget that I can add to my arsenal. One of my favorite gadgets is a small, security-style web camera that I purchased on Amazon that I call my Kitty Cam. I can peek in on my two fuzz girls during the day, even talk to them via the camera. In this shot, I've just called to the girls. They are sitting, listening to me talk to them. They looked so cute that I couldn't resist taking a quick pic, another feature of the security camera.

Be sure to stop by Doodle Bugs Teaching to read loads of fun posts about teacher bloggers. It's a great way to get to know the folks behind the blog!