Five For Friday 4-24

Happy Friday :) I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! 

I had lunch with a group of students this week to celebrate some of their teamwork as a table. I love having lunch with some of my colleagues because it’s a special time to enjoy our friendships and have some adult time. However, it was really sweet to have time with just 4 kids. We were able to just chat without feeling like we need to press on with our instruction and play kid games they love. So often we are with our 25 students at one time – Sometimes its so fun to relax and enjoy the children in small groups or one on one. It really reminds me of how much fun it is to just “be” with 7-8 year olds and play with them as a part of their world.

My sister-in-law is graduating from college in just a few weeks. She will be teaching 3^rd grade in the same district as me! I’m starting to get together a graduation gift for her. So far, I am getting her First Day Jitters and Have You Filled a Bucket Today?  The tough part is, she is teaching a Dual-Language class, so I can’t find all my favorite resources in Spanish. I found a Teacher’s Devotional that will hopefully comfort her spiritually through the challenges she might  will experience. Any other recommendations?

Something I started doing in my classroom last year that saves me a lot of time and parents seem to find really helpful is a daily email message to parents. It was an idea of one of my colleagues. We spend the last five minutes of the day writing a short email where we send home (in numbered format) 3-5 highlights from our day. I add any special announcements there might be. The students really enjoy it, and it takes me 5 minutes at the end of the day to reread or fine-tune my writing. It saves me from sitting down one evening per week to write a lengthy newsletter, and I find that parents really read it and enjoy it.

A friend shared a verse with me this week that I thought I would share with all of you:

I am such a person that likes to plan my life and if things aren’t going as planned, I am very quick to take matters into my own hands, re-plan and try to go after whatever it might be to get things to work out as I think they should. Sometimes in life there is nothing we can physically do to change situations around us, but there is much we can do spiritually – trust, pray, hope, and find peace in God’s presence. I trust that God puts us in these situations to increase our dependence on Him, and for that I am thankful. I feel blessed to know God cares about my needs and will provide in his time.

Make sure you come back to visit my blog later this weekend… Teach Talk Inspire so kindly nominated me for the Liebster Award! I am so honored! I will be sharing more information about my blogging experience and even better… I am able to nominate 11 outstanding bloggers that you will definitely want to check out!