Five for Friday: Last Days of Summer

My mind is definitely starting to gear up for school again! My to do list is getting longer and I am ready to start lesson planning! Will started orientation yesterday and he is officially in school mode, but the boys and I still have another week and we are going to enjoy it! :)

{one}

The beginning of the week I wrote about some of my favorite wordless books and how they can build inquiry into your writing block! Click on the picture to check out the post!

{two}

My parents came over from Georgia and we went to Charleston for the day! It was great to be in the ocean. The water was perfect. The boys loved it, but Liam comments a lot on how his eyes hurt at the beach! ;) 

Doesn't this look capture it all! Total JOY!

{three}

This has been the summer of games! Games are great for building number sense, building problem solving skills and using lots of social skills to learn that losing is OKAY! The last two years we spent a lot of friday afternoons playing games to help my first graders learn those skills too! Sorry is Alex's favorite, but we were taking a break from that game to play candyland!

{four}

Alex was disappointed that the summer reading challenge was over, so I made him a new chart using his favorite number-100! I have no idea what the end prize will be, but I thought it was a fun way to build in some number concepts too.

Liam wanted his own chart, but he is not quite as organized as his brother! First he had to fill up the stars. That is totally his personality though. Alex is much more structured and Liam has more of a free spirit! ;)

{five}

Everyone needs some freebies to help them as they get back to school! This is a fun measuring activity using nonstandard units. It is simple enough that kids can work at it independently, but it still provides lots of formative assessment! I have found that when setting up my workshops it is best if the kids have activities that they can work at independently and take up some time so that they understand what the process looks like without having to come up and ask a ton of questions. BUT I don't like busy work and lots of worksheets either! This is the perfect activity to keep them engaged with a hands on activity! Click on the picture to download it!

Hope you all enjoy your last day of July!
Head over to Kacey's blog for more Five for Friday fun!