A Snowy 5 For Friday

It's been a while since I've gotten to link up for Five for Friday.  Today I get to since I am home for a snow day!

We have had so many snow days this year that I have completely lost track of the number!  I mean seriously...we have missed A LOT since December.  I think we have been out more than we have attended school.  It's been bad, folks.  

This is what it looked like Tuesday when we called off school. Where's the snow??  The weatherman was calling for enough snow in the forecast that school districts were calling school off before we even saw a flake.  The snow did come though and with it freezing temperatures.  Not sure when it will melt.  

I have been trying to be productive while I have been enjoying these days off this week!  RtI is beginning to start up again soon and I have some small reading groups who need some extra work on their fluency with letters and short vowel sounds.  

Students can build letter fluency by rolling the monster dice and reading that row of letters.  These will work well in a center or for RtI intervention groups. There are lower case, capitals and mixed letters.  Add some fun pointers with the sheets and monster dice and the kids will love building their letter fluency!

Students can also track their progress with the data graphs.  As you all know, I keep lots and lots of RtI graphs!  This will be a great way for the students to take some ownership of their learning.

I also made the same type of activity for short vowels and chunks.  My first graders this year had some struggles blending the sounds together in chunks.  This will help those who are finding that difficult and have a lot of fun while doing it!  You can click the pictures to check them out!

I passed my cake decorating class!  Well, okay...everyone passed.  A group of my teacher friends took the class together.  We had a blast!  But I will say it was a lot of work making cakes and cupcakes each week and making batches and batches of icing.  None of us are experts yet, but we are getting better.  I didn't get a picture of my final project.  It turned out okay- cake with white icing and yellow roses on top.  I brought it home and my boys immediately dove in!

Is this not the coolest treadmill??  My treadmill broke and it is wayyyyy too cold to be walking outside right now.  So I am looking for a new one.  I would love to have this one, but I am not willing to pay for that.  I have put a flat surface across the handle bars on my old one so my computer would sit there while I walked.  I seem to need to have something to do if I am on the treadmill and the tv sometimes just isn't enough!  

I've got a question for you all.  I have some funds that I need to do some shopping for at my school.  I want to allocate a chunk of these funds for the classroom teachers.  First and most importantly, I want to get them (or actually have THEM choose) sets of books for their classrooms.  They need new books!  With the push of more informational text, we are lacking enough good quality materials.  But besides the sets of books, what else for literacy would you ask for if you could get them?  Technology will not be covered with this money, I am being told, so it has to be something else besides iPads or computers.  Besides the books, I was thinking kid magazines like Time for Kids?

I have even thought of these Fountas and Pinnell intervention kits for the upper grades.  But I don't know enough about them.  Those of you that have them, are they scripted?  I don't like programs...is it materials with some direction on how to use them or is it a program to follow? 

Help me out if you would!  What would you like me to consider if I were spending some funds for your school?  Thank you for the help!!