Five for Friday

I have been seeing this Five for Friday linky going on for a few weeks now and decided that this would be the Friday that I link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and join in on the party.

Here goes my Five for Friday:

 1. We have been doing our district benchmark testing all week..well Tuesday through Thursday. It seems that all the teachers and kiddos were wound tight this week. I guess that is what benchmark testing does for everyone. Just wait until the end of this month when we do our comprehensive test...talk about wound tight!!! Anyway...because of this testing, I only got to pull my gifted students on Monday and Friday. Boy...did I miss them!!

2. So....my Monday and Friday groups are the only kiddos that I had in my classroom this week (I had to administer tests to one of the 4th grade classes along with the 5th grade science test). FUN!!! YeaH!!!! Annyhow....we have started a unit on Australia and I decided they would do some aboriginal art painting...........on rocks!! Do you know how difficult it is to find a decent sized rock in the Mississippi Delta? NOT EASY!!!!! However there were a few found and this activity was a huge success. Just take a look at the photos. (These are from my Monday group's rock paintings...they are 6th grade).

Didn't they do a fabulous job on this activity? These kiddos really seemed to get into it!!

3.  I tutor several 3rd grade students in Reading after school two days per week. I still get so excited when a student shows improvement in their reading. This little sweetie started with me reading on a 1.9 grade reading level. I haven't tested her to see where she stands at this particular moment. But she began with me not being able to read a lot of the sight words. We are now using phrase cards..(yes...the ones that I have in my TpT store) and when we started using them she was only getting about 18-20 phrases in a minute. This week my little sweetie has managed to consistently swing 40 phrases per minute!!!! Woo Hoo!!!!

OK...I took this photo on Tuesday after the tutoring session...and forgot to take another one after Thursday's session...but she hit that 40 mark on Thursday as well!! I am so proud of her!! She has really been working hard!!

4.  At 3:30 today....I will officially begin my spring break....what am I doing during my spring break you ask? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!! Yeah right! I am sure I will be cleaning and decluttering. That seems to be what I do every time I have a little time off from school. But...that is alright with me. I really am not going anywhere.

5. I am putting this one as my #5...because I will enjoy a fabulous dinner with my sweet hubbles tonight to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. NO...today is not the actual date...that would be next week on the 14th....However, the hubbles will getting chemo on that day and we have opted to celebrate tonight!

What is your Five for Friday??? Come on over to Doodle Bugs Teaching and link up with yours!!!!

Dee