Outer Space and Football

Can you believe it's already the last week in August!?!?! While we have had a great 3 full weeks of school so far, I must say that I am looking forward to the long Labor Day weekend coming up.

This week we focused on our solar system with our expository text "Exploring Space with an Astronaut".  Let me talk about how much I LOVE integrating Science and Social Studies into Reading!! Our skill this week was "main idea and details", so I found lots of solar stystem books from our local public library to put in our classroom for the week. I used this one for a read-aloud:

It was perfect for main idea and details because each page had one fact/detail which went great with the graphic organizer. After the read-aloud, the students worked with a partner to list 4 details and the main idea of the text. 

graphic organizer found here

I also found this great main idea game that my kids LOVED!

There are 4 sentences strips in each bag - 1 is the main idea and 3 are details. As a group, they had to decide what was the main idea of the bag and write it on the recording sheet. They all  had to agree on the same main idea before writing it down. I had one designated person from each table be the "messenger" to bring me the bags and get a new one for their table-which worked great for no arguing/ fussing over who gets to take the bag! For the most part, all the groups worked great together and everybody finished. Yay for cooperative learning! 

In Science, we made a model of the order of the planets in the Solar System. I had to explain that the planets are not actually lined up like this, but they are actually orbiting the sun-the center of our solar system. They have really soaked in all this space knowledge like a sponge. :) AND we get to continue our study next week with a new reading story!

you can see the working buddies made their appearance again today :)

We also started our "Star of the Week" for the first time, so it was fun celebrating a sweet student this week. I can't wait to do it 19 more times with each of my sweeties! 

Now, for Friday and that long weekend.........

Shawn and I will be cheering on the Alabama Crimson Tide in Atlanta for the Chick-fil-a Kickoff Game vs. West Virginia. Here are a few pictures from last year's festivities:

Hubs (fiancé at the time)

Best friends/bridesmaids

if we go to the ATL, we gotta make it to a Braves game!

See you guys after the long weekend!