Five for Friday: Done with Testing!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday! 

Woohoo! We just finished our last day of State tests today.  I am so relieved that all of this is behind us and SO ready to get back to some (REAL) teaching.

We still have two.full.months until vacation, so it's not quite time to relax.  Here are five things I plan to do between now and the end of June:

1.) Re-design my room, a bit.  Check out this hot mess:

So many things had to come down off of the walls for testing!  Right now, my room is pretty bare.  The desks are back in groups, but we need new bulletin boards up ASAP and a ton of decluttering will take place this week.

2.)  Cinco de Mayo!  I love to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with my students, even if it will really be May 3rd. :-)  We will start working on a (very) mini Mexico unit.  We've been learning about the Mayans for quite a while, but we haven't really studied Mexico at all.  So I made these posters to use for a gallery walk:

I'm going to hang them around the room and have the students walk around and take notes.  The information is very basic and very easy to read.

After they have their notes, we are going to create brochures:

The brochures are going to be so cute!  I let two of my girls pick the line art from Scrappin Doodles and they have been spreading rumors about next week's activities!

Check it out on TpT.

 

3.) Friday Surprise!  I find the end of the year to be really challenging in terms of classroom management.  My students are graduating, so there are SO many activities for them starting at the end of May, but often they lose focus in terms of academics.  This year, I'm going to try something new.  Each (or most) Friday there will be a special surprise to reward the kids that are focused.  This Friday, we will make guacamole! 

4.)  Reinvigorating my reading workshop.  I've been working on new literacy centers for what feels like ages.  I started in February with a basketball theme for March, but they never got completed!  This weekend, I'll get them finished and ready for my kids to get reaquainted with reading workshop.

5.)  Finish Wonder.  This book is all I've talked about lately.  My students are enthralled.  They are SO quiet while we are reading and so empathetic.  We read Via's description of August's face this week and I really appreciated their reactions.  I could see them touching their faces to understand her description.  And no one had anything unkind to say, which, frankly, I was very worried about.  But they listened. 

Enjoy your weekend!!!  Be sure to link up with Doodlebugs to share five random things!