5 for Friday & Holiday Meals

Happy Five for Friday!

I'm linking up with Kacey to share about the week:

I've had a difficult time taking pictures this school year. For my weekly round-up posts, I often reflect and look at my camera roll for all the captured moments. This year, there have been many wonderful moments, but they don't all lend themselves to being picture-worthy. Please bear with me!

Here's what happened this past week:

This was simply magical! These five buddies were hard at work during Power Hour (Guided Reading) and I had to snap a picture for evidence :)

We switched up our Power Hour groups after completing our latest round of STEP testing. My new group consists of about 3/4 the same students (as our first round), plus a few new. 

We had a WONDERFUL week of learning together. If you have been following me this past school year, you will realize the significance in this! 

I will write a longer post this weekend detailing how I'm running my Guided Reading groups and combining Leveled Literacy Instruction, Shared Reading, and our new Power Hour Challenge:

The sensory box continues to be a HUGE hit. We had the "Frozen" box all week while we used resources from my updated unit:

Frozen! A Wintry Mix of Math and Literacy Activities

It was so fun to see my students explore. One student was all about the jingle bells (every single time!) and another student couldn't get enough of all the "sparkle." I think my sensory box pictures will always be blurry - I really try to focus, but my students are ACTIVE!

 I'm also linking up with the fabulous Style Me Bloggers:

This week is all about our favorite holiday meal.  Okay, this may be tough...and I can explain. Although I'm a total foodie, I do subscribe to the "food is fuel" theory and eat accordingly to stay healthy and meet my fitness goals. Soooo, recipes and cooking meals (that would be considered share-worthy) doesn't really happen. We travel to the beach for the holidays. I always book a flight right after the last day of school, so I wake up at my usual 4:00 am, workout, go to school and teach, then head to the airport! By the time I reach Florida, I'm pretty much ready to eat anything I can find ;) We stay at my in-law's beach house and every year, my mother-in-law (♥) sets it up for us to walk into a winter wonderland - literally. We walk through the door and there's holiday music playing. There will be Christmas cookie platters displayed with our names, gift baskets for each of us with carefully chosen- items ("snackies"), and a refrigerator FULL of meals. Can you see why it's my most favorite time of the year?!?  My favorite holiday meal is whatever is awaiting me at the beach house :) We also go to the Don Cesar every year for our Christmas Eve dinner.

Counting the days!

Although I don't prepare any special meals, every year I do make Christmas Fudge to bring to holiday parties. Here's a throwback post sharing more about this:

An InLinkz Link-up

Please follow the linky to see everyone's holiday meals!

Have a fantastic Friday!