Five for Friday: Time flies when you're having fun!

Well, it's Sunday now, but I wanted to participate in my first Five for Friday.  So here we go, a couple of days late!

My homework this weekend: Scholastic Reading Club, Highlights, and Puzzlemania orders.  Yes, on Friday of the first week of school, I sent them all home!

I send home book order forms the first week of every month.  They're due the second Friday, I place the order online that weekend, and we usually get the books the third or fourth week of the month.  Reading is IMPORTANT, and I want my kiddos to have books they want to read at school and at home; Scholastic helps me provide both.  Win!

I also send home (and make "due") the Highlights and Puzzlemania order forms as soon as I have them both.  Highlights gives awesome class prizes for signed forms - whether they're orders or "No" responses - but it takes them a while to start the children's subscriptions.  I send them home as early as possible so the kids start getting their magazines as early as possible.

I carefully clip the forms so the parents can see both titles.
On the back, I have the pink "Please sign and return!" stickers and my signature.
My pink note on the front helps ensure the forms come back!

Spelling (Words Their Way) starts next week.  After giving the spelling inventory, I determined that I'd have four spelling groups, which would be way too many if I didn't have a paraeducator in my room for 30 minutes four days a week.  She'll be working with one of my spelling groups, so I think I can manage four this year.  Fingers crossed!

In class, we will do lots of word sorting and pattern hunts.  We'll also use these spelling packets from Kayla Meikle.  She has made them for most (all?) of the Words Their Way sorts at each level, so all of my groups can do similar practice work in class even though their lists are different.  

I'll start next week by leading them through one activity in their packet each day (we do a 2-week spelling cycle).  After the first packet, they will be allowed to complete their word work each cycle independently.  (Yes, these spelling packets fit perfectly into the Word Work time of Daily 5!)

My kids have LOVED Amy Lemons' Spin On! Math stations this week.  No pictures to show, but we'll definitely be doing more of those next week - so maybe I'll remember to take some pictures then! :)

Okay, so the next two aren't school.  That's okay, right?

I grew tomatoes on the deck this summer for the first time EVER.  The cherry tomatoes came first:

And they were delicious.

I ate a dozen or more for lunch at school every day for quite a while.

But now they're done. :(

The green pepper plant produced ONE decent-sized pepper:

I swear it was bigger than it looks here.

It was easily the BEST pepper I've ever had.

But now the "garden" is done, and I'm wishing I had more of those veggies for lunches!

Okay, this one just seems silly, but I promise, it's awesome.  See, our master bathroom has mirrors covering two entire walls (THAT took some getting used to!) and so the only place to hang a clock in there is on the wall opposite one of the mirrors.  So, of course, it's usually backwards, because we're usually looking at it in the mirror.

Enter the red-framed novelty clock from Five Below: 

See, the white-framed friend is the normal clock whose hands run clockwise.  The backwards clock runs backwards - counter-clockwise (which is kind of weird to watch) - and keeps perfect time.  So now when we look in the mirror, we see the correct time without having to think about it:

It would be absolutely perfect if the numerals were backwards too, but I can live with it. :)