Currently Five for Friday

April fools are we! Lots of QUICK stuff to share. Using as few words as possible today– except for number 3! I am linking to both Oh, Boy, It's Farley Currently and Doodle Bugs Five for Friday because this month the first is also a Friday!!

1.  Currently...

2.  We started Flashlight Twosome Tuesdays.

My kids come in every morning (except for Mondays) to independent book reading time. You can see what our new theme for Tuesdays is. I hunted everywhere for cheap but heavy duty flashlights. I found some at the dollar store but their plastic was very brittle and I thought they wouldn't hold up to kindergarten use. I was happy with these Ray-o-Vac LEDs from Menard's and they were only two bucks, made of tough plastic, and just the right size for kinder purposes. They even have a strap to put around wrists just in case somebody lets go. I decided we'd always do partner reading with them so I could buy half as many. Big Hit. Tuesday is our new favorite day!

3.  Mo News  If you look closely at those photos you'll see that the kids are reading from our Mo Willems bin... er, bins. I'm sure I don't need to tell any primary teacher just how wonderful Mo Willems' books are. Whether it's Knuffle Bunny, Pigeon, Elephant and Piggie, or his wide cast of other book characters, they are all fantastic! He ranks with Seuss, Henkes, and Lobel when it comes to capturing the myriad of human emotions using a cast of characters which include mice, frogs, toads, pigs and elephants. How do they DO that??

Although I love all Mo books, Elephant and Piggie stole my heart in their very first book, which I bought four copies of before I knew the complete E&P title list would include twenty five books in all. My own collection has over 40 with the many duplicates. Not only do the E&P stories hold great humor and interest for kids and adults, they are early readers, too. I wait until this point in the year each year to introduce Mo's work so my kinders have enough beginning reading skills to truly read E&P. Once they've heard the stories, are reading with a partner, and are HIGHLY motivated to read these books for themselves, they all CAN read the books. My two huge bins of Mo books stay out for weeks and the kids pour over them again and again. They become very fluent and add great expression– not that that is difficult with Mr. Willems' books. Reading at it's best!

And now here is some sad news... sniff. The LAST Elephant and Piggie book is coming out May 3. Yep, the. last. one. sob. The Thank You Book will be the twenty fifth and final book in the collection. Do you have them all? Here's a handy graphic from Mo Willem's blog.

I printed it out, and even though it was a little fuzzy my kiddos could put ours in order (yet another literacy activity to do with the books...There are tons!) and we found we were missing one! gasp. I remedied that fast! We are all waiting to get our hands on the very. last. installment of the E&P adventures. This year's class fondly shortened the books to that nickname, by the way... we are very into initials. Get with the lingo, baby. Click on that E&P gallery picture above and you'll go to Mo's blog on his website. If you haven't visited in a while you should because there is new stuff. Oh, and here's a photo of just ONE of the many activities we do based on Mo's books. This year we added a "Don't let the Pigeon...." fill-in-your-own-idea sentence to the hat. I made this hat up, but you can google and search Pinterest for MANY more activities. We *puffy heart* Mo!

4.  One. more. day. to enter the giveaway! Flashlight Press has been kind enough to donate a new hot-off-the-press book for my first ever blog giveaway.  And you could win... no. really you could. Just CLICK on the picture below and scroll down the post and you'll understand why your chances are very good. And hurry!

Click to find Giveaway!

5.  And for those of you who got this far, a funny for you.

My class just wrapped up a How-to writing unit, and my guys were experts on lots of things. For some reason though, taking sequential steps gave some kids trouble. For example, making a PBJ went from spreading the peanut butter to eating the complete sandwich... with no mention of anything in between.  I spent more time this year than most years demonstrating the idea of step-by-step and acting out the actions as they wrote them so they could see the parts they were missing. SMALL steps became the focus of many lessons... when you teach they do learn.

I had to bite back a chuckle as he read to me. For those who are not fluent readers of kindergartenese–

How to Go In My Room
First, open the doors.
Next, take some steps in the room.
Then, you might want to take some more steps.
Last, you're in your room.

Yep, he really got it!

Click on back to the Currently linky by scrolling way UP there to the Currently pic. And click on Five for Friday below to see more Fives. Thanks for hosting Farley and Kacey!