Five for Friday

It's Friday, Friday gotta link up on Friday. I know a little cheesy right? But its time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly Five for Friday. 

1."This year I'm  expected to teach 30 minutes of Guided reading...no wait I mean literature circles. Heck, I don't know I'm confused." Those were my stressful thoughts at the beginning of the week. Surprisingly enough I was not alone. Luckily, the principal recognized this and provided us with some PD that cleared up some of the confusion. Literature Circles is what you will eventually see in my classroom. However, whether it's literature circles or guided reading LITERACY is at the heart of it all; that is the one statement I walked away with. I'm glad that stressor is gone. On to the next:) 

2. Accountable Talk,  I've heard it, but I haven't heard it. Do you know what I mean? The word accountable talk sounds familiar;  maybe I've read it in a book, on a blog, or heard someone mention it. Whichever the case may be I've  never had it presented to me until this week. It is clear to me now, that I need to explicitly teach accountable talk. Something I had not done in the past, but makes so much since. Next week will be dedicated to teaching accountable talk. Any good lesson ideas you may have would be greatly appreciated. 

3. Edmodo, this year I've planned to use it more often than in the past. I like that I can get PDF documents out to my students.  However, I'm wanting students to submit work through Edmodo and on the iPad the only way for them to so is from their camera roll, and grading the picture of a worksheet isn't working for me. Here, in a few weeks we're going to start using a program called Canvas. Do any of you use this? I'm hoping students will be able to submit PDF's from their iPads. I'd much rather grade a PDF than an image. What ways do you have students submit work from their iPad? 

4. Fourty-five minute class periods goes by very quickly. I teach two fourty-five min. Social Studies classes,  and right now I'm thinking how am I every going to get through the curriculum. I'm open to suggestions on getting the most out of this fourty-five minutes. 

5. Giveaways, I am always hopeful when I enter one. I have yet to win a blogger giveaway, but I'm going to keep trying. In fact,  I want to tell you about one of them, so that I get some extra entries. It is hosted by The E-Z Class, and consist of lots of New Zealand Goodies. I would love to win! I would share with my students; they would think it was so cool to have treats from New Zealand. I've reached 50 followers on Blog Lovin'! Once I hit 100 I'm going to have my own giveaway, so be sure to follow me. 

I leave you with this: It's Friday, Friday go link up this Friday:) Head over to  Doodle Bugs Teaching to link up or read more Five for Fridays.