Where's Brutus?

In this busy time of year, my favorite principal called this the "home stretch" until state testing in May.  With teaching fifth grade, I have to admit we don't do many cut/paste activities any more.  I used to do more of those types of activities but in the age of pressure for state testing I am sad to say I have let go of those activities. But there is one activity I did not get rid of... Where's Brutus? For those of you who might not know who Brutus is? He is THE OHIO State's mascot.

I introduce prepositions every year with reading the picture book, Where's Spot? The students look at me like I have gone crazy, and they don't have a clue why I am choosing this book to read aloud after lunch. As we discuss the sentence structure, they notice the use of prepositions to hide Spot. It is a great mentor text for my students to then write their own page of our class book, Where's Brutus. They not only write their sentence but most of the fun comes from being their own illustrator and creator for our fun flip book.  Here are some examples from this year's book.

Can you guess which rock Brutus is hiding under?

Look at the amazing art work in the bakery-wow!

Here is Brutus hiding in the dressing room at Hollister.