Spiders Everywhere!

 The kids recorded this information on a brace map.  They are reluctant writers this year!  I keep trying to think of fun ways to engage them but...we will keep on writing!

 They thought they knew a lot about spiders!  We did learn some things I did not know.  I DO NOT like spiders and when I read a book with real spiders in it, I would try to concentrate and just look at the words and NOT the pictures!!  I did love the fiction stories with all the CUTE spiders however!!

This glyph is in Deanna Jump's spider unit.  It has SO many great ideas.  Mrs. Shelton also found lots of good spider activities on teacherspayteachers.  I will take pictures of them tomorrow and add as soon as I can.

 This is a tree map where the kids recorded things about owls.  They really liked talking about nocturnal animals and the owl is a very interesting animal.

Mrs. Jordan's class created this adorable owl tree in the hall way.  She saw the idea on Pinterest and did this in her room.

Owls

We read lots of books this week about owls and bats and other nocturnal animals.  We did the activities in Deanna Jump's owl unit.  You can buy it on Teacherspayteachers.  She is amazing!  It was a fun week.

Literacy tubs and BUILD math stations

 This is matching upper case to lower case ABC's and clipping them together with clothespins for our ABC tubs.

 This is writing with crayons taped to a car for a novel way to write your name.  The kids loved driving their names.

 These are games we played for our book club.  The clothes pin games have been around for a while!  Anyone recognize them?

These were two games for fine motor skills.  The kids were supposed to build according to a pattern.

 I added a new space on our BUILD where two students work with me.  I love seeing what they can do close up and personal.  It can be a real eye opener.

This is B-books about math.  The kids in one spot are "reading" books about numbers.  The other group is reading and coloring a book about shapes.

These are U-using manipulatives.  The kids had not seen these this year so they were excited about using them.  They made patterns and used their imagination to create something in the other group.

I is for independent work.  The kids sorted the little erasers in an icetray.  The other set was placing the flat marbles on the number line and counting them.

L is for learning and using numbers.  There were a couple of different games the kids could choose from.  They had to put the correct number of monsters on the number pumpkin, count the harvest vegetables and put the correct number scarecrow and put the right number hat on the monster matching the dots.

Doing Math was a bingo game that matched shapes and sorting 3 D figures.  We have not talked about 3 D figures but I wanted to see what they already know.

 Mrs. Cargile's class estimated what the circumferance was on there pumpkin.  Six people got it right or pretty close!

 These are Mrs. Jordan's scarecrows.  This is a home project and the parents always do an amazing job with this kind of activity.

 Mrs. Voss's class made 4 season trees and they are adorable.  The snow is glitter and it reminds us it won't be long until we have snow!

Miss Alkire showed her kiddos how to make a poem using the circle map words that described a pumpkin.  Her kids are all great poets.

Nocturnal Animals

 We talked about what it meant to be a nocturnal animal.  Then we had to decide which of these animals were nocturnal and which were not.  When you lift the flap, the answer appears...yes or no.  The kids recorded the correct answer. 

 We talked about bats and then decided if we were afraid of bats or not.  The cute little bat is from google images.  We watched Magic School Bus-Going Batty.  Also the Haunted House video has a lot about how sound travels.

 We filled in our schema chart with lots of information about bats.  I learned a lot about bats this week.  I think I am still afraid of them however!!

 This is our pumpkin today on Thursday.  He is starting to wilt and has a little fuzzy stuff inside.  I told them I was going to put him in the jar below.  I sat him on top on the jar and he did not fit!  They thought that was pretty funny.  I cut him up and he all fit except for the top so now we will watch him decompose.

Halloween Day

 This is a table where I had several games laid out with instructions.  Unfortunately, it didn't work out where the parents would choose a game and the table of 6 or 7 would play it.  There was not enough time to really explain the concept and the 2 parents were a little overwhelmed with the whole class, I think!

This is what the other 3 tables looked like before kids!  Each table chose a design and the parent at that table tried to copy it to the pumpkin.  The bowl is to put the seeds in and the circles are for counting the seeds.  Each circle is supposed to have 10 seeds then count the circles to see how many seeds there are in all.  I was lucky and got the pumpkin with the smallest number of seeds.

             We guessed what the circumference of the pumpkin was.  I think some of the kids got caught up in who could get the longest string...and didn't think about the pumpkin at all!

 I wonder if this pumpkin HATES this place as much as I do!  We guessed how much it weighed and then weighed it on the nurses scales.  I was tempted to step on but resisted the urge!

 Courtney's dad helped carve a pumpkin at one of the tables.  He is letting the kids get the guts out!  It is slimy and they loved it even though they were saying, "Ewwwww!"

 We had a great day outside and the kids got into two teams.  I put a monster eyeball (gum) in the spoon and they raced to the picnic tables and back in a relay race.  Everyone won!

These are our three pumpkins.  The parents that helped will take their pumpkin home for Halloween tonight.  I am going to cut mine up and let it decompose as we observe what it looks like.

Monsters

We talked a lot about monsters this last few weeks and how they were make believe.  We played monster games and used monsters in our language.  The monster pictures and stories were all cute and not scary looking.

 We sang this song about monsters.  We had to add s to the end of the word monster when there was more than one.  We also had to change he to they so it would sound right.

 We read a cute book about a monster named Rosie who had great manners (but not for a monster!)  At the end of the story, Rosie saved the day by using her manners instead of yelling and grumping so her parents realized that it is good to be nice after all.

 This was a cute book on Deanna Jump's blog.  I think I remember that it was a free download.  It tells how to treat a new friend at school...even if he looks a little different.

This is a song we sang about a friend.  It goes to Bingo.

There is a friend that we all know

and Frank is his name-o!

Then we sang the letters.  With each repetition, I covered the letters with a sticky note.  The kids got really good at clapping the pattern.



This was a lot of fun to created a Frankie.  The kids are getting really good at reading glyphs.