Halloween Happenings

Can I just say PHEW? I think this afternoon teachers everywhere let out a big sigh of relief after the school day was over. I loved today, we had so much fun but PHEW I was tired!

After doing Daily 5 as usual we got to work on our haunted house writing. I am loving this project! Today they added their detail sentences, being sure to have at least one adjective in each sentence. They were so creative. "You will love my pointy spiked furniture." "At night you can sleep in a spooky coffin". I even played some spooky music in the background while they wrote.

Then, my assistant and I decked the room with orange and black. The kids had NO idea what we were doing. It was cute to listen to them try to come up with what we were going to do.

I brought in a pumpkin and we estimated and then counted the number of seeds in it. It was funny watching them put their hands inside the pumpkin - they thought it was so gross. There were many sound effects added. :)

I split the pumpkin seeds up into groups and each group made piles of 10 to see how many seeds they had. They did a quick folded paper activity to show their number in different ways - number, number word, ten sticks and ones, and expanded form.

Then we used base ten blocks to practice regrouping and added up the totals from all of the groups. We are just starting to learn 2 digit addition so this was perfect! Our pumpkin had 457 seeds!

For a fun treat, we made spider cookies using oreo cakesters, twizzlers, frosting, and m and m's.

If the kids weren't excited enough I let them play pin the nose on the pumpkin. This was a dollar store find and it was fun!

When they came back from specials each kiddo had some goodies on their desk. The bag of candy was from a sweet assistant who works with one of my students. She was so kind to make them each a little goody bag! I also made a bag with a Halloween joke book (from the Teacher Wife), vampire teeth (the parents will love me), erasers, and some rings.

I wish I had a picture of what the classroom looked like at the end of the day - it was such a mess! I spent a good 30 minutes simply sweeping, vacuuming, and cleaning up all of our activities. Days like today are exhausting and messy, but well worth it!

The Teachable Moment + A Freebie!

Today I had an opportunity to go with the teachable moment. We are hard at work on our Haunted House for Sale writing project. Today we talked about the topic sentence and how important it is. I told the kids that if their topic sentence wasn't interesting and exciting, a potential buyer probably would not take the time to read the rest of their ad. We brainstormed some great topic sentence ideas such as "Are you in the market for a new spooky haunt?" or "Enter my hideous haunted house if you dare!". Then I set the kids free to write their own topic sentence based on their haunted house. In the middle of their writing I had a fantastic idea!

I grabbed my "witch" and "zombie" fingers that we have been using as pointers in reading groups and put them on all of my fingers. Then I told the kids that once they finished their topic sentence they needed to bring their paper and sit on the carpet. I took the role of "monster/zombie/witch/ghostly ghoul" and each student had to come up one at a time and read their topic sentence to me. I, the scary creature, then would tell the writer if I was interested in their house our not. If I was interested that meant their topic sentence was great and had lots of details. If I wasn't interested they had to go back and rewrite it or add details until I was interested. They LOVED it. We were all giggling. I made sure to use my best scary voice and say things like "Come here my pretty!" or "Silence Urchins!". We had so much fun and their Topic Sentences were awesome! They really are starting to become dashingly delightful descriptive writers!

In more teachery related news, I have a freebie for you. I made a fun Halloween Family Project for the kiddos to take home next week. I figured with all of the candy they are collecting it would be great to incorporate some graphing and math! I added a few Halloween writing pages I found on TPT but you could also just add some fun Halloween stationery with a simple prompt such as "What did you dress up as on Halloween?". Hope you enjoy! Click here to download your copy. I'm making mine completely optional but it could also be great homework for next week!

Bookworm

Today I made a risky choice. I went into Barnes and Noble. Might not be a risky choice for most people, but as elementary teachers we know that the children's section can be a very dangerous place! I had some time to kill before meeting a friend so I let myself have some book browsing time.

It never amazes me how MUCH I love reading new children's books. I had an awesome Children's Lit professor (hey Beth Frye) who really made me love children's books more than I already did. She always challenged us as teachers to expose our students to high quality books and be readers ourselves! I find myself giggling when I read brand new children's books at a bookstore.

I found a few titles that I had to share. I only let myself buy the following 2:

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet by Diane DeGroat - I love Diane's books. Gilbert is such a lovable character that I think all children can relate to. He always learns a valuable lesson in each book. I didn't have this one yet, so I decided to add it to the collection.

Thank You, Sarah by Laurie Halse Anderson - This is a completely new one to me. The book tells how one woman helped make Thanksgiving a National Holiday after years of trying. There is so much history weaved into this book it would even be great for much older children (and adults) to read as well.

This last book I did not buy but I REALLY want.

Lucy the lovable and very excited bear is back in another fun story by Peter Brown. I originally wrote about one of his books Children Make Terrible Pets in this post. You Will Be My Friend was just as much fun! The illustrations are vivid and fun and Lucy is hilarious! I'm hoping the school library gets this one so that I can read it to my kiddos!