Pumpkin Week!

Our Pumpkin week was placed at a weird time... because of the way Halloween fell, we had to do Pumpkin week as the last week of October and the first week of November. Whatever. Pumpkins are good for November too.  We just roll with the punches, right?

So, we actually did our Pumpkin Day on Monday

We made our Pumpkin Books so we could use them Monday. Usually, we work through them all week and then end with the Pumpkin day, but we did the opposite this year.

We had 5 stations going on....I am so thankful for the 3 volunteers that came that day to help out!

We did some weighing and measuring the height ...

We did Pumpkin Snot 

Pumpkin Stem.... that was fun, but we needed A LOT of the candied pumpkins.

and we did a Roll-a-Pumpkin. 

They turned out SO cute!! 

I got this idea from my teammate, who also happens to be my daughter's teacher. Of course, she's FABULOUS.

She said I could put it all in a file and share with you. You'll love it - it's so fun!

Click HERE to download the Pumpkin Day activities!

We ended our day with the Orange Day Snacks (or pumpkin day snacks!)

In the crockpot, there's some seriously good Pumpkin Bread cooking. Here's a good recipe I found for it.

We also did the cute Spookley craft from First Grade Blue Skies...I made the writing paper to go along with the reading response. 

and THEN, we did this SUPER cute idea from Finally in First.  We made our own Spookley Pumpkin Patch. They turned out SO cute!! I did a quick review of the different 2D shapes and showed them how to draw them, freehand.  I gave them a few different options for colors and they freehand drew the shapes. I gave them some green to make their stem and white to make their eyes. I am just so in love with them!!

I created a writing paper for them to write about their pumpkins, describing it - the color shape, if it was happy or scary, etc. 

Click HERE to get the writing paper.

We also did some fun with Little Boo. 

Little Boo is so cute! He's one of my favorites. 

The kids did some more with summarizing. 

This paper comes from my November Literacy Center pack. 

And we got our Family Projects hung up!! (and have actually started getting November ones turned in - I can NOT believe it's November already!)

Next week, we'll be doing a little bit of election and a little bit of Seasons. It's a short week, so we'll see how much we get accomplished! Happy weekend!

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Halloween Week

Happy end of the Halloween-Full-Moon-Week, friends!! Whew! We survived!!

Not sure how I did it, but we got through a TON of things this week.

For one... we did some activities from Deanna and DeeDee's {Guiding Readers pack}. I did Creepy Carrots this week. The kids just LOVE this story!

We did some Cause and Effect with the story, too.

Our listening centers was Crakenstein (from {DeeDee's Listening centers} - this one was from 2014-2015 set).

Our other centers came from my {October ELA center pack}. I have them for 2nd grade too!

We did our district math test for about 3 days straight.... so on Thursday, we did a "break" from math. We did Deanna's non-tracer Frankenstein craft from her {Halloween pack}. Little did the kids know, they were still getting a math lesson - there is great math vocabulary! AND I made a 2-D shape recording sheet to add to the craft.

Keeping with the Frankenstein theme...we did Jennifer's {directed drawing} of Frankenstein. 

They came out soooo cute! I mean, c'mon. Kids need to be kids, right?! These activities are full of "listening and following directions" so they are still academic. But sometimes, kids just need to draw!

We also did Frankenpudding, an idea I got from {Cara}. and every year, I recruit my husband to draw the face...because he's THAT good. haha. poor teacher husband, right!?

But the kids always love it.

We also did some of Megan's {Little Green Witch Unit}

I had a volunteer come in and it was a perfect lesson for her to do (she needs to get in some student-teacher hours) because the kids already LOVED our {Little Red Hen unit}, and so they were really able to make the connection with this book.

Then, we did the summary pages. We didn't do ANY written planning page...they did this summary ALL on their own without looking at a planning page!! I call that a success!!

We also had to make our monster hats. Our school was doing a school wide Reading "Competition" and the last day of the month, we would be having  Monster Mash to celebrate all the minutes our school read! So I opted for party hats (after all, it was a celebration, right?) and googly eyes and pom poms. They could make teeth if they wanted....or just do whatever they wanted with their hat. All them. and they came out pretty cute!

We also did our How To writing for the week - How to Scare a Cat! We talked about topic and closing sentences, which they could "steal" from me, but they had to come up with some of their own ideas for how to scare a cat! You can find the writing and craft (and other activities) in my {Scaredy Cat, Splat pack!}

annnd...now I'm gearing up for a Halloween filled weekend with the family!

Happy Halloween! Here's a little Halloween Treat for you!

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Scaredy-Cat Splat

One of my favorite books to read during "Halloween Week" is Scaredy-Cat Splat!

Of course, I do - we do a week of Splat in the beginning of the year, too! 

(Check out that post {HERE}).

Last year, I made a few activities to do with my class, but never got around to making it "share-able" because life was beyond crazy around this time last year!  So this year, I sat down and finished her up!  It's pretty similar to my Splat the Cat unit {HERE}.

There are reading response activities and writing extension activities.

And I got my crafty bug and was able to finish up the cat craft for it.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to use the paper to hang with it, or the pumpkin...Or both! ha!

Check out this pack {HERE}.

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Pumpkins, Bats, and Endings

I've been super busy getting my house ready for my mom to come visit! Yay!! I've also been decorating a little bit for Halloween....

I finally made myself do the Boo! pumpkin craft that's all over pinterest.... I pinned it HERE over a year ago...probably 2 years ago now.  Sp I busted out my trusty cameo and black vinyl and got to work...

Here's the final product...

I'm so glad I waited to do it - because I'm seriously obsessed with the new KG font - Melonheadz!

I also did a little decorating...

Not much to it...but it's something at least...

And we also baked one of my favorite can of pumpkin recipes!

Seriously - one can of pumpkin puree, one box of cake mix (chocolate or spice cake)...mix and bake! I did a post on it last year, check it out HERE.

Now...for school planning - not NEARLY as fun, but hey, it's gotta get done.... 

Last night, I spent some time printing, laminating, and cutting out my newest phonics pack...

 

We're going to be doing some changing Y to I skills next week, so I made a little diddy....

In this packet there are:

-Teacher Notes
-Kid-Friendly poster to explain the rule
-16 word cards WITH the suffix
-24 word cards WITHOUT the suffix, making the students sort and figure out how to add -es to the end of the word.
-3 different word sorts: whole group, independent/center work, and correct/not correct words - with writing extension 
-Read the Room - different varieties
- ABC order
-pyramid words
-word configuration
-a word search

The skill in this pack is only adding -s or -es to words that end in Y, not -ed or -ing. 

Check it out at my TpT store

And last week, we've moved from doing Spiders to doing Bats....We started it on Thursday, I had my sub do more of it on Friday, and I'll be continuing it this week.

I've actually spent some time updating my Bat Literacy unit...

Included:

an antonyms center - 3 different options - matching, concentration, or read the room. I have also included a poster for defining antonyms to put at the center.

a parts of speech center - with the option to do nouns and verbs or nouns, verbs, and adjectives, with two different types of recording sheets to fit your students' needs. I have also included a poster for defining nouns, verbs, and adjectives to put at the center.

a homophones center - 3 different options - matching, concentration, or read the room, with a recording sheet and the option to illustrate a pair of homophones. I have also included a poster for defining homophones to put at the center.

Spelling Activity with a die

Book Review


Learning about bats:

-Vocabulary and Word Bank Cards
-Vocabulary fold-a-book
-circle map
-tree map
-Venn-Diagram to compare birds and bats with whole group header cards and phrase cards for the students to use - and two different recording sheets to fit your students' needs
-Venn-Diagram to compare birds and humans with whole group header cards and phrase cards for the students to use - and two different recording sheets to fit your students' needs
-Write about it, using the Venn-diagram
-label a bat - two different versions
-word bank
-"I Know About Bats" writing and craft idea (tracers included)

For Stellaluna:

-Somebody Wanted But So (SWBS) - two different version
-"Who is Stellaluna" bubble map
-"Who is Stellaluna" writing

I've added about 35 pages to the pack from its original creation, so if you've already bought it, make sure you go back to TpT, TN, or Shop on the Blog to download it again!

Now, if you've made it all the way to the end of this post, good for you! I'm giving away a Bat unit! Comment below on what my husband and I could dress up for to go to the Halloween party - the theme is famous partners...not necessarily husband and wife, but it could be partners too! Leave your email address and I'll pick one Monday night!

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