Hopping into Fall

Before I sum up this week - here's a photo-and-caption catch up on the two weeks before. 

I made good on my promise to make a hopping sight word activity.
 It has been the most popular station three weeks straight.

But others are big hits, too. 

We began our writing journals. The children are GREAT writers. We write 2-3 times a week, with a response to a prompt that is centered on the weekly theme. Two weeks ago, it was all about where we live.

We used Google Earth to find our planet, our country, our state, our city, and then the community around our school.

The students made their own 3D birds-eye view of our town at one of the centers that week. 

We listed some of the places we go in our community. 

And the students could write some of their favorites in the writing center. 

They pretended they were at the grocery store in the math games center
 (Roll the dice, put that many groceries in the bag).

Then wrote about how they really felt about going to the grocery store.

They were encouraged to build an alphabet city in the block center with the foam letters and pegs.
Johannah thought outside the box - she was the first to stack them and make them into skyscrapers. 

And last week.....

 

We learned what made something a living thing versus a nonliving thing. 

Then we played with lots of "pretend" living things in our centers.

 

The students selected a random item from the mystery box...

Then determined if it was living or not living and wrote about it. 

In other news, they made sandpaper letters

built cool towers out of ABC nesting blocks

found new ways to learn the sight words

and another...

Learned a new brain break activity - High Ten, Low Ten ABCs. Ask your child to do it with you!

We had a tattle tale lesson with Mrs. Shoup  (Kaydance is dressed up as me, Owen is the tattle creature...)

And Chloee was the class clown, up to no good!

Then there was a day where we had to be out of the classroom for a few hours
 while they put in our new air conditioning unit. 

So we soaked up the sun

And went through a whole box of sidewalk chalk

And had a GREAT time.

Now for this week - FALL WEEK.  After reading books about the fall each morning, we headed over to the anchor chart to list the things we see and do in this new season.  The sentence structure was specifically crafted to include one of our new sight words this week: can.  I wrote the first half of the sentences and the students helped me read them, being sure to use our "Lips the Fish" reading tool of making the first letter sound.  Then, some students would jump in with the next few sounds and (indirectly) teach the class how to sound out the whole word. Next, I showed the students two pictures and let them decide which was right for the fall. Do we eat apples or watermelons? Do we see scarecrows or snowmen? Do we jump in the leaves or in a swimming pool? They chose correctly every time since they're so stinkin' smart and then they told me how to write the rest of the sentence.


I tried to incorporate as many fall things as I could into our centers this week. They illustrated books about the fall in the book making area.  And they did an autumn cut, sort, and paste activity in the science center.

They built scarecrows and played bingo using an apple tree in the math games and number work centers. They were also a few pumpkin games - but I forgot to take a pic of those.


They had fall-themed activities in the letter work center, too.




They also got to write fall words or the fall poem in the writing center.

PS- This is the fall poem that is attached to the newsletter. Your child should know it pretty well by now. Have them read it or recite it as many times or to as many people as possible. Keep track and submit the names/number on Friday on the recording sheet. The student with the most readings gets a trip to the treasure box!

And our September calendar math has a fun apple picking activity. We do this as a whole group each day. The students spin a number and we add that many apples to the bushel.  This teaches the concept of adding one more and adding two more. It also builds their number number sense: seeing how many more they need to get to five or get to ten. Once we get ten apples - we get an apple pie!

We did a few journal writings about what we see in the fall (this would require a limited, correct response) and what they like about the fall (this one is more unique to each child and they are generally more excited to respond to these kinds of prompts).  I love seeing their work and they LOVE journal writing.






We wrapped up our fall unit with leaf art stations on Friday. First, the students went on a leaf hunt, trying to find leaves that were still soft and pliable.

 Back inside, I explained the four art projects. They could choose all of them, just one, or any number in between.  At one station, I used crunchy leaves, crushed them up to tiny bits to make leaf "glitter." The students outlined fall pictures with Elmer's glue, then sprinkled with the leaf bits and shook off the excess.

At another, the students used their own leaves to do leaf rubbings. This blew their mind, by the way.


They used their leaves at the leaf creature station too.


And, for some leafy art without any actual leaves, the students painted some pretty fall trees.


I'll leave you with the some cute miscellaneous shots and a pic of the newsletter (since most folders didn't quite make it home today-that leaf art at the end of the day really did us in). Oh- and wear PINK on Monday (no boys, you don't have to)!