We began this notorious week (Halloween week has a pretty bad reputation with teachers) with the last of our color words: black. And we had tons of participation, but, like the last few weeks, I forget to take the color day picture until Emma says "We didn't take the color picture" as we're walking out to the buses. So, no group shot, just small groups.
The main idea this week was real versus make-believe. So, while we talked about lots of creepy, scary things, we found out, there's no need to be afraid if they're just make-believe. We sorted the real things out and made a book of facts about them. The students assembled one page each day.
Day One: spiders (ran out of time for a picture)
Day Two: Skeletons
Day Three: Bats
Day Four: Mummies
And Day Five: Book Covers
We discussed all these things each day during our whole group literacy and writing time. The Real or Make Believe chart served many purposes other than just sorting out real and make-believe. We used it to learn about capitalizing the beginning letter of a sentence, finding the end of a sentence, identifying different kinds of punctuation, and getting familiar with the new sight words: are, yes, & no. The students got to highlight the capital letters. 
As far as poems and songs go, we continued to recite the Five Little Pumpkins Poem from last week. I am so impressed with this class's expression and projection and memory. Honestly - they're really good. So I just had to take their show on the road Friday. We recited it to four different audiences. In the video below, we caught Mrs. Wise just as we walked out of the classroom and performed it for her.
On Friday, as a a STEM project (science, technology, engineering, math), we made gates for those five little pumpkins. Each group had a different building material and they had to work together as a team to build a gate that would hold the pumpkins. Shout out to Abby Snyder, a friend of mine who teaches at Lemons Mill, for the idea!
Besides the Five Little Pumpkins Poem, we also learned a Trick or Treat Poem. After we read/recited the poem, we opened the purple door and found letters all mixed up. The students had to figure out how to order the letters to either create a treat word or a trick word.
Here's what it sounded and looked like.
At the end of the week, there was finally a trick.
But on Friday, the kids got to take home one of each of the treats we found behind the door- plus Mrs. Taylor made them each a treat bag.
We learned a Halloween song as well this week. I taught it to the children on Monday with the promise that I would play along with them on the guitar on Friday. There was only one problem - I don't play the guitar. But I've always wanted to learn and I find that if I make promises to do something (at least for my students) I usually make good. So - I tried. I tried. I am very proud of how patient they were with me in between chords!
So, of course all this Halloween stuff spilled over into our journal writing. On Monday, we had a guest reader, Ms. Blevins a legendary retired teacher from Garth who was filling in for Mrs. Taylor. She read one of her favorites
Then the students told if they were scared of anything.
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| Ava said she was scared of zombies and clowns. |
The next day we read a story about a haunted house and the kiddos told if they liked haunted houses or not. I just need to reiterate that these kids are INCREDIBLE writers.
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| Johannah's |
On Wednesday, we heard the story It Didn't Frighten Me. It is a repetitive rhyming book, each page about a different creepy creature the child imagines being outside of her window right after she's tucked in.
So the students wrote about who tucks them in at night.
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| I love the detail on Lucy's curtains. |
Then on Thursday, I read the Eve Bunting book Scary Scary Halloween
which is a story about trick-or-treaters frightening a mother cat and her kittens. We followed it up with a journal writing about what the students were dressing up as for Halloween. But I didn't get to take any pics. They were good, though!
We had a few new ways to learn our sight words this week during sight word workshops.
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| Students have played Rainbow Words before, but they always had to share one color spinner. Now they each have their own built into their papers. |
And here's a little of what we did in our ELA centers.
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| Fine motor center |
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| Fine motor center |
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| Word Work |
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| Letter Work |
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| Reading Center |
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| Book Making Center (I see______ - each page had a different kid dressed in a costume. On the last page, the students drew what they were dressing up as for Halloween. This book went into their book buckets. |
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| Sight Word Center (not the same as work shops. Here, they work with all of the sight words we've learned so far, not just the new ones). |
And here's a little of what we did in math. We've been learning about addition. We sing this song to remember what addition is
(Sung to the tune of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands")
Two parts together
Make the whole
Two parts together
Make the whole
Two parts together
Make the whole
and that's what addition is.
To demonstrate this concept, the students have been taking turns "practicing" trick or treating. They must say "Trick or treat" before spinning the spinner. They put that many pieces of candy into their bag. That is their first "part." They say "Trick or Treat" again and spin one more time, adding that many pieces to the bag. Then we count up all the pieces in the bag to find the whole amount. We kept track of how much candy each child got by recording on the table you (kind of ) see on the right side of the picture. We discuss which number is the highest and lowest. On the next day, we look back at one of those amounts and discuss what 2 numbers they could have spun to have gotten that total. The students use their fingers to figure it out. Because this group is so stinking smart, they figure out multiple ways to arrive at that sum in no time.
In fact, they had such a good handle on this addition thing, that we were ready to tackle our first official addition worksheet this week. We did it all together, using our fingers, first. Then the students did it all by themselves at their seats.
They further practiced their addition skills at a few of our math workshops. We made eyeball soup, finding the missing addend to make ten.
Then they practiced adding AND subtracting at the Trick or Treat board game. If they landed on a regular house, they got candy, if they landed on a haunted house, they lost candy.
At the Race to Zero work shop, they each started with ten pumpkins in a ten frame, and took turns rolling the dice to get rid of all their pumpkins. So - subtraction was the name of the game.
And at the shape workshop, they played Jack-o-lantern Bingo.
Oh yea - and it was Red Ribbon Week. So the students came in camo (You won't see me doing drugs) ,and pajamas (Follow your dreams, stay off drugs),
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| I have on Yoda pjs, by the way. Unbelievably, there were many who didn't recognize him ( I heard the grinch and goblin), People - educate your children on the awesomeness of Star Wars! |
And then- be a Hero, not a zero - Super Hero Day! I'll leave you with pics from that crazy day!
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| Responsibility Award winner- Savannah |
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| Perfect Attendance for the first 9 weeks |
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| Reciting the Five Little pumpkins poem to the office staff |
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| Eating Mummy snacks made by Grandma |
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| This candid pic sums up the need for outdoor recess so well. There's a runner, a climber, and upside-downer, and jumper. You just can't get that from inside, rainy-day recess! |
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| I mean, just look how happy this makes us! |
