Five for Friday--First Timer! Plus, Some Halloween Ideas

Well, after *however long* Kacey over at Doodlebugs has been hosting Five for Friday, I have finally made myself link up!  

I'm tired girls (maybe even a guy or 2)!  And, my husband is dragging taking me to the Alabama game tomorrow which means no rest for this girl…I do love me some Alabama football; however, I am not thrilled about freezing my buns off for several hours!  With that said, I don't have a lot of pictures this week.  

I totally missed posting about some of the fun things we do in our classroom Halloween day and the day after so I'm putting those things first.

#1

I inherited this fun idea from a co-worker of mine (who is now an angel in Heaven) and I think of her every time we do it.  First, grab a pot like the one you see below and fill with candies.

 Next, crinkle some black butcher paper so it covers the candies.

 Then, make up some letter, word, or picture cards to throw on top of the black paper.

I used die-cut pumpkins to make it more seasonal, but you could use anything.  And, I made a variety of pumpkins.  Okay, the fun part…Turn all the lights off so it's dark and gather together at the rug.  Tell your kiddos that you're about to make a magical brew and you need their help.  *Before beginning show them the "empty" pot…remember the black paper is covering the candies.  Quickly flash the pot before them…don't give them too much time to inspect the pot or they might notice the paper.  Give every student a card.  They must tell you what is on their card correctly before throwing it in the pot.  After every student has added their magical ingredient (the cards) have them stand up. 

You will sing this in a scraggly voice while stirring up the cards: Stirring, and stirring, and stirring my brew.  Stirring, and stirring, and stirring my brew. (whisper the words) Tip toe, tip toe as you inch closer together in the circle.  Repeat once…then on the last tip toe, yell BOO! 

When you yell boo, you will quickly flip the black paper over so the candies are on top and the cards are under the black paper.  Ta-da!  Magic!  The cards turned magically into candy….I'm telling you it might be the funnest thing we do all year.  My kids go crazy over this every year!  They absolutely love it so much!  

#2

The day after Halloween we make this candy graph and these cute little candy crafts.

We've been working on adjectives a lot and learning about poems.  Aren't they cute?

#3

I have a TON of Halloween books that I absolutely love…The Three Bear's Halloween is just  too cute!  After reading the book, each student gets a piece of candy corn.  We talk about how it has 3 colors and 3 parts, just like stories do…a beginning, middle, and an end.

We retell each part of the story using our candy corn and eating the appropriate part.  I do the writing on our chart while they are retelling and munching.

#4

We practice 1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Indians and make this little cutie!

 #5

And, last but not least, we make these every year.  They make our room look very festive and the parents love them when they come to our program each year!

You can find this craft HERE with all the patterns and directions.  :)

Happy Friday friends!!

Treats, Not Tricks!!

Happy Halloween everyone!!  I happen to actually like tricks...my twin sister, Amy, and I used to play tricks on people when we were little because most people couldn't tell us apart.  We could even trick our parents over the phone and still can today...AND...our husbands have a hard time telling us apart over the phone also.  (Most of you probably know we are identical twins).  Anyway...today I'm not playing tricks, but I have some treats for you in my TPT Shop.  I have marked down 5 things for today only!  Click HERE to go to my shop and trick or treat for some money-saving treats!!  

Spiders, Skeletons, & Scarecrows

We had a short week last week...our fall break wasn't long enough.  The laundry at my house is NEVERending.  I just can't keep it done.  

We had so much fun learning about Spiders, and our bodies and all things Ss last week!  During centers we did my newest pack Spiders, Scarecrows, and Skeletons and it was a hit.  We loved it.  You can check it out HERE.  If you bought it anytime last week, you got a deal.  It was supposed to be on sale for 1 day only and I left it the whole week.  :)  HA!

 I like the fact that some of my newer games have the sight words listed more than once in different fonts.  I tell my students to touch and point to each word and read it.  I like the fact that it gives them exposure to different fonts.  :)

They were head over heels for this one...They got to go the rug with a clipboard and sit around this giant web.  I got this at K-mart about 5 years ago.  So, you just throw the spiders on the web.  Then, as it is your turn, you pick a spider and look at the picture on the bottom.  If it started with /s/, they wrote Ss on their paper.  If it didn't, they lost a turn.  

Students reached in the bag, pulled out a card and wrote what they got.  If you pulled out a sticky web, you lost a turn.  :(

If y'all read this blog regularly, you know that I love to have my kids up and moving for at least one center.  The hit this month is to find things hanging from our ceiling.  This week spiders were hanging with letters.

 After finding all the letters, they wrote them in ABC order at the bottom of their paper.

These turned out so cute plus they were fun to make and very hands-on!  This was a 2 step project for us...first we built the sight word using Q-Tips.  Later, we added arms and legs and wrote a sentence that says I have bones.  

I got the next two ideas from Cara at The First Grade Parade

We always do this graph and I love to see who is not afraid of spiders...that way if we ever find one I know who to call on to kill it.  I HATE spiders and am terrified of them!  

However, they are fun to learn about...pictures only please.  :)

 We added pictures of ourselves to the middle of our spiders.  :)

Apple Unit Winner

Congrats to Valerie #17 for winning my newly revised Apple Unit!  

I just sent you an e-mail!  :)

My store is on sale until midnight tonight.  :)  

Apple Week!

Hey y'all!  I updated my Fun with Apples unit, finally, and I'm loving the new things I added.  This was our apple week and so of course, all of our centers were apple themed.  All of the activities below can be found in my Apple Unit Here.  If you already own it, go re-download it for tons of new stuff!

Practicing counting with ten-frames.  

 Apple puzzles...we matched numbers to number words.

 Ordering Numbers on Apples

 Our fave!  We grabbed a clipboard and walked around the room to count the apples on "Johnny's" head.

 Here, we counted sets and wrote the number.

 Reading sight words 4 times...I used 4 different fonts just to get them used to the fact that words may look different, but it's still the same word.

 We sorted apples into baskets by vowels and not vowels

 Here we practiced first sounds in words

 Here, the student picked 1 apple from the tree...if it had an A or a they wrote it on their paper.  If it didn't, they put it back and did nothing.

 Here is an apple shown that has a t, so they student turned it over and waited until their next turn.

 We are really practicing on learning how to read our number words, so here they had to roll the cube, write the number on an apple and glue it to the tree.

 On this game, they rolled the vowel cube and dotted beside the correct vowel.  The first vowel to reach the end wins!

 For this game, the students had to walk around the room and find "Johnny".  They wrote the letter that was on his pot on their paper.  Last, they had to write the letters in ABC order.

Leave a comment below and I'll give my apple unit to someone!  

Thanks for reading my blog!

Flash Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to everyone who reads my little ol' blog!  Congratulations to Karyn #28!  I sent you an e-mail.  :)

More Fall Fun

Does your school participate in the Jumpstart Read for the Record?  Have I ever told you how awesome our reading coach is?  Well, she's amazing!  This year's Read for the Record story was Otis by Loren Long.  So cute, by the way.  It's about this old red tractor who lives on the farm and he meets a baby calf and they become best friends.  One day, Otis, the old red tractor is "replaced" by a brand new yellow tractor.  Otis becomes lonely.  Later, when his friend, the baby calf, needs help, Otis comes to the rescue after no one else was able to help.  A great story of friendship!  So, our reading coach always does this big production of the story.  She found "Otis" and brought him to our school so all the boys and girls could see him in person.  And, she read the story under a tree (mentioned in the story).  Afterwards, we played Ring Around the Roses and jumped hay bales just like Otis and his friend do in the story.  The kids loved it!  If you read or get a chance to read the story of Otis, you can click HERE to get a couple of great, FREE printables that Sally, our reading coach, made to go along with the story.  :)  Please leave her some sweet love by rating her free product.  :)

We finished up our fall centers last week.  YOu can find all of these centers in my 
Fall-tastic Centers.
Here are some of the literacy centers.  

We are working so very hard to learn our vowels so this was a center designed to help them sort between letters that are vowels and letters that are not.

This turned out to be a fun whole group activity that we did at the rug.  First I had some die-cut leaves sorted into three ziploc baggies...I sorted them by size, shape, and color.  Next, I dumped one of the baggies into our mystery bag.  I let each student pull out one leaf.  We sorted the leaves by color.  Each time, I cleaned out the first baggie of leaves, and dumped in a new one.  We then sorted by size and shape.  Of course, we talked about what sorting is and ways we can sort before, during, and after our activity.  :)

Ta-da!  A cute, meaningful, and colorful mural to hang in our classroom!  :)

I haven't done a giveaway in a while...SO, leave me a comment telling me your favorite thing to teach during the fall and I'll choose a winner sometime tomorrow.  The winner gets ANY FALL pack of mine of their choosing!  Don't forget your e-mail address.