Happy Halloween!

October has gone by so fast.  Has it been the busiest October ever for you too?  Wow!  And now it's almost over.   Ok, this little set of cards isn't related to Halloween, but I am so happy with how they came out.  They were a rush job last week to get them ready for Monday's math lesson.

I started the week using these Number Tower Cards for a math game with my kiddos.  We are working on the concepts of number order, and more. less, equal with numbers 0-10.    The kids played a game as partners where they had to order the cards first and then take turns closing eyes while the other student removed two cards.  The student with closed eyes then had to guess which two numbers were missing.  They really had fun with it.  Both parts of the activity were fantastic!  I love these cards because the visual representation of the numbers "growing" really helps students conceptualize how numbers work.  You can grab these cards for your class by clicking on the link or image above.



We have also been doing some pumpkin studies in class and my kiddos made these sweet pumpkin  life cycle projects.  We only had a small bulletin board space for them, so they are packed in.  It looks like a little pumpkin patch.  They made these as an independent center activity over four days. 

Here are the four stages up close:

I just love kindergarten art work!  They did a great job with this craftivity!  It was super easy!  I just cut white 12 x 18 paper in half hot dog style.  Then I folded each into four equal sections.  We started with the papers folded shut with student's name on the first section that they needed to use.  Each day, I unfolded the paper to show the following section where the kids would do the  next stage.  Nobody got mixed up! It worked great!



These haunted, or spooky, shape houses were another project my kiddos did in October.  They are up in our classroom to help decorate for Halloween.  They are a part of my new project based homework this year.  Let me know what you think!  I have gotten some nice feedback from parents.  I would love to know what some other teachers think too.

The kiddos had to draw out the design to support creative thinking.

They also had to use a recording sheet to count how many of each shape was used in the final design as well as how many shapes were used altogether.

These are not available in a product yet.  I am creating it and piloting it this year as we go along.  If you love it, let me know and I will try to share my Project Based Homework as a product for next school year.

I had fun decorating the classroom this year for Halloween.  I use these cute hanging thinga majigs and a big Happy Halloween sign on the line across my classroom.  The ghost at the top of the blog post is another decoration in this set.  They are too cute to be scary, so they are perfect for kindergarten kids.  I have had these for years!  I am pretty sure they were Hallmark decorations and it was money well spent.  They were built to last.  I also put up all the haunted houses the kiddos made and it was perfect!




This is the treat I gave to my sweet students this year.

Silly scarecrow stuffies!  Yay!  I wanted something that wasn't food.  I wanted something that I didn't need to wrap or spend much time on.  And... the kiddos had so much fun acting out The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything By Linda D. Williams and Megan Lloyd, that I thought these little scarecrows were perfect!  I hope they have fun with them.  Thanks, Oriental Trading Co.  It was a money vs. time decision.  Time always wins out for me, so it was money well spent.

This is that book I mentioned above.  I read it every Halloween.

These are some others I really love for pumpkins and Halloween time:

 

A story about the little bat with a big idea who helped the witch just in time for her Halloween party. 

 

This is an adorable tale about three friends who realize their friendship is more important than how they make the pumpkin soup each day.   I used this story to introduce the concept of characters to my kiddos. 

This story is about a young boy who loves his jack-o-lantern and how a pumpkin plant sprouts back from what was left of it in the garden.  Great story that incorporates the fun of Halloween with the elements of growing pumpkin plants.  It is a must have if you are doing a pumpkin unit.

 

This is my absolute favorite book for a pumpkin unit!  The photos are gorgeous and it is truly written as poetry.  It gives students the opportunity to ask and answer questions as well as infer meaning because of the rich vocabulary and use of literary devices.  You will LOVE this quality piece of children's nonfiction.  Perfect for pumpkin life cycle studies!

I hope you had a super fun day with your kiddos in class for Halloween!  My day went really well.  I am glad because it was a big week.  We had the full moon, a field trip, and Halloween all in one week... Yikes!  But this great little class really stepped it up.  They did a fantastic job on our field trip and a good job on our Halloween day too.  I am so proud of them!

If you are looking for a great resource to help your October and especially Halloween week, go smoothly, you should really check out my Print and Go! Halloween pack.  It has a variety of interactive NO PREP math and literacy pages that are perfect for October in kindergarten.  You can look at it by clicking on the link above or the image below.

Happy Halloween!
Happy teaching!

Fun Friday!

Oh my goodness, I had to join in for Fun Friday with the girls from Freebielicious.  I LOVE to have fun in the classroom.  And really... in kindergarten you have to make learning fun.  So it's a win - win.  Here are a just few fun things that we have done in my classroom:

This is one of my favorite fun things we did last spring.  We had a big unit on honeybees.  The kids each made an anatomically correct honey bee and then we used them for learning activities.  This is a photo of a few of my sweet kiddos pretending to be worker bees in the hive telling me what they are doing and what is in the cells.  Such a fun way to learn and assess.

 This is always a hit with the kids.  This is not a new idea.  I first saw it on Pinterest.  Here is a link to the blog with this idea:  Juggling with Kids.  So, I used my Sight Word Super Set to make one for my classroom.  It is well worth your time to make one of these.  I especially love to play this game right before I do sight word assessments.  Great review!

I love to do lots of arts and crafts related to learning because it is fun and it is a great way to give young children creative expression.  Melt art is just one of many fun art projects we do.  You can see the full post on it here: Melt Art Fun!

You can check out this blog post: Snow Much Fun! to see what we did with those snowballs for some winter fun in my California classroom (where it NEVER snows).  There is a link to a cute snowman list FREEBIE on that post.

We love to play games too!  Games are great for subitizing, counting, skill practice, social skills, and FUN!  This game is from my Sight Word Super Set .  I also did another post on games with a FREEBIE rhyming game.  You can go grab it by clicking on the link or the image of the game below.  It's black and white to save printer ink.

I LOVE GAMES!

 Go check out the other great blogs with fun ideas and freebies over at Freebielicious!  You can get there by clicking on the button below.

I hope you found some new ideas for having fun in your classroom.

Thanks for stopping by!

I Love Games!

OK, I know you are here to get the FREEBIE.  But yes, I am going to make you scroll through a shameless promotion to get it.  I needed a little rhyming review game for quite a few of my sweeties back in January, so I made a game for all of them to play.  I love games because they do much more than practice the target skill.  When you play with two dice, you cover subitizing skills, adding fluency, and one to one counting on the game board.  So we did rhyming and all that on this game board which YOU can have at the bottom of the post.

Of course I saw this idea on Pinterest.  I keep this container with the game markers in it.  It's easy to reach at all times.  I can use it with any roll the dice game board in the classroom.  I use these colorful buttons as game markers.  They work great!

OK, here is the other game I am loving right now....

I made this game to help my sweet students practice teen numbers while building concepts of place value.  It is a perfect time of year for this with my students.  This game uses problem cards like the ten frame one above.  Kids choose a problem card and then cover the numeral it represents with a cute game card like these....

This game comes with 4 different problem cards so you can play it four ways.  Ten frames like above....

Base ten blocks ...

tally marks,,,

and expanded form.  This game also comes with four different recording sheets for use in the center or as independent practice in homework, morning work, etc.

If you want to get the Valen-teens! game for your class you can find it on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I will be playing this game twice next week in my class.

OK, thanks for stopping by.  Here's the Roll and Rhyme freebie.  Just click on the image below to get it.  It is a roll the dice, move your marker, make a rhyme game.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Hope you and your students have fun!
Happy Teaching!

A Very Merry Memory Game!

 

Ok, I know the holidays are over.  But, this is something I had photos for (although they are not great).  Sorry about that.  I don't know if it is my cheap camera, or the florescent lighting in my classroom, or both.... ugh!

This was something I had to do QUICKLY during that last week before winter break.  I know this is not some brilliant revelation, but I was easily able to make a cute holiday memory game using stickers I had on hand.  The whole thing only took about 30 minutes, including laminating!  It was just what I needed for one of my centers on the last day before break.  I wanted to make it a "fun" day and due to my schedule this year, I needed a quickie - something that would only take 10 - 15 minutes per group.  This sweet little game was perfect! 

I tried to use stickers that were somewhat holiday "neutral" because not everyone in our school community celebrates Christmas.  We had just finished a fairy tale unit which included gingerbread, so elves, cookies, and candy canes seemed appropriate.

I wrote the words on the cards just to add a little literacy to the fun.  The kids had a blast with it.  Our other centers that day included decorating gingerbread cookies the kids had made the day before.  They got to eat them later at our class party!  We also had a story reading center where I pulled out  my winter holiday books just for one day.  Most groups wanted to hear How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Suess.  I love that book!  So it was a fun day for all in Room 5. 

Hope you had a wonderful holiday season!
Happy teaching!