Halloween and Monsters!

Halloween came and went so quickly! We are not allowed to "officially" celebrate Halloween, but I sneaked in some of Deanna Jump's activities from her Halloween packet.  We did this fun survey together and then completed the graph in our math journals.  You can get Deanna's Halloween packet here .  There is also a fun emergent reader to go along with this packet!

We did the survey and graph together using my document camera.  I LOVE the document camera!!!

I love all of their sweet illustrations! They were so excited to make this book - and they LOVE reading it to each other!

Another fun game we played in October was the "missing mouse game."  I think the name of it changed every time we played it! It is a really simple game to make, and I've made it with shapes and sight words before too.  For a thematic version, simply take your chosen clip art and program it with sight words, numbers, etc.  Make something to "hide" behind the numbers.  The children take turns saying the number to find out where the mouse it hiding.  I started simply with just 1-10, then did just teen numbers, and then all of the numbers.  To make it even more challenging, I mixed the numbers up!  The kids have a blast with this game!  I have also used calendar pieces as the number cards! It's already made for you - you can just make a small smiley to hide behind!

Monster FUN!!

We also had a lot of fun with monsters last week!  We read both of the books above as well as many other ones.  We read the book 10-Step Guide to Living With Your Monster.  The kids had so much fun with this book! We brainstormed different things we would need to do if a monster lived with us, and then we wrote a "how to" page if we lived with a monster!

 (Give him a bath)

(Teach him to sleep..not sure what she wrote after that!)

We brainstormed verbs and adjectives that describe monsters and wrote list poems.

 

We sang a fun monster song!  This picture is from my friend, Sheyna .. her great idea!  I forgot to snap a photo of mine!

 

 We also created a question web before we read Lenoardo the Terrible Monster and mad a story map in our reader's workshop journals for the book. The idea for this questioning web came from Kim Adsit's web site. You can also purchase many great blacklines for reader's workshop from Kim Adsit at her TPT store.  I use many of them - the kids love them and they help to elicit great conversations about books!

We also made monster glyphs! This idea is from Deanna Jump's Monsters packet on TPT.  It's a steal at only $3!!

Finally we water colored monsters! This was a directed drawing activity - the kids watched me draw the head (then they drew it), we drew the body (then they drew it)...and so on.  They added the eyes, mouth, spots, hair, etc. themselves.  I love how they all turned out so different!  Too cute!

Math Centers

The new system for math and literacy centers is working so great! I'm really loving having 8 groups!  For math centers, the children choose where they want to go in the room - all have made really great choices this week!  I don't mind if they work on the floor, at a counter, or at a table, as long as they are getting their work done!  I keep the math centers in those 3 drawer sterlite drawers - I just call the kids by groups and give them their drawers.  The literacy centers are placed at different places throughout the room.  During literacy center time, the kids go to those spots. (Since some have pocket charts, they need to be at a specific spot!)

Here is a picture of the rotation chart:

 The numbers are for the math center drawers, and the letters for literacy centers.

This is how the centers look for literacy centers - there is a matching sign on the wall (or in this case the easel) and on the basket.  I think this has helped the kids know exactly where they need to be.  Phew!

Here are the math centers we did this week, and will continue to do next week:

 Halloween eraser graph - I found the dracula and cat erasers at the Target Dollar Spot, I had the pumpkin erasers (but I saw them at target this year), and I used plastic spiders.  I put them in a bucket and let the kids take a hand full.

 Spider addition:  the kids rolled the dice, counted that many spiders and put them on the first web, they did the same thing for the second web and counted how many they had all together.

 This cute clip art is from DJ Inkers -- love the monsters!  The kids measured them with unifix cubes and links.

 This idea came from Mailbox Magazine - the kids throw the ghost in the air and color the side that the ghost lands on.  When one side is full, they stop and compare with their partner.

 The children practiced writing their numbers to 30, and then counted the little lima bean ghosts into the pumpkins.

 Patterning with Halloween stamps. (From Target last year)

 Adding with cat playing cards (from Target last year)

Teen number sequencing

Halloween Literacy Centers

Do you ever feel like you had to keep adjusting the way you do things to fit the needs of your class from year to year?  Earlier, I posted about my literacy centers and writing time - splitting the kids in half so some were writing and some were working at literacy centers. Well, that didn't work for this group of kiddos.  I have a pretty rowdy bunch with some pretty significant behaviors.  I also didn't feel like I was getting in a good writing lesson plus share time for the kiddos.  So, I went back to the old model of 4 rotating centers (4 because my Mondays are wacky and it worked out better to have 4!)  Well, the groups got too big, and kids were not working well together.  So, I came up with the buddy system.  The kids got to choose their own partners and they work with these partners during both math and literacy center time.  (They are also their journal share partners).  Since the kids are working in partners, I need to have more than 4 centers.  So, they are now rotating through 8 centers for 2 weeks. (There are also two groups of 3 - I made sure that these groups included the kiddos that get extra intervention support, so they are not always their for the full literacy and/or math center time).

Here are the literacy centers for this week:

 Listening Center:  We are reading books about monsters this week, so the kids are listening to The Great Monster Hunt.  On their response sheet they will draw a picture of what they thought the monster looked like and what it actually did look like.  This is a really cute book!

 Sight word haunted house: The windows on the house open and close, the kids look behind the windows and read and write the sight word they see.

 Letter/Sound Sort:  This idea came from Deanna Jump.  The children cut apart the pictures and sort them according to their beginning sound.  This will be a center that will stay the same.  The kids can try to label their pictures when they are done.

 Spider Rhymes:  The children find the matching pictures that rhyme.  I gave them a little extra support with this one by using matching scrapbook paper for the rhymes.  If they have trouble finding the rhymes, they could look at the paper.  When they find the match, they write the words on their response sheet. (I made labels with the words and stuck them on the back).

 Sight Word Roll a Word: No explanation needed :)  This one will stay the same too! (Just the words will change!)

 Spooky ABC Shake up- I thought I had a picture of the cute cover - I'll try to remember to post one later.  I got this idea from First Grader...At Last.  She uses numbers and the kids write addition sentences.  I thought this was great for kinders though!

 Pocket Chart: The sight words of the week are like and my, so the children match the colored web to the color word.  They then wrote the word on a matching response sheet (I like my _____ spider web) and colored a spider at the end the same color.

 Poem Reconstruction:  10 Little Pumpkins.  This was the first poem reconstruction that we have done, so I kept it pretty simple.  The kids cut the strips out, and put it in order.  They can either read the number words or look at the number.  I made the pocket chart below to support their learning.

Literacy Centers

Here are the literacy centers that the children did last week.

 

Matching beginning sounds: The children used the Lakeshore Learning beginning sound puzzles to listen for the same beginning sounds and match the puzzles.  When they found a match, they wrote the letter on their page.  

 

The children used letter tiles to build the sight word they chose.  They wrote the word on their response sheet as well.

 

The children matched candy corn puzzles.  When they finished they wrote their ABC's. 

Update: Candy Corn Puzzles and lots of other fall math and literacy centers are available by clicking {here}

 

The children built CVC words with magnetic letters.  When they built the word, they wrote it on their response sheet and drew a picture of the word they built on their response sheet.