Showing posts with label pumpkins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pumpkins. Show all posts
I've been meaning to write this post for a while to show what we were up to the last part of October, and even though Halloween has come and gone, I thought I'd still share and you can maybe tuck some ideas away for next year :). {Warning...this post is mainly pictures - a lot!}
First up, spiders! We used a big spider to record our schema and new knowledge, made a spider with a spider fact written from our spider have/can chart, learned about onomatopoeia with The Very Busy Spider, and did a little spider math {math sticks, adding on to make 8, and graphing}.










We also made some super cute spider hats and made a little spider snack with ritz crackers, pretzel sticks, peanut butter, and chocolate chips.

In the midst of being out for 2 days the week before Halloween, we managed to get in some pumpkin investigations and learning. We estimated the weight of our pumpkin and the circumference, described the outside and inside of the pumpkin, and learned how pumpkins grow.










{You can find this in Alisha's Pumpkin Pack}


We also tasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin muffins to see if we liked them.

 We also used our 9 pumpkins song to work on decomposing 9 {the farmer's son comes to pick a pumpkin...the kids love being the farmer!}

The week of Halloween was also homecoming week at our high school, so EVERY day was a dress up day, so it was extra crazy! We did manage to learn about the -at word family, learn a little about bats, read some fun Halloween books, and use candy to help us work on making 10!


This is a pattern I've had forever...the body is attached to a clothespin, then attached to the wings, so that when the kids press the clothespin, it looks like the bat is flying



Love this craftivity to go along with Room on the Broom from Cheryl at Primary Graffiti
Going back to the two days I missed of school, I was in Tampa presenting at the Florida Conference of Teachers of Mathematics with my friend Deeanna. This was my first time presenting and I loved getting to chat with other teachers and administrators from across the state! While we were there, Deeanna was also awarded as one of the 3 state finalists for the Presidential Excellence Award in Mathematics Teaching {it's kind of a big deal!}

For Halloween at school, Deeanna, our friend Bunnee, and I all dressed like Pete the Cat...it was super easy and the kids loved it!
 And just because this post is already forever long, here's my cute Mickey Mouse from Halloween. She was so excited and had so much fun trick or treating!

I've got a few posts planned for the coming days, and now that things have slowed down, hopefully they'll get finished :)


Fall is one of my favorite times of year {especially at school}, so we have been busy cramming in everything we can related to fall! We started learning about pumpkins last week and are having a blast.
First, we learned all about how pumpkins grow. We made a big anchor chart together then made individual life cycles with this super cute craft from my sweet friend Alisha {The Bubbly Blonde}.


We also used our own class pumpkin to do a little pumpkin investigation.
First we estimated the circumference of our pumpkin by pulling a piece of yarn to be how long around the pumpkin was. Then, we measured and two lucky kiddos estimated correctly! {You should have heard the cheers!}


Then, we estimated the weight of our pumpkin. We took it to the office to weigh on our data entry secretary's scales and while we were there, we weighed ourselves {umm...the kids did - no way in heck I was hopping on those things!}

Then, we went outside to cut our pumpkin open. The kids thought it was so cool! We thought of words that described the outside of the pumpkin and the inside of the pumpkin and charted them in different colors {love this idea from Cara!}


We also stayed busy reading lots of fiction stories about pumpkins to get in lots of Common Core standards.
We read Spookley {always a favorite} and charted his characteristics, then used our chart to write a describing sentence about Spookley.



Another one of our favorite stories was Too Many Pumpkins! It is such a cute book and perfect for working on beginning, middle, and end. I really tried to get the kids to work on the details in their pictures and I think they did great!

 Friday we read The Biggest Pumpkin Ever and compared the two main characters. This is a perfect book for meeting that standard of comparing characters within a text!
Today we read Big Pumpkin and talked about problem and solution...the kids loved this story as well!
We've also used pumpkins in our math with learning the number 9. We used our song about Pumpkins Fat and Round from last year and it has been so much fun to help us act our and decompose the number 9!


Last, but not least, the winner of Deeanna and my Spider packs is...
We'll be sending you your packs :)

Have a great, fun filled Halloween week friends!
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