Pumpkins and bats and spiders...oh my!

Yes, this was quite the week!  We worked on a LOT of fun activities!  My students had a ball with the centres this week and absolutely LOVED spider day!
 
Here's a look at some of the centres this week.
 
Identifying the lower case letter and then recording that letter on the worksheet.  The students who were able to wrote the uppercase letter on the worksheet.
 
I thought that this activity would be a little challenging but the kids LOVED it!  They did such a great job trying to find where each sight word belonged.
 
Searching for the letter "P".
 
We have been working on clapping and counting syllables so this activity was perfect for the students to try it on their own....and they got it!
 
 
I'm not a fan of spiders AT ALL, but my students were!  We used an anchor chart to record all of our information about spiders.  The idea for this way of recording information came from Deanna Jump.
Isn't the spider and web adorable?  My volunteer, Ms. Josie, who is the most creative and artistic person I have met, made it for me!  She didn't even trace it on overhead like I would do! HA!
 
I made this fun activity for my students to practice 1:1 correspondence with numbers 1-10.  They had to place the correct number of spiders on the mats.
 
 
This was at our Pocket Chart centre this week.  BATS!  Perfect to get into the Halloween spirit, right?
You can find this activity in my All Year Long! Pocket Chart Fun pack on TpT.
I have 2 pocket chart activities per month which increase in difficulty as the year goes on.  This is one of my students' favourite centres in the room.  I love how they are reading and completing the worksheet independently!
 
 We had fun with Deanna Jump's science experiments from her Simple Science Volume 1 unit.
Here my students are "walking across a web" to see how sticky it is!  They did it again with vegetable oil on their fingers to see how a spider doesn't stick to the web.
 
 After the experiment, we did this little write up.  My teaching partner from last year, Ms. Angelucci, created it.  You can download it for free here.
 
I'm having a Halloween sale in my TpT store this weekend only!
Hurry over to get 20% off everything!
(Thank you to Alisha from The Bubbly Blonde Teacher for making this adorable graphic.)
 
Also, I updated my Write the Room Literacy Centers - The Complete Set to include my 2 newest WTR sets:  Pumpkins and Bears!
If you already purchased this set, please go back and download the revised version.
You can get this MEGA pack on sale this weekend only!
I'll be adding Penguins Write the Room next weekend to this mega value set so hurry and get it before the price goes up!
 
Enjoy the weekend!


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Dem Bones

Today was the last day for my student teacher, Ms. Pattara.  I'm so sad to see her go!
I have to tell you - it was a little hard at first letting go of the reins but she did a great job with the kids!  She wrapped up her teaching block by decorating our hallway for Halloween with this adroable craft.
 
This is the cute activity Ms. Pattara did with my class last Friday.
 
 
Here is Ms. Pattara reading the book Dem Bones by Bob Barner and acting out the story as she goes along.  The kids were really into it! 
 

She had the students get up and dance to the song Dem Bones.
You can click here to download the song above from You Tube.
 
Ms. Pattara brought in a life size paper skeleton.
The students discussed and then labelled the various parts of the body.
 
Then they got to work creating their very own skeleton.  Each piece of black construction paper had a white pencil crayon outline already on it of where the Q-tips were going to be glued on.  There were long and short Q-tips so the students had to figure out which ones went where.
 
Ms. Pattara gave each student a baggie already filled with pre-cut Q-tips, a skeleton head and a bow tie or bow (depending on if you are a boy or girl).
(Sorry - I cannot get this picture to turn in Blogger!)
 
The skeletons came out adorable!  The kids worked really hard on them!
How are you getting ready for Halloween?


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Stone Soup...FREEBIES!

Stone Soup is a great book to read this time of year!  We just celebrated Thanksgiving a couple of weeks ago and with my students talking about weather changes (brrrr!!!) what better book to read than one on soup!

If you're not familiar with this book, it's about much more than making soup. I like to tell my kinders that the moral of the story is caring, sharing and being friends with one another make things much better (and tastier!).
We've read this book a few times over the past week so my students were familiar with it.

We brainstormed and then used vegetable flashcards that I made to review just some of the many types of vegetables.
You can click here for to print these cards for free.
I brought in a large plastic pot (I bought mine at Michaels a few years back but, by the way, you can find this anywhere this time of year since it goes so well with the Halloween theme!) and filled it with plastic vegetables.
Then we sang this song.

You can download your copy for free by clicking on the picture.
I just choose a few of my favourite vegetables to sing about in this song but you can add many more!
 
We also did a little "kid-writing" where my kinders read the predictable text and completed the endings by sounding and stretching out the words.
 Then they wrote about it in their journals using some of our sight words for the month.
The word that is omitted is the child's name.  So the sentence reads "(Name) put in (vegetable)."
I love kid-writing, don't you?

Happy teaching!

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Halloween is coming...freebie!

Can you feel it????
You know, Halloween in the air?  Well, maybe not yet but with today's weather (cold and rainy) I know it's coming soon!
 
We are getting ready for Halloween in our classroom this week.  The children are already talking about their costumes and I just HAD to start decorating the classroom!
My kinders love singing this song.
You can click on the picture below to get your free copy. 
(I would love to give credit for this song but I don't know where it originates from!  I've sung it for years!)
 
We started our Halloween Write the Room literacy centre.  This week, the students are trying to label the parts of the picture by finding the words around the room...next week, it's sorting out costumes!
 
Here is what our craft will look like by the end of the week.  We are still painting the plates green and letting them dry.  Then we will turn them into these cute witches!  You can find this activity in my Halloween Literacy and Math Activities unit.
 
I am so NOT an artist!  Yup, I can't draw AT ALL!  So when I found this adorable crashed witch at the Dollar Store I knew it would be perfect for our classroom door.  The kids think it's hilarious!
 
I put out this fun activity at my Felt Board centre.  The students can make different faces for the Jack-o-lantern.  It's a great way to think about how we are going to carve our class Jack-o-lantern next week!
 
Here's another felt board activity that will be going up next week...5 Little Pumpkins.
 
And here are my kinders acting out that 5 Little Pumpkins poem.  A fabulous grade one teacher at my school, Ms. Taddeo, gave me these paper pumpkin plates years ago (from the Dollar store) and I taped on popsicle sticks to turn them into masks.  I choose the "5 little pumpkins" and a friend to turn off the lights when it's time.  We must have acted out this song a hundred times today!  It was such a hit!
 
The kindergarten teachers at my school always dress up together in a special theme for Halloween.
Our costumes this year are adorable!  We were very "buzzzy" getting them ready....can you guess what I will be???
 
Happy teaching!  
 
 
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Pumpkin Fun!

We had so much fun at our centres this week with our pumpkin theme.
My students can't get enough of pumpkins!
 
We are getting really good at reading and writing colour words!
 
Matching uppercase to uppercase letters with this fun activity.  When my students are ready, we will match uppercase to lowercase.
 
We focus on different sight words each month and at this centre the students are writing them out 3 times and colouring in the pumpkin to match.
 
This was, by far, the most fun centre this week!
Roll the die and colour that many pumpkins.  First one to the pumpkin patch wins!
I posted about this game last week. 
In case you missed it, you can download this game for free here.
 
We are continuing to work on AB patterns.  My students had to determine the pattern and then extend it.
 
Here's another fun centre the students did during the math block.  Choose a wagon and count the pumpkins on it.  I was so proud of my little JK's!  They did a great job too!
 
We have been working on numbers to 5 so here my students had to pick a pumpkin, find and colour it on the worksheet.  I also have this game modified for numbers to 10.
 
Here is the predictable chart we were working on this week at our Pocket Chart centre.
 
You can find all of the above centre activities in my Pumpkins! Literacy and Math Activities and the pocket chart activity in my best-selling All Year Long Pocket Chart Fun!
 
Lots more to come!  Up next....getting ready for Halloween!
 
 
 

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Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins! {FREEBIE!}

Yippee!
It's a long weekend here in Canada because it's Thanksgiving.
I'm acutally hosting it tomorrow so I thought I would write a blog post today since tomorrow will be super busy (and I will be occupied eating the whole day!).
Thanksgiving in my house is pretty much the typical menu you probably all serve too....
turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, etc.
BUT.....I am from a typical Italian family and so my grandmother feels it's necessary to include homemade gnocchi in the mix!
(She will be taking care of making those!).
Can't wait for tomorrow!
 
On Tuesday, when we go back to work, we will be in full swing learning more about pumpkins.  We have already reviewed the lifecycle of a pumpkin and went to the Downey's Pumpkin Patch last week.
Most of the activities will come from my new unit just posted last night, Pumpkins Literacy and Math Activities.
My colleague, Mrs. Parisi and I worked together on it and I have to say, it's packed with lots of goodies!
It's on sale this weekend for only $8!
 
 Here is a freebie from our Pumpkin unit.
It's a roll and colour game.
Each student gets a worksheet and they take turns rolling a simple number die.  Whatever the number they roll, they colour in that many pumpkins.
The first one to the pumpkin patch wins!
(Click on the picture above for your free printable.)
 
I've also just posted, due to many e-mail requests, my Pumpkins Write the Room activity.
You can click on the picture above to view it.
 
***** THANKSGIVING SPECIAL! *****
 
This weekend only, until Monday at midnight, when you purchase my Pumpkins Literacy and Math Activities unit you will get my Pumpkins Write the Room activity for FREE!
 
Just leave me an e-mail at kindergartenteacher@rogers.com and let me know that you purchased the unit.
I will e-mail you with the Write the Room unit.

(If you already bought my Pumpkin Unit earlier today, please e-mail me and I will send you the Write the Room).

Stay tuned for lots of pictures of the Pumpkin Unit coming up this week.
 
Wishing everyone celebrating a very Happy Thanksgiving!
 

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Happy Thanksgiving!

I am so excited that this weekend is a 3-day weekend for us here in Canada!
It's Thanksgiving!
I love this holiday so much because, yes, you guessed it, the FOOD!
I always host Thanksgiving at my house and this year I bought extra bacon to wrap our turkey with - have you ever tried a turkey cooked for hours surrounded by bacon?
It's D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S.!!!
 
On to what we did in our classroom this week....
 
We went to the Pumpkin Patch and had so much fun playing in the hay stack, going on a wagon ride and learning about pumpkins!
 
We got ready for Thanksgiving by making some fun crafts.
 
Here is our turkey card for our family.
 
 This is the card my little JK's made.  They glued those leaves on all by themselves!
 
The JK's also painted and assembled this handprint turkey.
 
We talked about the meaning of a cornucopia and "filled" ours with pictures from the grocery store flyers.
 
The students in my class love playing with playdough so when I put out these turkey playdough mats they went crazy!
They had to roll out a specific number of feathers for each turkey.
These were created by my teaching partner, Mrs. Parisi.
(Sorry the picture is sideways!  I couldn't get it to turn!)
You can get the turkey mats here.
 
 Do you sing this song with your class on Thanksgiving?
It's so cute!
This is one of those poems I have had from day one of teaching and I don't know where/who it came from!
If you know, please let me know so that I can give that person credit!
Click on the picture for your free download.
(Clip art by DJ Inkers)

I wanted to show some pictures of the rest of the learning going on in our kindergarten class this week.


We learned about the pumpkin life cycle and created this craft to help us remember and retell it.
(This idea was done last fall at my daughter's school by her teacher, Mrs. DiGirolamo.  Being a teacher, I keep everything that is not only adorable but educational, to recreate!)
The download for this activity came from
A to Z Teacher Stuff.
I realized after that I forgot to take a picture of a completed one (the picture above is a work in progress) but the students coloured, cut and glued the pictures onto the "vine" (green ribbon) and as they retold the life cycle they put the pieces into the pumpkin.
On the back they created a Jack-o-Lantern.

The JK's also made their own pumpkin life cycle activity (a little simpler and easier to retell).
This activity is also from A to Z Teacher Stuff.

 
Our Write the Room activity was changed to apples and here a student is copying all the words she reads.
I hide them everywhere around the room!
You can find this activity here or you can get my Write the Room activities for a whole year (with 25 themes) here.

Here are our two focus poems for the month of October.

We have had a great week and I know that everyone deserves a long weekend!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating this weekend!

 
 
 
 

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