November, already!?!

Hey, ya'll! Where the heck has the time gone?! I feel like just yesterday it was the first day of school! It's hard to believe the first half of the school year is coming to close. I feel so lucky to have such a sweet and hard working class. They make each day fun, and I have a feelin' that's why this year has zoomed right on by!

Enough digressing... I hope you and your loved ones had a Happy Halloween! We have been so busy the past few weeks wrapping up our studies on owls, bats, spiders, and pumpkins. Like most of you, I'm sure, we celebrated Halloween by having ourselves a little pumpkin investigation. My cuties did such an amazing job counting out their seeds and working together to find the right strategy to use. None of my groups ended up counting the same way, and I loved that! It made for such great discussion at the end of the activity.

Needless to say, they LOVED the activity and certainly did not mind getting their hands all messy! 

Another fun activity we completed for Halloween, was pumpkin book reports. For this project, I let each student choose one book from the class library. At home, they had to illustrate or draw (depending on their level) the elements of the story. Then, they got to create the main character using a pumpkin. The final products were TOO CUTE ya'll. Just take a look below.

We had the whole gang in class: Duck, Sam I Am, The Stinky Cheese Man, Marley, The Gym Teacher from the Black Lagoon, and so much more!

When I sent home the instructions for the project, I stressed the importance of having the students do the brunt of the work. While I acknowledge that parents are needed to complete some more dangerous difficult activities {hot gluing, cutting, etc}, I wanted to make sure my students got to be the creative directors, and let me tell you....they sure did. I have never seen my students more proud of their work than when they presented their pumpkins to the class...and I have probably never been more proud as their teacher. 

You could definitely say it was a win/win!

Besides being totally wrapped up in the chaos of planning, teaching, and tracking data (yuck!), I have had several sweet surprises lately that have helped remind me of the purpose of Thanksgiving. One of those sweet little surprises was this precious wreath:

 

Ok, ignore the filthy dry erase circles. Those puppies only get a good wipe down every Friday {if I'm lucky} and we sure use them to death! Anyway, how stinkin' cute is that wreath!? A precious parent of one of my students last year made it for me for NO.GOOD.REASON. Just to be nice. Can you believe that? If that doesn't make you thankful I don't know what will. Thank heavens for kind people!

Now that October has come to a close we are diving head first into all things Thanksgiving! One of my absolute most favorite times of year! To prep ourselves for the month ahead, I've worked my self to death thrown together a little math and literacy unit! Because my little learners are so diverse and have so many varying needs, I tried to make this unit as thorough as possible. I wanted to be sure it would provide you {and me!} with enough activities to last the month, and I wanted it to cover a wide range of activities. 

This packet is filled with 10 math, 10 literacy, and 1 writing activity. For a closer look please check out the preview picture in full. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me! As always, it will be on sale the first 2 days it is up in my shop! 

I'll be back soon with more classroom updates and a peak at our Thanksgiving happenings! 

Until then, happy teaching!

Halloween in full gear!

Hello again, friends! I hope you're Monday has treated you well. If today was in indication of what the rest of the week will be like, then I am in for some trouble. If you're like me then you had school today despite the fact that it is Columbus Day. It wasn't all bad;  however, because it was the perfect teaching moment for our U.S. Symbols and Heroes unit. Luckily, I found this precious packet from Tangled Up in Teaching.

It gave me all the tools necessary to properly celebrate the holiday with my kiddos! They adored making their Christopher Columbus hats, and their "Stick Stories". Too fun!

In other news, we have just started our new math unit which focuses HEAVILY on making "friendly 10s" to add. Luckily, all I had to do was whip out my Spiders Sums activity and we were good to go! I also prepared a little Candy Corn Addition activity to get us used to making 10. For the activity, I provided each student with a recording sheet and an 10s frame mat with two 10s frames each. The students would then read the addition problem (ex. 9+4) and would place 9 regular candy corn on the first frame and 4 candy corn on the second. This was the perfect lead-in to a discussion on strategies we could use to compose 10. It was so awesome to hear them explain how we could take 1 away from the 4 and move it to the group of 9 to complete the 10s frame. 

Proud teacher, right here!

Once they figured out how to make 10 on the 10s frames, we recorded the two problems on the recording sheet. We wrote the answer using the original problem and the making 10s way. If you'd like to snag a copy of this easy activity, you can click the link below!  

And, last but not least, my October unit is FINALLY posted! I have worked my tush off trying to finish up this latest unit. In fact, the whole reason it hasn't been posted until now is that I was too busy printing and laminating the activities so I could use them in my own classroom. 
Why can't there be a couple more hours in a day!? 

The unit is filled with 16 math and literacy activities that are bat, owl, and spider themed. Each activity is correlated to a Common Core Standard, and the standard addressed is displayed on each recording sheet. In addition, I have created 2 versions of several of the activities to suit the needs of the many different learners in my classroom {and hopefully yours, too}! If you'd like to take a closer look at this packet, you can click on the picture below. Let me know if you have any questions! 

I've also posted some October themed "cut, glue, and solve" word problems in my little shop. I'll be sharing a post later this week to give you more details on those!

 

To celebrate this new product and my October Word Problems unit, both items are going to be 20% off for the next 2 nights!

Have a wonderful night, teachers, and a very happy Tuesday!

Updates and a Freebie

Happy Tuesday, friends!

I don't know about ya'll, but this wonderful fall weather has left me in the BEST mood lately. I love the way it feels when all of the holidays start rollin' around, and I am getting SO excited preparing for them in my classroom! 

We are still knee deep in all things creepy. For centers, we have been using all kinds of activities from my Things That Go Bump in the Night packet {I know I said it'll be posted soon, and I promise it will be!} We also began practicing our subtraction skills and used this little diddy I threw together to help us learn our facts. 

As I read the story I also used some great {and glittery} black spiders I got from Wal-Mart for a whopping $2 bucks! My kids LOVED going along with the story, and they didn't even realize they were using math! Since it worked so well my kiddos, I thought maybe ya'll could use it too! If you'd like to download my "Ten Little Spiders" story and the corresponding center activity and recording sheet, just click the picture below! This is PART 2 of my October mathtivities. 

Speaking of spooky....the other morning I waked into my classroom to find this little surprise....

                                                         Oh the horror, the horror!

Your eyes don't deceive you. It is most definitely my beloved Scentsy in pieces on the floor of my classroom. That Scentsy was just about the only thing keeping my classroom smelling great. Naturally, my students blamed it on our Halloween ghost and I have to admit, I was pretty freaked out myself. Looks like I know what I'll be putting on my Christmas list this year...

In other {non-spooky} news, my cuties have become SO into reader's workshop. Our stamina has grown and we have FINALLY made it to reading with a buddy stage...and let me tell you, it is by far the kids {and my}  most favorite time of the day. Nothing makes this teacher happier than looking around at a class FULL of students reading together and talking about their books. 

 Ignore all the  creepy happy faces and enjoy...

 

*Sight*  It's a beautiful thing.

Before I leave you today, I thought I'd share something with you that made me smile BIG this week. One of my students lost a tooth and wrote a note to the tooth fairy. Naturally the "tooth fairy " wrote back, and here's what she said...

I just about DIED when I read it. How cute! Luckily the parents laminated the note so that the whole class could enjoy it. Of course all my kids ate it right up and loved thinking that their teacher has a secret identity. I have to admit...I may have given them the idea myself. :)

Have a great rest of the week, sweet friends! Get out and enjoy the weather!

Happy teaching!