Halloween in November...and some other stuff

Hi everyone! So this post is certainly long overdue, sorry for the wait...I will make up for that now, starting with: HALLOWEEN! Wow. Halloween seems like forever ago now. I canNOT believe it is already November. Time is flying by. Before we know it, it will be Christmas!!! I was out of town all weekend and was instantly launched into the holiday spirit by the fantastic amount of snow in Winnipeg. Despite the effect it had on the roads, the weather was so awesome that I just HAD to come straight home and decorate the house.

ANYWAYS, with my Christmas lights festively glowing, I can now update you all on the past two weeks!

There's my darling firsties and I on Halloween. I was super duper dreading that day but we actually had a blast! I tried to keep the day a little more low-key, yet they kiddies seemed to really enjoy our themed activities. In the morning (after the annual Halloween costume parade) we did some Halloween writing (sorry, I can't remember where I got this worksheet!):

I loved that writing activity because it's a simple way to get the kiddies writing in complete sentences and including details in a piece of writing. We did the top page first and, from there, they had to pick one idea from each column (I can, I see, I have) and write them in a mini paragraph using complete sentences. 

After recess we had Halloween math centres, which I forgot to take pictures of :( The centres were basically a review of some of the key things we have learned in math so far this year but with a holiday twist. During math centres, I did some good 'ole bribing with candy corn. If they were working hard I gave each child a couple of candy corns each time we switched centres. I HATE candy corn but they of course thought this was the bees knees!

At the end of a long day, I sent my little monsters away with a silly treat:

All I did was put marshmallows in a ziplock bag, and cut, fold, and staple on the label.

To download your FREE editable labels, click the pic above or HERE.

The next day, I realized we never really did an official Halloween craft so I used this next craft as an opportunity to incorporate Halloween and word work. During our language arts block, one of the things we have been focusing on is word families and long/short vowel sounds. So I had them pick any three different families/vowel sounds and write two words each that fit those categories. Then we made this sweet little monster craft inspired by Babbling Abby (I don't know what I would do without all these inspiring teacher bloggers!!!):

(The craftivity below our monsters is a writing activity we did a couple weeks ago in science. After learning all about the seasons they had to pick their favourite season and write about it)

 This monster made me laugh...so much detail! The little thing was working away on it for about half an hour:

 In math, we have begun a new unit, "Time and Temperature." So I changed a couple of our math tubs (the kiddies usually do one math tub every day after whole group, small group, and independent practice in math):

Click the pic or HERE to get your FREE copy!

In this centre, the kiddies simply have to put the months of the year, days of the week, seasons, and holidays in the correct order. It's super cute walking by and listening to them singing the months of the year/days of the week songs to help them out :P 

Next is a matching centre focused on seasons. Get it free HERE. With all cards face down, they have to flip two cards at a time and determine whether or not the pictures or words match up:

(the picture is a snowy scene and the word says winter so the two cards are a match)

(Here, the Christmas tree tells us that the season must be winter, and the boy playing in the leaves indicates fall so those two cards are not a match). The kiddies LOVE this game.

I have a total of 8 math centres since I like to keep the kids in partners for math (they are much more focused and time-effective this way) Here's a quick look at two of the math tubs that I like to keep the same as a great review:

(A beading station to practice patterning)

(In this tub, the kids get extra practice with the early addition concepts of showing more and less)

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Speaking of math, I also added two more products to my TpT store:

*2016: THIS PRODUCT HAS BEEN UPDATED!*

I used this FREE booklet as a review/assessment of the important concepts taught in the last Number Sense and Numeration unit we just finished. The kids loved working through this booklet and it acted as an AWESOME assessment tool for me.

We just finished off this ordinal numbers booklet at the end of last week. The math unit we are currently working on introduces ordinal numbers yet does not provide much practice material for the kiddies, so I made up this booklet as extra practice. They totally loved this one as well. All they wanted to do was colour the cupcakes and train graphics that I used (seriously, make a worksheet "pretty" and the kids are magically more engaged...who knew?!)

Click the pics above if you would like to download/purchase your own copy! 

And that officially concludes my long update! Have a great week everyone :)

Pumpkin Party!

More pumpkins! All week we have been learning about these things and yet I still have this strange obsession with pumpkins...and so I'm going to keep up the pumpkin theme next week, too! After all, we haven't even tried pumpkin seeds yet! So here's some of the things we've been up to all week:

During our shared reading, we were learning about the pumpkin life cycle. The kiddies really enjoyed talking about how a pumpkin seed becomes a big, round pumpkin so I jumped at the opportunity to complete a sequencing activity that reiterates writing our numerals and also requires some good ol' fine motor: 

(click the picture above for a copy of the sequencing cards)

 During math, I cut a hole in the top of our class pumpkin so the kids could first estimate and then count how many seeds were in the pumpkin. In Number Sense and Numeration we are working on counting by 10s so this was a perfect activity for that:

 Some kidlets estimated 6 seeds and some estimated 10000! In the end, our pumpkin had 258 seeds.

Next came math centres. Our first math centre was pumpkin number order. The kids had to write the missing numbers. Anytime they get to use whiteboard markers they are ALL.ABOUT IT.

Click HERE for your FREE copy of this activity (I coloured the pumpkins in and laminated them)

Next centre was number matching. First they just match up the numeral and dot puzzles and then they could play it as a memory game:

Grab a FREE copy of this activity HERE.  

At calendar time we have been working on saying the date using ordinal numbers (i.e. first, second, third, fourth, fifth, etc.) so this next centre focused on practice identifying and matching ordinal numbers with their corresponding numeral. I even took it one more level for my smarty-pants and had them write the number word as extra practice. 

You can download the FREE pumpkin cards HERE (if you go to atozteacherstuff.com you can grab the pumpkin cards from 11 to 20) and my FREE WORKSHEET HERE.

 Last but not least was a Halloween-y dice game. I LOVE dice games for one-to-one correspondence practice. All the kids had to do here was take turns rolling the die and moving their piece along the monsters. First one to get to the candy wins. SO SIMPLE but they loved it, which means I loved it, too! (I can't remember where I got this one from. Let me know if it was you so I can give you credit!)

Grab it HERE 

 If it isn't already obvious I am *all about* centres!!! Whether it's math, literacy, science, whatever, I think centres are SO important for practicing key skills taught in whole and small group. Grade one is SUCH a developmental year and centres are a great way to consistently practice those keys skills along with accountability, independence, problem solving, social interactions, and about a zillion other things.

Okay, I will stop blabbering on now. Have a fantastic week everyone!!!