Pattern Party Part 2!

So, if any of you have been following my blog right from day 1, you might remember that my VERY FIRST blog post on Fun With Firsties was all about our Pattern Party!

Well, it was such a hit that I brought back the pattern party for it's second year!

We got the party rolling by making edible pattern bracelets with Fruit Loops and Twizzlers. And there was definitely more eating than patterning going on...I may have been guilty of this, too.

Then we rotated through 4 different pattern centres in our table groups:

At the first centre, the kiddies got to make their own pattern crowns using stickers and stamps:

(I wish I got a picture at the end of the day; they were all too stinkin' cute in their pattern crowns!)

Cute story: at this centre, while licking and sticking stamps, one little cutie decided to share with us that "my mom doesn't let me lick things at home, which is crazy because I just love licking things!" HA!

At the second centre, they made patterns with play-doh and cookie cutters:

The third centre functioned like a "free choice" centre. The kiddies could choose from a variety of math manipulatives (snap cubes, animals, keys, pattern blocks, and beads) to sort or build patterns:

And finally, at the fourth centre, they got to make pattern strips using popcorn kernels and dried split peas (a lovely fall colour combo, I might add!)

In addition to our pattern party during our end-of-day math block, the kiddies also came dressed in patterns (as you may have noticed in some of the pics above!) and had the opportunity to bring in a small patterned object to share with the class. And with that, pattern party part 2 was another huge success! We wore patterns, shared patterns, made patterns, and ate a whole lot of patterns. Sugar 'em up, and send 'em home! ...you're welcome moms and dads ;)

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On another note, I am super excited to whip out some of the literacy centre activities from my new Everything Autumn pack next week. In the upcoming weeks we will have a fall week (this week), Thanksgiving week, pumpkin week, spider week, and Halloween week...and all of the resources I will need are now featured in this one HUGE pack!

Woohoo! *150* pages of hands-on literacy centre activities! 

...on the flip side, it looks like I'll be laminating and cutting all weekend...

Here's a small peek at what's included:

Happy fall ya'll!!! Have a great weekend :)

Spider Celebration!

Well, despite the fact that this week was only a 4-day week, boy was it BUSY! We had such a great time learning about spiders. Early in the week we did a fun little craftivity after learning about spider webs. The kids used glue and sparkles (BTW, we did this activity on Tuesday and I am STILL covered in sparkles even as I write this post here at home) to make their own webs, and used construction paper to make a spider...

(oops...I forgot to take a picture of the final products!)

On Thursday, one of my kidlets brought in this little beast for our "Exploration Station" literacy centre:

*BLEGHHH!!!* I strongly dislike absolutely loathe spiders and this one lived on my desk for two days. No thank you. 

The kids named her "Webby" and were totally fascinated by her. Although I told the kiddies we could keep all of the spider decorations until Halloween, Webby has to go!!! 

Anyways, back to what we have been up to all week! One thing we did to reinforce our new spider knowledge is make our own nonfiction book all about spiders. 

(I particularly love this activity because I will have the kids keep this book in their book boxes for a couple weeks for them to read. It is simple enough for my little ones who need some extra confidence, and will help build fluency for my confident readers)

And today was our Spider Celebration! In the morning we made "Arachnid Hats" with one spider fact on each of the 8 legs. They turned out to be all kinds of adorable and the kids wore them all day....and so did I of course!

During math, we rotated through spider-themed math centres. The first centre was a patterning centre:

Although we finished our patterning unit a couple weeks ago, I like keeping one of my centres as a patterning centre for occasional review.

In our Number Sense and Numeration unit right now, we are focusing on basic addition:

Here's a bunch of worksheets I've created to practice this skill:

(click the pics to download your FREE copies)

So the next math centre reinforces this very important skill:

(Grab the above web mat HERE)

 In the pic above, the kiddies use mini spiders (from the dollar store) to solve problems of 1 more, 1 less, 2 more, and 2 less. 

At the beginning of this week I had a couple firsties who were just not grasping the concept. And now, only a couple days later, I am seeing lightbulbs go off all over the place! That is just too exciting to me!!! 

Then we had a survey centre. In a couple of weeks we will be learning about data management and graphing so I thought this would be a sweet and simple introduction to all that great stuff!

The kids walked around the class with clipboards and surveyed their classmates to find out who was afraid of spiders and who was not...

And I just HAD to include this next picture. I told them to show me what their scariest spider was going to look like and, oh, the faces I got...

 The next centre was a Colour by Number worksheet. A super simple activity, but it reinforces key concepts we have been working on (numeral recognition and formation, and reading and working with colour words)...

 Last, but not least, we had a Memory Game centre. There were 5 pairs of different spider pictures and the kiddies had to take turns--#ProblemSolvingSkills--matching pairs of the upside-down cards (image recognition, attention, and memory*)...

 And, of course, I had to show them and episode of the Magic School Bus <3 "The Magic School Bus Spins a Web" As you can tell, they were glued...

 It was so awesome hearing them whisper during the show: "Look! There are the spinnerets!" "I bet you that's a trap door spider...I was right!" etc.etc.etc Too cute.

Oh yes! I almost forgot to mention one last activity we did earlier in the week. I have been introducing the kiddies to basic letter writing so I thought it would be perfect to have them write a letter to either our principal or vice principal, telling them all about what we have been learning (the kids are SO proud of their new spider knowledge and I wanted them to have the opportunity to share that). And, of course, any form of writing is always perfect for reinforcing all of the writing rules we are striving to perfect by the end of grade one (punctuation, capitals, complete ideas, letter formation, spelling, etc.)

Then we wrote a "cover letter" altogether to slip in the envelope (*modelled writing!*)

Alrighty, I think that about wraps up the longest post ever...And I hear a glass of wine calling my name. Have a great weekend everyone!

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Spiders Aren't Insects!

My kiddies walked into their classroom today and...

Spiders took over! Boy did they go NUTS for just a few cobwebs and plastic spiders. Gotta love 'em! 

Oh, and of course our new friend, Frankie (our giant classroom spider)...

(They are all convinced that Frankie is a girl spider because all of the little plastic spiders are apparently HER babies haha)

 Anywho, needless to say we are starting our mini spider unit! We have already learned so much about spiders (fun fact: did you know that spiders aren't insects?! Insects have 6 legs and spiders have 8). And surprisingly, despite my irrational fear of spiders, I'm totally fascinated by what we are learning, too! Did you know that most spiders make a new web every day? Cool!

ANYWAYS, we started off by learning the parts of a spider and what they each do...

(I saw a similar version of this anchor chart on Pinterest...let me know if it was yours so I can give you credit!)

 The kiddies are labeling their own spiders, too. I love to hear them chat with one another about what we've learned..."I'm putting blood on the fangs because my spider injected an insect with venom. Now the insect is paralyzed" Gross, but totally awesome! 

This is also the perfect unit to start talking about fiction and nonfiction texts. These are the two texts that we we will be focusing on during shared reading all week. My kiddies can already tell me that nonfiction texts have a table of contents, index, and sometimes a glossary. Smartypants!

Here are a couple spider-themed centre activities I created. 

Click the pics to download your FREE copy:

Have a great (4-day!!!) week! More spider fun to come!