Halloween Fun in First Grade!

 

We've been working on r-controlled vowels this week and I found this cute treasure hunt from Babblin' Abby. The kids love hunting for treasure (ar words) and wanted to do it again. After the treasure hunt we sorted more words out into "ar" categories. I really think they understood the "ar" sound.

Here a few more Halloween writing activities we completed this week. After completing an anchor chart on how to carve a pumpkin they wrote thier own directions for it and then went on to "carve" their own pumpkins. They are so much fun to look at and the kiddies loved doing it.

This is not such a great picture but it was hard to get a good pic with them haning in the sunny window. Anyway, they loved making these Franensteins from Amy Lemons. We just completed a unit on bats and finished with making our own bats and poems to go with them from Teri ove at A Cupcake for the Teacher.

On to the big day. That's me in the middle and our other first grade teacher in the ballerina outfit and our aide as the bumble bee. Usually we get together on our costumes but for some reason this year we just didn't. Oh well! We have had some pretty cold days in October and not much rain. BUT, leave for today to decide to be pouring, windy, cold, and just plain YUCKY!!. So we had to have our school parade in the gym and not around the block. On the other hand, the costumes were unbelievable. I don't know about you but I really think every year the costumes get more  clever than ever. They certainly aren't what we used to wear back in the day (Thank God!). The most popular costume I thought was the minions. We had a lot of groups of them, including my neice. What a great costume.

Here are the primary grade teachers at my school. I think this is the first year in all my years here (14) that we didn't get together on ideas. What were we thinking. We had a lot of fun though. No on to Thanksgiving and turkey day.

Pumpkins

 

We had a short week at school this week so I decided not to start a new reading story. Instead we several pumpkin books. We learned about the life cycle of pumpkins and wrote adjectives describing our pumpkins. Here is one of the pumpkin projects we did. I found this over at First Grade Blue Skies. You should check it out. This unit has a few cute activities to use with your pumpkin unit. More to come next week.

 

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We ended our Columbus Day unit with these ships that came from a unit from A Cupcake for the Teacher. The kiddies are always facinated with his boat and can't imagine traveling this way.

Our week ended with our schoolwide walkathon. It was super chilly but no rain. That's all that mattered. The kiddies had a great time walking  (or should I say running). After the walk was over the family school association (like a PTA) gave all the kiddies a hotdog lunch which we ate with our 8th grade buddies. We even had 12:00 dismissl. All in all it was a great day and week, but I'm glad it's over and on to the weekend. A drive through Lake Geneva to see all the colors of fall. Have a great weekend.

Busy Firsties

It seems so long since I posted. We have been so busy in first grade these days and I can just see how busy the upcoming weeks are going to be. We just finished all our reading assessments and now on to Halloween and our walk a thon. This is a short week with being off today and Friday is a half day.
Anyway, we have been working on our double facts and when I saw this cute project for the kiddies to write their facts on I just had to do it. They did a great job and really loved it. Thanks Amy Lemons for creating this awesome project.

 

I saw this cute little guy at Home Depot and I knew right away what I wanted to use him for. My kiddies had fun making these little crows and candy corns.

Who doesn't love a ghost. After reading several ghost themed books they got busy creating their own. I just love the legs on them and some of their faces were very creative. Thanks, Teri, over at Cupcake for the Teacher.

 

I'm sure you're wondering what this is all about. We started an after school program where teachers can do whatever kind of class they want with the kids. I'm doing an American Girl tea party. The kids sign up ahead of time if they want to join us. They are having a blast so far.

 

Finally, we just finished our rainforest and animal habitat unit and here are our red-eyed tree frogs. The kiddies colored in the dots this year. I usually allow them to use the bingo dabbers and they turn out so cute but I just couldn't find where I packed them away. I guess I am either going to buy more or keep hunting them down.

This week we are going to work on our bat and pumpkin units along with reviewing all the short vowels we have covered so far. Have a great week and thanks for stopping by.