spiders!

We had so much fun learning about spiders!! Here is a look at all the fun we had. I love my door display I copied from Cara over at First grade parade. We read the very busy spider and made text-to-self connections.

I am very busy . . . in kindergarten. Look at that precious invented spelling.

Spider labeling and illustrating spiders like Eric Carle

We brainstormed spider verbs and adjectives. I don't have pictures but we wore spider glyph headbands from Deanna Jump's spider unit and acted like spiders using movement cards from my spider unit. They were jumping, crawling, and creeping around like spiders. We also made spider list poems.

One of our chit-chat messages. We made a spider tree map and then wrote sentences.

While reading the sentences we practiced reading left to right, sweeping back around, and top to bottom.

Here is a sequencing activity from Deanna Jump's spider unit

We learned how some spiders use camouflage to protect themselves from enemies. I saw this on Deanna's blog last year.

We also made a circle map. We put what we know and how we know.

Here is our schema chart

The silly willy spider poem.

We acted out the poem with my huge spider I got from Target.

We also put this in our poetry journal.

This was also seen on Deanna's blog from last year.

I used spiders I found in the Target dollar spot for one-to-one. I made spider mats and haunted house mats. You can find this in my spider unit.

I also used the spiders for positional words. You can also find this in my spider unit.

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While in Target I bought a bunch of pumpkin and ghost erasers for non standard measuring.

You can grab my work mats below. I used them in my morning tub stations.

click to download

Oozing pumpkin: Steve Spangler

I am so excited about this science experiment!! We are going to do this on Monday after we carve our pumpkin. You can download the recording sheet below to go along with the experiment.

Are you afraid of spiders? and something to do with those ghost erasers

We completed our first pie graph . . . "Are you afraid of spiders?" Surprisingly more kids are not afraid of spiders. Today I borrowed a pet tarantula and ha they were all silent and kept there distance. We talked about how the bigger pie slice shows more and the smaller pie slice shows less. Then we talked about the data. I have a recording sheet that they completed afterwards.

This and more can be found in my spider mini unit on TPT and Teachers Notebook.

Hop on over to Frogs, bees, & under the seas to grab my ghost measuring activity. You can also download this ghost measuring activity to use with those cute little ghost erasers. Just have your kids measure common supplies found in their pencil box.

mental images {ding-a-ling}

For reader's workshop we learned how good readers make mental images when they read a story. I used the poem ding-a-ling by Jill Eggleton. I read it several times while the kids drew their mental image. Then we all got in a circle and shared our mental images.

 For more mental image activities click here

reader's response

October is flying by! Not surprised at all . . . I have so much to share, but I am too exahusted to bother with uploading my pictures. I already had these on my computer from earlier this month. Here are a few little reader's response activities inspired by things seen on pinterest. My school board is filled with so many amazing ideas. The problem is I want to do them all!

This idea came from came from Eberhart's Explorers

This class book idea came from Eberhart's Explorers

This idea came from Growing kinders

Oh, and our adorable apple graph from Deanna Jump's apple unit. They painted their favorite apple and cut it into a circle and glued it on our tree.

Up next . . . spiders!

and we've been busy.

Here is a freebie for you. Single serving cupcake boxes make the perfect dice.

There was an old lady who swallowed . . .

I love sequencing the old lady who swallowed . . . books with my class. Last week we read There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves. Then we sequenced the things she swallowed. They also drew what she swallowed.

Click the picture below to download

I pulled out all my Halloween books and put them in this basket from Target for read aloud.

nouns and a noun town

For this activity I wrote sentences on sentence strips. We read the sentences aloud together and then they helped me find the nouns by adding a sticky note to the noun.

After you have taught your kids that a noun is a person/animal, place, or thing you can have them complete the noun tree map. Depending on their ability you can have them write or draw the noun. You could even have them cut out pictures from magazines and glue the pictures in the correct box.

Click below to download the noun tree map in English and Spanish.

We also made a noun town. I had lots of small white construction paper squares and let the kiddos draw their hearts out. They loved this activity and came up with some amazing nouns. I especially liked the things they drew for people to hold.

This idea is from First grader . . . at last!