The little old lady who was not afraid of anything

The beginning of November was spent using the book, The little old lady who was not afraid of anything. It was a great transition from Halloween to scarecrows. Here are some of the activities we did as an extension.

We learned that farmers use scarecrows to scare away crows. Then we finished the sentence prompt," I scare away . . ." For the art part we did a directed drawing activity. I love how they turned out.

These two say, "I scare away scorpions."

"I scare away roaches."

When we did a scarecrow circle map one of my little sweeties told me scarecrows scare away roaches. Um, not exactly.

The book is perfect for learning onomatopoeia. Here is the anchor chart we made.

We sang this song. The kids still break out in song whenever they hear an onomatopoeia word in a book we are reading. 

You can download it below.

We sequenced the book and retold the story using the picture clues drawn by classmates.

We measured the scarecrow and each other with pumpkins and completed the recording sheet.

We also labeled the scarecrow.

 

Veteran's Day, Fall, and scarecrows

I can't believe we made it to this point of the year. Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Do you get a full week off or do you have to go Monday and Tuesday like me?
We made a soldier bubble map. My class had to tell me the correct linking word to use. Then I taught them self-correcting strategies by asking, "Does it makes sense?" and "Does it sound right?" when they told me the wrong linking word.

My little solider was inspired by the one Cara Carroll from The First Grade Parade made last year.

We read these two books to build new knowledge about soldiers.

We used our soldier web to write sentences. Using the web they had to tell me what to write then I asked a child to read the sentence. They practiced reaidng with their finger by using the dot marker (love this strategy Fran from Kindergarten Crayons uses). Then another child read the sentence with a pointer.

We made these adorable soldiers from Deanna Jump's Veteran's Day unit. I am dying over how cute these are. We made these last year too.

We read American Soldier from Deanna's unit for shared reading then glued it in our poetry journals. We used the book to learn about sneaky slient e. That sneaky slient e he changes everything- he makes the vowel say its name.

Last week we read a lot of my Fall books. Then we brainstormed words for Fall. Then we did interactive writing to fill up my turkey.

Then we made sentences using our Fall words (another great idea Fran from Kindergarten Crayons posted about). Then we practiced reading with our fingers. Checking to make sure there were enough words, did it match, and did you have any words left over.

Cut a sentence activity using the sentence pattern from above. Each child had to dictate a sentence to me while I typed it. Then I gave them a baggie with the words cut apart. They had to glue the sentence in order left to right, top to bottom, and illustrate it.

Finally finished these scarecrows. A lot of work, but oh they turned out looking so adorable. We also labeleld our scarecrows. You can find the patterns for these in Deanna Jump's scarecrow unit.

pumpkins and the 50th day of school

Before we carved our pumpkin we brainstormed a list of adjectives that describe the outside of the pumpkin. When we carved it we came up with a whole new set of words that describe the inside.

We surveyed how to carve our pumpkin. This idea was a mesh of Cara Carroll and Babbling Abby. This was completed as we carved.

We saved all the seeds for some math activities. We estimated how many seeds we thought were in the pumpkin. Then we made groups of ten and counted by tens to find the grand total.

Then everyone got to go home with their own pumpkin seeds. This cute pumpkin seeds label came from Babbling Abby over at The Inspired Apple.

We read Pumpkin Jack and watched Jack decompose. We recorded our observations in our science journals.

pumpkin life cycle

Inspired by Juile Lee. I had my kids draw the pictures for each stage. The pumpkin was provided for them to color.

labeling parts of a pumpkin in our science journal

We celebrated the 50th day of school! This year is flying by. We learned the hand jive, listened to 50's rock n roll on Pandora. Looked at real records and made these super cute records I saw on Deanna Jump's blog last year.

Cara Carroll from The First Grade Parade came up with the most adorable 50's art project. My kids LOVED this! We used our then and now pocket chart sorting activity from Eberhart's Explorers to help us with the writing part.

monsters, heart maps, and Sammy

These little monsters and mummies from Deanna Jump make me one proud teacher. Seriously, they are so adorable!

monster glyph

monster verbs and adjectives for list poems

Directed drawing activity

This little girl amazes me . . . look at that detail.

mummy craftivity and text-to-self writing

Character traits with Baby Mummy

Here are some heart maps we did in September. These stay in their writer's workshop folder to help them come up with writing topics.

Download a copy here

This week we have been celebrating the 50th day of school and having fun with scarecrows.

We labeled Sammy the scarecrow and measured him with pumpkins. My kinders are so sweet to me and chatted it up about how darn cute Sammy is.