Fall fun

October is flying by and we have been busy. We wrapped up our study on spiders and scarecrows. Lots of great learning going on here. I just love October!

We made a picture graph- Are you afraid of spiders? Then they analyzed the data on their own recording sheet.

 We learned how to make a graph with this anchor chart. Anchor chart inspired by Kim Adsit.

We labeled the parts of a spider. The kids drew their own spider in their science journal and practiced labeling the parts. Chart inspiration by Cara Carroll.

 Somewhere in October we learned about Christopher Columbus.

 We read The Little Scarecrow Boy and followed up with this craft by Julie Lee. They had to decide what kind of face they wanted their little scarecrow boy to have.

We read The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. We retold and acted out the story using these fun story props. Then we learned all about onomatopoeia.

 We've also been having some spooky fun. We read this emergent reader. I passed out witch fingers for the kids to tract print. We used the reading strategy fly eye to help us decode tricky words. You can find this book and the student version in my new spooky spooky unit.

 I put these and the play-doh mats in my morning tubs. I found all the erasers and bags at Target. My kids love it. All of these activities are found here.

 

 Be sure to check out these units on TPT.

all about me! and coconuts and freebies!

We spent time writing all about me books. Then we made ourselves and attached the book to the shirt. They turned out looking adorable. This idea is from Deanna Jump. Before all that I read them my all about me book. Here are a few of the pages.

 

We also read A My Name is Alice and followed up with this craft. This idea is also from Deanna Jump. We used bingo dot markers to make our rainbow names.

 We read these cute books to introduce our theme.

We also measured our friend with yarn. This adorable idea is from Julie Lee.  

We did our first science experiment . . . Will a coconut sink or float? Here is our graph we made to record our hypothesis. We followed up with the recording sheet below.

Grab the free recording sheet by clicking the picture below.

 Chicka chicka boom boom! Will there be enough room? I got this adorable idea from Kim Jordano.

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Because you all asked you can grab a free copy of the setting anchor chart here or by clicking the picture below.

 You can also get the character anchor chart here or by clicking the picture below.

 

The first 2 weeks of school

We spent a lot of time teaching rules, routines, and procedures. This is critical when managing a classroom full of 24 kiddos. We learned right away how to walk in a hall. This is our hall chant we repeat to remind us how to walk in a line. After we built the anchor chart and modeled what a good line looks like and sounds like I had the kids glue the hall chant into their poetry journal and illustrate what a line looks like.

 

 We also learned how to use glue bottles. We practiced making raindrops and not rain puddles. We sang this cute song to remind us how to use glue. They also glued this into their poetry journal.

 We read Chrysanthemum and talked about characters. I made this little anchor chart and gave each child a mini anchor chart to glue in their reader's workshop journal.

 After reading Chrysanthemum we did the wrinkled heart activity. While reading the story we thought about the character's feelings. Every time someone said unkind things to Chrysanthemum we wrinkled the heart. When the story was over we opened up the heart and tried to smooth it out. We talked about always using kind words. Everyone put a Band-Aid on the heart and glued a mini heart in their reader's workshop journal.

We graphed how many letters are in your name.

Here are some anchor charts we completed.

I love the way Life in First Grade did her number anchor charts.

  You can find the Chrysanthemum activities here.