Halloween Week

Happy end of the Halloween-Full-Moon-Week, friends!! Whew! We survived!!

Not sure how I did it, but we got through a TON of things this week.

For one... we did some activities from Deanna and DeeDee's {Guiding Readers pack}. I did Creepy Carrots this week. The kids just LOVE this story!

We did some Cause and Effect with the story, too.

Our listening centers was Crakenstein (from {DeeDee's Listening centers} - this one was from 2014-2015 set).

Our other centers came from my {October ELA center pack}. I have them for 2nd grade too!

We did our district math test for about 3 days straight.... so on Thursday, we did a "break" from math. We did Deanna's non-tracer Frankenstein craft from her {Halloween pack}. Little did the kids know, they were still getting a math lesson - there is great math vocabulary! AND I made a 2-D shape recording sheet to add to the craft.

Keeping with the Frankenstein theme...we did Jennifer's {directed drawing} of Frankenstein. 

They came out soooo cute! I mean, c'mon. Kids need to be kids, right?! These activities are full of "listening and following directions" so they are still academic. But sometimes, kids just need to draw!

We also did Frankenpudding, an idea I got from {Cara}. and every year, I recruit my husband to draw the face...because he's THAT good. haha. poor teacher husband, right!?

But the kids always love it.

We also did some of Megan's {Little Green Witch Unit}

I had a volunteer come in and it was a perfect lesson for her to do (she needs to get in some student-teacher hours) because the kids already LOVED our {Little Red Hen unit}, and so they were really able to make the connection with this book.

Then, we did the summary pages. We didn't do ANY written planning page...they did this summary ALL on their own without looking at a planning page!! I call that a success!!

We also had to make our monster hats. Our school was doing a school wide Reading "Competition" and the last day of the month, we would be having  Monster Mash to celebrate all the minutes our school read! So I opted for party hats (after all, it was a celebration, right?) and googly eyes and pom poms. They could make teeth if they wanted....or just do whatever they wanted with their hat. All them. and they came out pretty cute!

We also did our How To writing for the week - How to Scare a Cat! We talked about topic and closing sentences, which they could "steal" from me, but they had to come up with some of their own ideas for how to scare a cat! You can find the writing and craft (and other activities) in my {Scaredy Cat, Splat pack!}

annnd...now I'm gearing up for a Halloween filled weekend with the family!

Happy Halloween! Here's a little Halloween Treat for you!

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Scaredy-Cat Splat

One of my favorite books to read during "Halloween Week" is Scaredy-Cat Splat!

Of course, I do - we do a week of Splat in the beginning of the year, too! 

(Check out that post {HERE}).

Last year, I made a few activities to do with my class, but never got around to making it "share-able" because life was beyond crazy around this time last year!  So this year, I sat down and finished her up!  It's pretty similar to my Splat the Cat unit {HERE}.

There are reading response activities and writing extension activities.

And I got my crafty bug and was able to finish up the cat craft for it.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to use the paper to hang with it, or the pumpkin...Or both! ha!

Check out this pack {HERE}.

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Pumpkin Week

So, pumpkin week came and went....like a whirlwind!

And yes, I have 2 Build a Bears in my class that I dress up for the seasons...lol.

October planning REALLY is one of my favorites to plan. In all honesty. I love doing Bats and Spiders and Pumpkins and Halloween! 

That week we started with {Little Boo}.  If you have not heard of this story, you MUST run out and get it...right now. Or you can order it like I do. haha!

We did a SWBS for the book...

Then the kids took that and wrote the summary out. They are getting SO good at writing out the summary from our planning pages.

We also read {Spookley}.  We did a Character Trait...and how the character changed from the beginning to the end.  This oh-so-cute craft comes from Jennifer, over at {First Grade Blue Skies}. (The writing paper is mine that I made up really quick last year).

With Spookley, we also did our monthly literature quilt. This idea came from {THIS POST}.  

We also read the Bumpy Little Pumpkin. It is SO cute and the PERFECT book to practice adjectives!

We read it and then went back through and found all the adjectives.

We did  a drawing a labeling of the parts of a pumpkin.

Then it was time to start in our {Pumpkin Books!}

This is where those adjectives from Bumpy Little Pumpkin come in hand!

We love our {Spelling Journals} - they use them ALL the time as a resource on how to spell words

On Orange Day (Orange you Glad you Can Read Day), we did all the fun measurements and insides part to the pumpkin.

The ooey gooey part to the pumpkin!

We also did our Pumpkin Math...it's just a pumpkin I drew up, drew some lines to make it a puzzle, and then I tell them what they need to do in each section. After they do it, then they go over it with a sharpie, cut it up, and then put it back together as a puzzles...because these are all the PARTS to the WHOLE number in the stem!

The {Family Projects} this year have been so cute!! 

At the end of the week, we did a comparison of Apples and Pumpkins. Nothing fancy...just did it quick on some paper....

and they had to pick at least 2 from each section to write about...but they had to pick matching adjectives for the "different" sides....which is the hard part for them, honestly.

So what did we do for centers?? Well, I just don't have time during reading small groups to get around to take pictures, but my math time is somewhat more lax (in terms of a tight schedule), so I can get around more.

One of our favorite math games is Bump from Denise over at Sunny Days. She has these for all the main seasons/holidays. This is her Boo Bump you can get {HERE} for free!

The other centers were from my {October Centers}.

If you missed my Halloween Week, Check it out {HERE}.

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