Flash Sale on Election Mini Packet!

Hey friends! I am marking my Classroom Election mini packet 20% off through tomorrow, making it $1.20! It includes voter registration cards, ballots, "I Voted" buttons, and a tallying/graphing activity. Click {HERE} to get your copy to use tomorrow :)

 

This week we are focusing on the election process, patriotic symbols, and Veteran's Day {which will carry on into next week a bit}. You can see some of the ideas from my post last year.

I will try to be better about posting photos.. I keep forgetting my camera and we are always busy at work!

Have a wonderful week!

Halloween Math Freebie! {YUM!}

Hey friends! This week has been forever LONG! TG {it's almost} F!!! Despite this feeling like the never ending week, we have had a great time learning all about spiders. And believe it or not, I am actually having fun with it! The kids are really interested in learning about them which makes it all the better :) I have not taken any photos because I have just been draggggging for some reason. But you can see some of the stuff we have been doing in my last post.

Amy and I were working on our plans for next week, and we will be focusing on bats for a couple of days and then random Halloween fun! On Halloween, we are going to make a Halloween snack mix for our kiddos.I found the idea on Pinterest and decided we HAD to make a math activity out of it!

 

The kids will sort, tally and graph their data, determine even and odd numbers, write and solve addition number sentences, and work with place value. You can pick up your copy HERE or by clicking on the image below!

 

 

If you download it I just ask that you leave a comment or rate it on my store :) Thank you! Have a great weekend!

Spider Unit Plans {THANKS, Amy & Cara!} plus a FREEBIE

I. HATE. SPIDERS. They are gross and scary! EW. I hate even talking about them. That being said, I have never done a spider unit... But this year I am sucking it up for my kids. {Plus I have found a lot of cute ideas on Pinterest and in Blog-Land!} I even researched and made a spider fact book {which involved me looking at LOTS of nasty, close up pictures... EW}.

So here are some of the things I am doing... Many of the ideas are not my own, so please click on the pictures to go to the original blog! I want to give credit where credit is due :)

We are going to label spiders using Cara's labeling page.

 

 

We will also tally, graph and interpret data using my "Are You Afraid of Spiders?" graph. I modified mine a bit, but the idea is all Cara's!

 

Here is a copy of my graphing page {I needed a bigger bar graph for 45 kiddos!!} Click on the pic for your free copy. {If you snag a copy I just ask that you please follow my blog}

 

 

We will also work on repeated addition using spider legs! Kids will roll a dice, draw that many spiders {8 legs and all!} and figure out how many legs there are in all! That and the graphing activity come together. But you can also click the picture below :)

 

 

Have you checked out all the cute spider stuff Amy Lemons has been posting? Oh my word!! Can you say adorable?! She has saved me :)

 

We will be doing her Fact and Opinion Activities.

 

We will also be doing her adorable poem/craftivity {click picture for her awesome freebies!}

 

 

Oh, and we will be making a chart similar to this:

 

 

 

At the end of the week, we will do some spider fact writing :)

 

Huge thanks to Amy and Cara for all of their amazing ideas!! :) Our students are very excited for a spider unit, and you've helped me tremendously!!

Teaching Main Idea & Pumpkin Seed Estimation

We started working on main idea this week. Before we ever look for main idea and details in the text, I always bring a bag of stuff to show my kids. In my bag I had a hair brush, hairspray, a flat iron and a comb. We discussed what the bag was all about. They got it immediately! It was all about fixing my hair! The kids drew and labeled the items and then wrote the main idea of the bag.

Today we did one more example together with car wax, window cleaner, a shammy, and a sponge. The main idea was washing the car!

Next, we gave each table a bag. As a group, they had to draw and label the "details" in the bag, then come up with the "main idea" of the bag. They did awesome!!! We were sure to use the terms "details" and "main idea" over and over again when they shared :)

Main Idea: Fixing and building things

Details: pliers, screw, screwdriver, wrench

Main Idea: Painting a picture

Details: paint set, paintbrush, paint bottle, painting

Main Idea: Caring for a dog

Details: dog food, leash, treats, dog brush

Main Idea: Baking cookies/muffins

Details: spoon, measuring cup, mix, bowl

 

Other ideas for bags that we used:

 

Mailing a letter: paper, pen, envelope, stamps
Going to the beach: beach towel, sunglasses, flip flops, sunscreen

Watching a movie: popcorn, DVD, remote, soda
Making Kool-Aid: pitcher, sugar, spoon, Kool-Aid packet

 

They LOVED this activity and did a fabulous job! We will start finding the main idea and details in text very soon!!

 

This afternoon we put our kids in groups of 4 to estimate the seeds inside their pumpkin! As you can see, we had circles for groups of 10 and circles for groups of 100. The kids had a blast! {The teachers were exhausted afterwards!}

 

 

 

TG I{t's almost} F!

Pumpkin Investigation {FREEBIE}

Our kiddos had a BLAST doing our "Great Pumpkin Investigation!" I had every intention of photographing this activity, but Amy and I were SO busy monitoring and helping and just doing basic crowd control :) {Thank goodness we had our volunteers to help, too!}

Last week we sent home a note asking if parents would like to/were able to send a pumpkin. It was not required. But honestly, Amy and I couldn't afford buying 15ish pumpkins {keep in mind we are team teaching and have 45 angels!} We have AWESOME families! We ended up with enough pumpkins for there to be groups of 2 or 3 max!

For our pumpkin investigation, the kids had to estimate or predict, and then test the following questions....

• How many lines does your pumpkin have?
• How much does your pumpkin weigh?
• How tall is your pumpkin using unifix cubes?
• What is the circumference of your pumpkin {in inches}?
• Will your pumpkin sink or float?

They did an AMAZING job! And they were so excited!!

Tomorrow we are estimating pumpkin seeds inside some of those pumpkins! The kids will work with their tables to do so.

Here is the record sheet our kids used during "The Great Pumpkin Investigation!" It's just one page, so you can save some trees :) :) Click on the picture to download your copy!

 

And don't forget to pick up a copy of my Pumpkin Glyph!

A Peek at Our Pumpkin Glyphs!

Yesterday our kiddos made their pumpkin glyphs! They did a great job! We used the glyph page from my TpT store. However, we did not run the copies included in my packet. We wanted the craftivity to go a little quicker, so we pre-cut the pumpkins, stems and mouths for them {they cut out their own eyes and noses}. Then they wrote about their glyphs. I think they turned out pretty cute!

 

 

 

Today we looked at everyone's glyph and the kids tallied the information {how many boys, how many girls, students' ages, etc.} Then they answered some questions about the data! They did an awesome job!

 

Here is a peek at what's included in my pumpkin glyph mini-packet! {There are 3 glyph pages to accomodate grades 1-3}.

 

 

TGIF! Have a great weekend!

Pumpkins! {Pick up your pumpkin glyph!}

This is a short post to just show you a few things we've been up to this week! We started our pumpkin unit! I love this time of year!!

We started reading The Life Cycle of a Pumpkin in our basal. The kids love it! It has great photos, and really allows us to work on nonfiction text features! Next week we will write pumpkin facts!

To follow up with our apple unit and introduce our pumpkin unit, we compared and contrasted apples and pumpkins...

 

 

We reviewed adjectives...

 

We illustrated the life cycle of a pumpkin {from seed to jack-o-lantern!}....

 

Tomorrow we are going to make and write about our Pumpkin Glyph Craftivity!! Be sure to pick up your copy in my TpT store for only a buck!



 

Next week we will continue with pumpkins! We are going to do Abby's pumpkin seed activities and lots of math and science with pumpkins {including measuring height & circumference, estimating the lines of a pumpkin, seed estimation, weighing, sink or float test...lots of fun!}