Five for Friday!

Hey sweet friends! It's Friday!! The past few weeks have been long! We have had four day weeks due to Labor Day and some professional development. I don't know why, but these shorter weeks feel extra long!

I am SO loving my new position in art. I am having a blast just focusing on art all day long. I am getting used to my sweet kinders :) And I am beginning to think I should've been a 4th grade teacher those first nine years in the regular classroom, ha!

It's been over a month since I blogged. I am finally getting the hang of this whole art thing, scheduling, planning, etc. So I hope I can blog a little more frequently. I have decided to keep this blog for now. But feel free to follow me on Instagram @mrs_lynes_artists to see what we are up to in the art room on a pretty regular basis!

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! I can't tell you the last time I have participated, but Mia is napping and I don't feel like doing dishes, so here I am :) These photos are from the past week or two.

I am a little tired today because I stayed up past my bedtime so I could see The Avett Brothers! It was such a good show! In the second picture they are representing our Oklahoma City Thunder! Thunder Up!

I am love, love, LOVING my custom tee that @madisonmarketteacher made for me! It is so soft, so cute, and so perfect for the art room! Check out her Etsy shop to get your own custom tee! 

Last week we celebrated International Dot Day in the art room. We read The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds, and each grade level created their own dots! 

(4th Grade Radial Symmetry Dots)

(3rd Grade Pointillism Dots)

(2nd Grade Primary Printed Dots)

(1st Grade Tie-Dyed Dots)

(Kindergarten Line Sculpture Dots)

Mia loves to read and adores our dogs, Molly and Lulu. Here is a picture of her reading to Lulu. Heart melted!

I have had some requests for some seasonal literacy centers. Even though I am not in the regular classroom, I still love to create things for kids! Here is my newest set of literacy centers! Click on the picture below to check them out :) 

And that is a wrap! I am off to enjoy this weekend of mine that will surely be over in the blink of an eye!

Our Pumpkin Fun!

You all. I don't know how I survived last week! Full moon. Red Ribbon Week. Parent/teacher conferences. And that little thing called Halloween. Oh, and inside recess on the day before Halloween... It was a VERY tiring week! Thank goodness for Starbucks and lots of GoNoodle! 

We managed to fit in some pumpkin fun! We started off with some nonfiction books about pumpkins, including 

We had our kids work on main idea and details, and also illustrating the life cycle of a pumpkin. {Of course I failed to take pictures of their work!! Boo!}

We compared and contrasted apples and pumpkins together, then our kiddos filled out their own venn diagrams. 

Our kiddos still need some extra practice with adjectives. It seems to be a tough concept for some of them. I saw this idea a few times in Instagram and Pinterest and just knew we had to do it! We gave each table a pumpkin and a sharpie. First, they brainstormed adjectives that described their pumpkin. Then, they took turns writing the adjectives right on the pumpkin! This was a big hit! We still had some friends who wanted to write things like, "They grow on vines," or, "They have a stem," so it is something we need to keep working on. However, I do feel like we had some a-ha moments. And we had a cute little adjective pumpkin patch outside of our room when it was said and done!

We did some pumpkin estimating and investigating! Students worked in groups of three and had to estimate how much their pumpkin weighed, how tall it was, the circumference of it, and how many lines it had. Then they had to find out the answers. They had a lot of fun with this!

Last but not least, we did one of my favorite craftivities! Again, we worked on adjectives and had our kiddos describe the outside of a pumpkin. Then we cut a couple of pumpkins open and had them describe the inside. Then we made our inside/outside craftivities! The kids thought these were the coolest things around :) 

If you have made it this far, take a peek at my little family's Halloween costumes! Mr. Hubs made quite the Richard Simmons!! HA!

Five for Friday Giveaway!

Hello, loves! We survived Halloween week! PTL. I haven't been this ready for Friday in awhile. I think Halloween needs to be changed to the last Saturday of October. Just sayin'. Because yesterday afternoon was a little too crazy. But I will say that our little ghosts and goblins pulled it together today and we got a lot done! {I think they were in a sugar coma...} Next week I will be posting about our spider unit, because this tired teacher forgot to take pictures of their awesome spider fact writing craftivities, and I must include them :)

So for now I will be linking up for Five for Friday! Stay tuned for a giveaway at the end :)

1. I fiiiinally planted some pansies. They are my fave!

 

 

2. I bought lots of candy for the big night, but sadly, we didn't have nearly as many trick or treaters as normal :( Luckily, Mr. Hubs started giving out handfuls, otherwise I would just have to eat all the leftovers!

 

3. Maybe the lack of trick or treaters was because of our decor.... I think I told you all that Mr. Hubs is in charge of Halloween decorations.... This picture doesn't even do justice at some of the scary/creepy stuff he has out. I actually watched one couple {with their two little minions} walk past our house. Whoops.

 



4. Yesterday we had a little Halloween fun and used the stickers I got from Target's Dollar Spot to make our frightening fractions! This was the first time we really talked about fractions, and the kids really seemed to get it after a few examples! Such smarties! I just love how these turned out!

 

5. THE GIVEAWAY! Last week I posted about a Skittles activity that we did at our STEM grant training. Well, with Halloween candy now on sale, and with all the candy your little ghosts and goblins probably got last night, I thought this would be the perfect little giveaway! Just add Skittles!

 

Students will sort, graph, tally and interpret data. They will work on number sentences, even/odd, fractions and simple patterns. They will also conduct a simple science experiment using their candy! Best of all, there is very little teacher prep involved! Click HERE or on any picture to check it out in my TpT store!

 

If you would like a chance to win a copy, leave a comment with your email, and your favorite Halloween candy!! I will choose a winner randomly next time I am on here :) And if you don't win, don't worry-you can get a copy for just $1.50!

Pumpkin Unit Photos {Part 1} Plus a pumpkin freebie!

First off, I picked a winner. I just closed my eyes and scrolled. Congrats to Tania, I landed on you! I have sent you a copy of your Spider Fact Booklet! Enjoy :)

You guys, we finally started our pumpkin unit!! I am so excited because in my mind it means that the holidays are coming! Yesterday we started our unit with a KWL chart. Our kids had great schema about pumpkins, but were so excited to learn more. We listened to Life Cycle of a Pumpkin in our basal reader. Yay for good nonfiction text!

 

Today we reread the story for fluency, and really dug deeper into the text. Today was also our fun pumpkin investigation day! We sent a note home asking students to bring a pumpkin to school, in hopes of getting 15 so that our kids could work in groups of 3 {remember, I team teach, so we have 45 kiddos!}. Well, we got enough pumpkins to have a mini pumpkin patch in our classroom. Our families rock! So our students were able to work in pairs, which made for happier teachers :) I love the variety they brought.

 

 

To conduct our investigation, we used this freebie from my little store! Can you tell this is from my early TpT days??! :)

 

Students had to make estimates/predictions before they began. There were 5 stations in all. They counted the lines on their pumpkins, weighed their pumpkins, measured the circumference, measured how tall their pumpkin was, and found out if a pumpkin sinks or floats. Our awesome Watch D.O.G. helped out with the sink or float station :) I looooved seeing how surprised some of them were to learn that a pumpkin floats! Here are some pics from The Great Pumpkin Investigation!

 

This afternoon we put a pumpkin at each table. Students used their senses to come up with adjectives to describe the outside of a pumpkin. There were some great discussions going on! I think our kids are really understanding adjectives, PTL!

 

Then... drumroll please...We. Opened. The. Pumpkins! And they got to observe the inside! As in they got to TOUCH the inside. Say what?!  It was better than Christmas morning! At least they sounded that excited.

 

Again, they came up with adjectives to describe the inside of a pumpkin. We made this anchor chart {which will come in handy next week with our inside/outside craftivity!}

 

 

The last thing we did today was compare pumpkins to apples. We set out a real pumpkin and a real apple to help them out.

 

 

We filled out this venn diagram together. Please excuse the scribble on my chart. Anyone who knows me knows that it really, really bugged me and I really, really wanted to whip up a new anchor chart. But, there was no time. Our kids did an amazing job comparing and contrasting pumpkins and apples!

 

 

We ran out of time, so tomorrow I am having the kids fill out their own pumpkin and apple venn diagram from my Fun with Pumpkins! pack!

 

I will be posting some more about pumpkins sometime in the next week or so, so be on the look out! We will use lots of activities from the pack below!

 



 

Happy hump day! We are halfway done!

My Fall Decor! Plus some new puzzles!

I love fall. And I love fall break. We have been off since Thursday. It has been nice and relaxing and I have gotten caught up on some things that I just don't have time for {i.e. deep cleaning my house}. My sister in law came in town from Philly, too!

I went on a mini shopping spree at Bath and Body Works the other day. $3 wallflowers? Don't mind if I do! I should have enough to get me through fall and winter. I also bought these adorable mason jar candles! Do yourself a favor and go get these candles. They will not disappoint!!

 

Mr. Hubs finally got out my fall stuff so now our house looks like fall! I don't go crazy with fall decor, but I do a table centerpiece, and random sprinklings of fall/Halloween stuff around the kitchen and living room.

 



 

 

I do not decorate the outside of our house for fall/Halloween. That is Mr. Hubs' job... Let's just say he and I have very different opinions on fall/Halloween decor. NOTE: Do not bring your kids trick or treating to my house if they scare easily! I will leave it at that.

 

I have been loving me some puzzles lately. I made a pack of synonym, antonym and homophone puzzles. They would be perfect for literacy centers or whole group activities. There are 22 synonym, 33 antonym and 42 homophone puzzles, plus posters and student record sheets. Click the picture below to check out it out! You get some free sample pages if you download the preview :)

 

 

Have a happy weekend!