Halloween Fun!

Before I begin this blog post, I have a very important announcement:

Can I get an amen?!

Seriously though, the week of Halloween is always full of fun, October themed learning activities, but kids cannot even contain their excitement the day of Halloween. And this year, they can be at home during their post-candyfest the following day! Woohoo!

Last year, my students participated in tons of fun Halloween/October themed math and literacy centers. The great part is, it didn't matter if it was an activity we had previously done - if it was revamped with a little pumpkin or spider clipart, they jumped for joy at getting to use these activities! I love creating fun, themed activities for my students to participate in. It makes it fun for me as a teacher, too!

Here are just a few of the math stations we'll be doing this week:

Ghostly Tens {Composing Numbers to 10}

This station has ten frame puzzles for students to complete and show which number combinations can be created to make 10.

Trick-or-Treat Candy Count

Students count and match candy cards to the trick-or-treat bag with the corresponding number.

A Pumpkin Patch of Shapes {2D/3D Shape Sort}

Students sort picture cards by 2D/3D shape and complete the recording sheet to show their learning.

Spiderweb Roll and Dab

Creepy Counting On

Students practice counting on from a given number in a sequence. (This little friend had her cards switched up on the mat, but wrote them correctly on her paper!)

All of these math stations - plus two more not pictured here! - can be found in my TPT shop in my Trick-or-Treat! Math is Sweet! pack. Printables are included for every single activity! You can click on the picture below to go straight to the math stations in my store.

We kicked off our bat unit on Thursday with this adorable graph courtesy of The First Grade Parade! We asked ourselves, "Do you think bats are creepy or cute?" Last year, our opinions were completely split down the middle:

This year, "cute" won by a huge margin! I was so surprised! I, for one, am of the thought that bats are creepy, even though I think they are amazing animals. After that, we began making a schema chart of all the things we think we know about bats. I'll share more about that as we continue to fill it out with facts during the week.

Once my students start their literacy centers on Tuesday, I'll share more ideas for Halloween-themed reading activities you can implement in your own classroom: Sight Word Pumpkin Patch, Spooky Sentence Building, and some of my favorite games from some of my fellow amazing bloggers!

I'm supposed to have jury duty this week; and ain't nobody got time for that! Pray that I don't have to go when I call in the night before! Happy Sunday, everyone!

Five for Friday November 22nd Edition!

It's Friday!!! Better yet, the last Friday before Thanksgiving break! We only go to school for two days next week and then I am off. I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for this week's Five for Friday.

1. First, I have a new, much needed blog design! I love how it turned out! A huge thank you to the fantastic Jennifer from Raspberry Road Design on Etsy for the adorable personalized, custom design. She was quick to complete my design and even fixed a few things within minutes of me requesting some minor changes. It was exactly what I was looking for! You can see some of her great work by clicking on the banner below:

2. I am determined to lose 5-10 pounds by the end of the year, despite all the holiday chowing-down I will inevitably be doing between now and then. I started watching what I was eating, logging my food diary into the My Fitness Pal app, and getting up and the ungodly hour shown in the photo below to work out three times a week using the Nike+ Kinect Training game on XBOX. It's a great workout program... hopefully I can keep sticking with it! (You know how it goes).

3. We have a new little candy/novelty shop that just opened up in the huge plaza next to the Phoenix Coyotes arena called "It's Sugar". It has a ton of fun stuff in there, but my most exciting find was a 4-pack of these finger lasers for a mere $3.50! I snatched up a pack and thought they'd be perfect to use during my small groups in reading. They couldn't get over them, and neither could the kids who were supposed to be at their literacy stations... they kept not-so-subtly walking past my table to get a sneak peek! So fun.

4. I had about 3 bags of candy corn left over from our kindergarten fall festival back in October, and since I absolutely loathe the taste of candy corn, I wondered what I was going to do with it all. I whipped up this Candy Corn Count response sheet to go with the pumpkin math mat from Kindergarten Crayons and candy corn cards from somewhere in blogland (tell me if it's you so I can give you credit!) and the kids used the leftover candy as math counters. I put a huge pile of number cards in the middle of their table and they picked a card at random, counted out the matching number of candy corn pieces, and recorded it on their paper. They loved it!

5. We had our annual school Thanksgiving feast this past Thursday. It's a huge family event where everyone comes to lunch at school and the band plays, the choir plays, and the entire cafeteria is decorated courtesy of the K-2 classes. To add to the festivities, my students made these "I'm Thankful" hats to show one thing they were thankful for. I love how this kiddo's turned out. Most kids wrote about their families, me (awww), or friends... but one said they were thankful for money. Haha!

It's been a great week, but I'm looking forward to having a break next week! And keep an eye out for a big giveaway in the next week or two to celebrate my blog redesign! You'll be able to win some gift cards and some fabulous products from TPT sellers. Can't wait!!!