October Buddies

We did our October buddy meetup with the third graders today and we had so much fun writing spooky stories and making haunted houses.  Thanks Mrs. Roberts for planning this fun activity!

Tree Rotations

Here is what we learned about trees this week!

We observed different kinds of wood and used our five senses to describe the different kinds of wood.

We got to do a fun experiment where we saw how many paperclips it took to sink a piece of wood.

 

  

We also investigated things around the classroom that are made from trees and made a list of those things. 

 

Dingle Dangle Scarecrow

The fourth graders and kindergarteners came together in music class to sing fun Halloween songs and learn about the scarecrow.  Two special scarecrows even came and visited us while we were singing!

How to Carve a Pumpkin

We are working on telling stories from beginning to end in writing, so talking about how to carve a pumpkin from start to finish was a great connection.  We cut out our pumpkins and then wrote and drew four steps on how to draw a pumpkin.

 

Trick or Treat Class Book

I was inspired by a Pinterest writing activity to create a new class book.  The clues start with "Trick or treat, smell my feet, can you guess who's under the sheet?" Then we wrote 4 clues about ourselves using predictable sentences.  

1. I am a boy/girl.

2. I have ______ hair.

3. I like ________. (food)

4. I like ______. (animal) 

We started by reading the book, Ghosts in the House and we paid attention to the ghost faces in the story 

Then we wrote the four clues about ourselves and made a ghost. 

Then we put it together and I put their picture under the ghost, so the kids can lift it up and see who's under the sheet! We are going to share them with our buddies too. 

Spelling Work

Last week, we practiced how to do a sort from the program Words Their Way by doing a rhyming sort as a whole class.  This week, I used their spelling tests to give each student their own individualized spelling sort for what skills they need practice on.  We have students sorting by beginning sounds, digraphs like sh-, long vowels/short vowels, and word families like -at.

First we cut and color our sort. 

Then I will work with small groups to teach them how the sort works and we practice reading the words and sorting together.  After they have a chance to learn their sort, then they get to practice!

They can do a speed sort and time themselves on how fast they can sort. 

 

They can use a magna-doodle to write their words and then erase the first letter to make a new word (hat to cat, bat to pat).

They can also use sparkly pens to make a list of their words and use the cookie sheets and magnetic letters to make their words. 

Writing Our Scrolls

The option of writing a scroll instead of a book has been a huge hit with the class! They are so motivated to add pages and make it as long as they can. Lately, we've learned how to use our word wall to write our heart words and we also labeled items around the class that we can use to help us write. In order to get a new page, the kids have to use 5 or more colors and label items on their page.