Our October Adventures

Is it just me or is time FLYING by?!?!  I feel like school just started yesterday, however, we're only two days away from being in November! It's crazy!

Needless to say we have been super busy.  We have been up to lots of fun activities that I've found through the wonderful blogland. Here's some of the things we've done:

After reading the above class favorite we created these reader's response skeletons!  The kiddos copied the sentence starter, "I would get rid of a skeleton's hiccups by..." They came up with some very creative ideas!

 After reading a multitude of fiction and nonfiction stories about owls, creating a KWL chart, and a tree map, we created these adorable owls and wrote informational/factual sentences.

One of my sweet firsties favorite projects so far has been the Haunted House for Sale Project that I found and purchased from Jodi over at Clutter Free Classroom.  {She also has a new writing project on Turkey-Day! Be sure to check it out!}

First, we came up with adjectives and amenities {whole group} that would be great to include in our own haunted house.  After that we created our haunted houses. Then, we were able to begin our rough draft persuasive writing. 

I love that not ONE haunted house looked the same!  So cute!!

 As we continued our unit on nocturnal animals, we began learning about spiders.  I stumbled upon this AAAHHHHHH-mazing book in our school library.  It is full of fun facts about spiders and really captures the kids attention.  My students were glued to the pictures and the facts and even begged me to read it to the a second time!  It's a must!

 Well as our final project with spiders, we made these adorable silly spiders that I snagged templates from The Polka Dot Patch!  Then we read about how to write Fairy Tales from my ALL TIME favorite writing book {featured below}.

We only read certain elements {so we could get the feel for writing nonfiction/magical stories} and then wrote our silly spider stories.

I am so excited for this week.  Monday {Halloween} we are having "Character Day." My kids are allowed to dress up as their favorite book character and have completed book reports on them!  I will be dressed as no other than Fancy Nancy...Halloween style!  Then, we will be spending our week investigating pumpkins and celebrating the 50th day of school.  Both a pumpkin investigation packet and 50 days of school unit purchased from no other than Cara over at The First Grade Parade!  I'm so excited about root beer floats and 50's music! 

Pictures of course will be posted. Hopefully, it won't take me a month to get them up this time! :)

Happy Halloween!

Ships

I know Christopher Columbus Day has come and gone, but I'm JUST getting around to posting our fun little activity we did as a reader's response.

After reading several nonfiction stories and watching a very fun BrainPop video {which are ALWAYS} fun, we created a circle map together to record our new information.

 Then we created these adorable ships that I first saw on Pinterest!  They are so stinkin' cute!!!  They also wrote "In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue."  After that we created stories. We all pretended we were Christopher Columbus and wrote about what our adventure was like!  First graders have such wonderful perspectives! :)

We are now deep into our nocturnal animal unit and have some adorable creations that I will be sharing this week!  I'm finally catching up on LIFE and feel like I have time to actually just rest and relax!  It's only taken three months. :)

 

Stellaluna

One of my favorite activities to do during our 'nocturnal animals' unit is a reading response activity with the beloved child book Stellaluna. 

After reading and discussing the story, we first create a story map of the story and then sequence the story.

We then create these adorable sequenced Stellaluna bats!

How adorable did these turn out?!  I *love* the added artistic detail! :)

 

Overload

I have so much to catch up on! With all the assessments, it has been a mad house in my classroom! So much to do...not enough time in the day! :)

A couple weeks ago we were introduced to nouns.  This was a review for the majority of the students. So, for our culminating activity for the week we created "Noun Town" an idea I snagged from the amazing Sarah Cooley at First Grader..At Last!

 Then it was time for Constitution Day! I grabbed the freebie from Amanda at One Extra Degree.  Her Constitution mini-unit was **PERFECT** Even though some of the vocabulary was a little over their heads, most understood the concepts and we made connections to our classroom!

 {for the life of me, I can NOT get this stinking photo to upload in the right direction} I saw the adorable heart-shaped flags on Pinterest and KNEW I had to have my kiddos add those as their artwork!

 Then, out of NOWHERE, it was Johnny Appleseed's birthday and time to celebrate and learn all about those delicious, healthy, snacks!

After reading several fictional and nonfictional stories on apples we created this adorable parts of an apple visual!

 We then read The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree and created these fingerprint visuals of apple trees in each season.  The kiddos picked which season they wanted their apple tree to be in, painted the trunk, and then used their tiny fingers to make the leaves, apples, and blossoms {depending on their season}.

 I then had them fill in this simple sentence to go along with their tree.  Super easy and the kids LOVED getting to fingerpaint!

 On Friday, we made this freakin ADORABLE apple-stamped wreath! I found this on Pinterest {my FAVORITE website to find ideas}. Thankfully, I had an amazing parent in the room to help me get these started! The kids stamped a apple in red paint, then onto white paper.  They used a paintbrush to draw the stem and leaf. Then they painted a paper plate brown.  After the apples were done drying, they cut them out and glued them onto their wreath. Easy, cute, and fun for the little ones!

 The following is a picture of my "Brain Break" sticks! If found this activity somewhere on blogland {if it is your creation PLEASE contact me so I can give credit where credit is due}.  Each popscicle stick has an activity on it {like spin 3x, jump rope, macarena, seat swap, etc...}.  When I see that the kids are starting to fade away, I stop and say "man, our brains need to take a break...lets do a brain break." Then I randomly select a popsicle stick and we do the activity together.  The kids absolutely go NUTS for these fun little activities.  None last longer than a minute and it's a great way to get them focused!

On another note, thank you to ALL you wonderful teachers who have selected me for blog awards! I have been super busy but wanted to take a second to express my gratitude! I never expected for this little blog to be so inspiring. I love that I have a place to gather all my ideas that I've 'snagged' from other amazing teachers, as well as a few that are my own! I appreciate all of you!!

Happy Fall!