I couldn't wait!

The cloudy and freezing weather helped to keep me inside all day watching some Lifetime and getting my mini unit DONE! So without further ado my 

"There was an Old Lady" mini unit!

 Click HERE to head to my TPT store!

I don't know about you and your sweet kiddos but mine absolutely LOVE the "There was an Old Lady" series! They seriously can't get enough. They continuously BEG me to get more copies so they can each have a book in their book luggage to read during Daily Five {apparently they think I have a money tree in my backyard}!  We recently did a author's study and compared all the books.  I know my kiddos are going to go bananas when they see the newest book! :)

I hope you all enjoy!  This TPT thing has me feeling all kinds of emotions.  I started my little store to try and earn some money for my sweet little family and to share goodies that I have created for my own classroom. I'm nervous as to if it's going to be worth it or not.  My dream is to hopefully one day get the "cuteness" factor down pat like my "idols" Cara, Deanna, Abby, Anna, Christie, Reagan, Kristin, and SOOOO many more!  We'll see how it goes! :)

Thank you for all your kind words and support!

Scarecrows

I can not believe that in 4 short days I will be eating Thanksgiving dinner!  It's insane how fast time if flying by!  Many of you have already completed all your fall craftivities but here's one more:

A simple reader's response to this story:

After reading about the little scarecrow boy, we discussed main character attributes.  Then we created our own little scarecrow boys and wrote a new version of the story.  We have been working on story starters so this was a perfect opportunity to apply what we've been learning.  Plus, I just LOVE reading all the creative twists to the story! Here's what they looked like:

And of course you have to tilt your head to the side because blogger just won't cooperate!  :(

 

Happy Sunday!

 

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!

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! :)