Busy, Busy, Busy!

Wheeeeew! It has been a busy couple of weeks! We've had parent conferences, Red Ribbon week, our second annual Trunk or Treat at school, and Halloween festivities! We've still been learning, I promise:). In fact, we just finished up our pumpkin unit today! This is one of my favorite units to teach. Who doesn't love pumpkins?

Here are a few of the things that have been keeping us busy in room 16!

I'm going to start with my favorite craftivity. I've been looking forward to blogging and sharing these pumpkins with you! I just love them! They are not your typical jack-o-lanterns. In fact, they are a combination of inspirations I got on Pinterest and Instagram. I love social media.

Aren't they awesome? I love them...and plan on keeping this bulletin board up throughout November!

We also had an afternoon of pumpkin investigations. 

Roasted pumpkin seeds were a new thing for most of my kiddos. They enjoyed them so much that I had parents ask for the recipe because the kids went home talking about them! 

We read about the lifecycle of a pumpkin...and wrote about it.

Of course, a craftivity:).

Next up...painting pumpkins! The kids REALLY enjoyed this. I wasn't brave enough to carve pumpkins; so painting was the next best thing. After looking at the pumpkins, I think the kids are picking up on my love for Pinterest. No jack-o-lantern faces in our room! I think they used our pumpkin craft as inspiration! They must enjoy our bulletin board as much as I do:). 

In honor of Halloween today, we turned math into a little "Franken-fun" with my Frankenstein themed math (and craft). Thank you Pinterest for the inspiration:). 

This year, we had our second annual Trunk-or-Treat at school. It was a huge success and a lot of fun! It also happened to fall on "Twin day," which was part of our Red Ribbon dress up days. My friend Jessica and I dressed up as Waldo! 

This Waldo started her morning off with a big cup of coffee:).

Here we are at our booth during Trunk or Treat! Aren't we just the cutest first grade teachers you've ever seen, haha?!

We had all these yummy goodies for sale!

One last item to share...

This year, I have my first ever parent volunteer that comes in every Monday morning. Yes, first ever!! She is awesome. She helps me prep these cutesy craftivities you see:). As a little thank you, I made this simple Halloween treat for her. A mini mason jar, chalkboard  tag, and some Reese's pieces! Simple & cute. 

Happy Halloween!

The Candy Craze!

The candy craze is over....I hope:)! Halloween with first graders was a lot of fun! We had so many activities going on this week at school with red ribbon week and Halloween. There was lots of excitement in room 16!

As part of red ribbon week, each classroom decorated their door with a slogan. Here was our door:

We had several other activities to go a long with red ribbon week....but I forgot to take pictures:(. 

On Wednesday, I attended an all day staff development. The speaker had this awesome train whistle that he used to get our attention. Being a first grade teacher....I knew I had to have it:)! So...here it is! When I blow the train whistle the kids all say, "All aboard!" Then, they freeze and are quiet. No, the speaker did not have a room full of adults shouting "all aboard"....that was my little touch:). The kids absolutely LOVE it!

Tuesday night, we had our first ever trunk-or-treat at our school. It was so much fun! Here is a pic of me and one of my teacher friends in our glow in the dark pumpkin glasses!:) First grade teachers rock!

Here's what Halloween looked like in room 16:

Aren't first graders adorable?!

Where is the teacher?!

Math Halloween centers:

Pumpkin poems:

Halloween was a success! In case you were still wondering:):

Here was my little pumpkin..all ready for the trick-or-treaters!

On to another topic....I recently started my TPT store. I finished up my November math pack this week. You can pick it up {here}.

Have a great weekend!

-Jamie

We've Gone Batty!

Bats, bats, and more bats! This week we wrote about bats, read about bats, drew bats, created bats, watched bats (on a discovery clip, of course), and talked A LOT about bats! By Friday, I think we were all a little batty:)!

We started the week by reading this book and a cute lil' bat book that one of my teacher friends made (which I forgot to take a picture of). It was an awesome book that gave the kiddos lots of new information about bats!

The kids really enjoyed this book:)! We created a beginning, middle, and end chart as a class. The kids felt like the teacher when they were able to come up to the board to draw:). 

They also created their own. You can pick up a copy of this {Here} in my TPT store.

We also worked more on informational writing this week. The kids did much better with topic sentences! Yay! I created a bat chart to help us with brainstorming. As soon as I put it on the board the kids shouted out, "Look, teacher drew a bunny with fangs!" Hey, I thought it was a pretty good looking bat:). 

On Friday, the kiddos published their writing and turned it into a bat! I've never heard my class so quiet during writing time. They were very eager to create their bats!

Final draft time! The color system may look familiar to you-we are using Step Up to Writing now...which I LOVE!

This student was very proud of his bat!

The kids went wild over the glitter!!! What first grader doesn't:)?

Ready to hang up!

Our board is up just in time for Halloween! Speaking of Halloween...in case you are wondering about the status of our class party that I blogged about a few weeks ago:-):

I think they'll earn it by Thursday;)!

Have a great weekend!

~Jamie

Spider Fingers!

Spiders, spiders, and more spiders!!! No, I don't like spiders....but it's almost Halloween and I figured my firsties would enjoy a unit on spiders. I was right. They LOVED it! 

I started Monday morning with a web graph on the board. It immediately grabbed their attention as soon as they walked in the room! I mean, why wouldn't it? It's completely awesome...I'm an artist, didn't you know?! Ha! Just kidding! First graders will notice ANYTHING new....especially a giant spider web on the board! 

We talked a little about spiders. The kids voted whether or not they thought spiders were creepy or not, by drawing their own little spiders on the web. Ok, maybe it's the lil' spiders that make it so awesome:).

We read this cute little book about spiders and then did some brainstorming for our mini spider reports.

This was their first go at informational writing. We need some more practice with topic sentences; but overall, a very successful week of writing. I can't believe  how much growth they've already made since August! 

The students copied their rough drafts on to a spider body for the final drafts. This was a hit with the kiddos! I didn't mind cutting out 178 little spider legs:).

So cute!

Ok, I had to post this last spider because one of my lil' firsties informed me that it was a mini me. I guess I'm a spider:). At least I'm smiling:).

Next up....our Sammy the Spider books! The kids connected their spider rings to their books using a dragline (fancy spider vocabulary-aka string) to use for tracking while reading. Another big hit with the kiddos! 

Blingy spider rings:).

Reading is much more fun with a spider on your finger:). I think I need to invest in some year-round spider ring trackers.

That concludes our spider week! Stay tuned for bat week next week! Have a great weekend!

~Jamie