Pumpkin-A-Paloosa

We had such a FUN week!!!  I absolutely LOVE this time of year!!!  We had a pumpkin themed week and we learned SO much!!  We started the week out with a pumpkin shaped KWL that the kids helped me fill out.  We read TONS of fiction and nonfiction books about pumpkins. They are SO into non-fiction and loved helping me fill out the “What we Learned” part of the pumpkin chart.

We were working on sequencing this week, so I put a little sequencing activity in the pocket chart & they had to sequence the life cycle of a pumpkin.   I found the real life pumpkin photos  & they matched them to sentences that I typed up on the computer.  After they matched the pictures to the words & sequenced the steps.  

My FAVORITE activity is one I’ve been doing for years.....The Great Pumpkin Investigation!  Words cannot explain how excited the kiddos were. Here are a few things we did during our investigation.  I brought in 4 pumpkins for our investigation! The kiddos worked in groups of 4-5 investigating their pumpkins. We first made predictions about if our pumpkin would sink or float? Most of us predicted that our pumpkins would sink because they were heavy and big! Guess what??? Our predictions were wrong......the pumpkins floated! WOW!!  We talked about using our 5 senses…minus the sense of taste…to observe the outside and inside of a pumpkin.  As each kiddo took a turn observing the outside of the pumpkin, I had him/her give me an adjective to describe their observation.  We created a word web and I wrote down all of the adjectives for the outside of the pumpkin in GREEN.  Then we did the same thing for the inside of the pumpkin.  I cut each pumpkin open and had the kids dig in and give me an adjective for what they felt/saw/smelled.  Then I wrote those words on the web in RED.

Then, we scooped out the seeds and saved them to count. We worked on our skip counting by putting the seeds into groups of 10.  I had them estimate how many seeds they thought were inside. We counted by 10's to find our answer and I think we were all surprised by our numbers! One of out pumpkins had over 400 seeds!  We also practiced our measuring skills...We measured how tall the pumpkin was and the circumference of the pumpkin with cubes.  It was an awesome week!!

 

 

Spider Week!

What is it about spiders that kids love SO much?!  When I busted out our graph to start our unit of study on arachnids, the kids went CRAZY.  

We started our week with the question, "Are you afraid of spiders??"  Me.....not so much....unless the are BIG and FURRY......GROSS!!!  They are more creepy than scary...and the kiddos feel the same way.  We read lots of nonfiction and fiction books to learn about spiders.  Did you know that spiders live everywhere BUT Antarctica, have 8 eyes, and can be as big as a plate?

 

All of our math and literacy stations were spider themed and the kids LOVED them. One of our favorite books that we read was The Diary of a Spider.  We continued to work on comparing fiction/nonfiction stories.  In math we worked on addition by playing Spider Drop.  In writing we worked with Thinking Maps.  We gathered facts on our tree map all about what spiders are/can/have and then did a little non fiction writing.  I like to ease the kiddos into the writing the process by providing writing prompts at the beginning so they can be successful with this while learning what I expect to see when they write.  Plus, it helps to organize their thinking.  After students completed their writing, I painted their hands to make handprint spiders.  They turned out SO cute!

We ended our fun week by watching Charolette's Web and making a fun spider snazzy snack.  Can you guess what we made our spider out of?  Ask your child.....I am sure they would love to tell you about it!

Be sure to stop by next week to see all the BAT fun we will have!

Maps, Mischief, and Mateys!

Ahoy Matey!  We have been learning about maps.....pirate style. I told the kids that they would have to work hard all week to learn about maps in order to go on our big treasure hunt.  We started off our map week by learning directional words while reading the story, Rosie Walks.  We practiced what over, under, around, through, etc. meant by acting out the words.   Next, we learned all about the parts of a map, including our favorite....the compass rose. We learned a neat way to remember the cardinal directions-Never, Eat, Soggy, Waffles.  Then we practiced reading a map using the compass rose. We even made our own compass rose that we used to help find the buried treasure.  We put on our eye patches, got our compass rose, telescope, and map of the school and we were off to find that treasure.  We started at the front doors of the school and followed the map  going east and then west, and then north and then east.  It took us to the music room, cafeteria, gym, office, computer lab, and the library.....but we couldn't find the treasure! Finally our map led us south to the art room where we  found the treasure!  We quickly grabbed it out of the room and headed back to our classroom to see what was inside.....gold coins and candy!  ARRGHH!!

Next week our room will be filled with spider fun.  Be sure to check back next week!