Five for Friday - October 9th

I can't believe it's almost the middle of October. How did that happen? I have totally neglected this little blog. I've been taking tons of pictures, but I just don't have the energy to do anything with them! Props to all the teacher-mom bloggers out there. I did not realize how exhausting this double life would be. I am loving being back at school, even though I miss seeing my little Zoe Monkey all day long. I know she is having fun at daycare and I love my little class of firsties. Here's a peek at what we've been up to this week... I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party!

Monday afternoon we went on our first field trip to the local fire station. They were so excited and had a great time! The fire fighters did an excellent safety presentation and then we got to tour the fire station. We got to sit in a fire truck AND squirt water from the hose! How fun! We also did some work in our interactive journals about fire safety. I think we have drilled those safety rules into their heads after this week!!

It was all about fall, Thanksgiving, and some Halloween this week. I pulled out all my fall books and the kiddos just ate them up. We made fall patterns using some fall/Halloween foam shapes. We made counting by 10s turkeys and had our school-wide Thanksgiving lunch where we sported our turkey hats (idea from Miss Kindergarten).

Guided Reading and Math are in full swing and so far it's going pretty good! My kiddos love play-do, so whipped up this fun word work centre. There is a mat for each letter. They have to make the uppercase and lowercase letters and then there is a picture that corresponds to the sound the letter makes (a - make apples, b - make bees). I just put them on TpT tonight {here}.

Whipping out my fun tools to start reading off on the right foot. Witch fingers and laser pointers have been a big hit so far!

In writing we are writing personal narratives about a time we got hurt. These are our "ouch" stories. We will make our good copies look like a large band-aid!

I have been doing problem solving at least 3 times a week. So far we have only been doing addition and subtraction to 10 (result unknown), but learning a bunch of strategies such as draw a picture, use tally marks, use a number line, use a ten frame, and act it out! I hope to do a blog post soon about problem solving and the different types of problems we will be doing. We do some whole group practice on whiteboards and then do an individual problem in our journal.

Here's a few examples of our journals. Right now they just have to show work (picture, tallies, etc.) and a number sentence. Soon they will also have to write their answer with a number and word (ex. 9 acorns).

Science is in full swing. We have been doing a bunch of work on the four seasons and will be starting some SUPER FUN weather activities after the long weekend. We started off with our question chart... what do we wonder about weather or seasons? We're going to touch on these questions as we continue our learning this month.

Here are some of our Science interactive journal pages. The season wheel was a big hit.

And here are some kids enjoying the Explore Tubs (early finisher activities for Science). These girls are dressing up the boy for different weather!

These kids are learning about light and shadows AND are telling very creative stories! :)

These adorable girls are playing teacher while they match up the seasonal activities. Find this activity on TpT {here}.

You can read more about my Season & Weather Explore Tubs {here}. The only thing I did differently was put all of the topic books into a big tub (kind of as it's own tub) and just put the activities into the tubs. They have been a huge hit! :)

Happy Thanksgiving my Canadian friends! Enjoy your three-day weekend. I know I will! :)

More Excuses, What We've Been Up To, and Freebies!

If you are still here following my little blog, I truly apologize. I promise to get back in the blogging game, it's just been tough. I know I make a lot of excuses, but really... just listen to them all!

1. I have no internet--only the data from my iPhone. I'm hoping to get a better plan so I can do more blog browsing and updating my own blog!

2. Starting at a new school is always so busy. Add that to a new provincial report card and a new attendance/grading program, and I've got lots to learn and think about!

3. I'm slowly starting to think about our wedding plans... so far we have a date, a location, and now I have a dress! :) Each Monday, I model writing in our weekend journals. I remind students about capitals, spacing, sounding out words, adding details to our pictures, etc. Here is what I wrote about this Monday:

4. Which leads me into my last excuse... this summer we also found out we are expecting! I am about 15 weeks right now and due in April. It has been a lot to take in and think about. It also makes me have to miss some school for doctor's appointments and think about what I'm going to do when I go on maternity leave in April! It'll be a big life adjustment for all of us! :)

So life is a bit busy! I promise I am still doing fun and engaging things in my classroom, I just don't always take pictures or get around to blogging about it. But I'm going to turn this post over to my camera now and share some random pictures and freebies of things we've been doing since school started!

We started with an apple theme in September. We did a little KWL to see what we wanted to learn about apples. We didn't make apple smoothies (really?!) or jam, but we did make applesauce and decided which apple we thought was the best. 

Mmmmmm.... homemade applesauce. It made our classroom smell delicious all day! I need an air freshener that smells like this. This activity was definitely a highlight for the kids.

Yum yum! 20 out of 23 kiddos liked it. Not bad!

We did a fun making ten activity. After reading the awesome "Ten Apples Up on Top", we used colourful dot stickers to make combinations of ten on each character's head. I love that adding something simple like stickers makes math fun!

Here are a few apple freebies--title page (I like putting all my theme activities in booklets), sequencing apples, writing directions for applesauce, ten apples up on top, and colourful apples (for practicing colour words--print the large apples on different coloured cardstock). Click the picture below to download these freebies.

Next up, some fall writing and art. For the art project, we looked at different leaf shapes. On a piece of manilla tag the students drew a big leaf in pencil. Then they traced the leaf in black sharpie. 

After that, we modge-podged fall coloured tissue paper squares using a mixture of white glue and water.

Once cut out, they looked beautiful!

Looks great with our Hello/Goodbye poem.

For the poem we brainstormed fall things we will say hello to and summer things that we had to say goodbye to. A fun little writing activity for the season! You can download a copy of the poem {here}.

We also did some fire safety activities. We have weekly assemblies for the Grade 1-4 and each class is in charge of presenting about 5 per school year. We decided to do our first one on Fire Safety. We sang a couple of songs, put together a fire safety rule slideshow complete with photos of us demonstrating the rules, and just looked cute in our fire helmets and Clifford puppets.

Our second author study is Clifford the Big Red Dog. I did a little riddle/shared writing activity to figure out who are next author was. We have enjoyed reading Clifford books. My class especially loves the ones about Clifford as a puppy. They can't believe he used to be so small!

We did a little tree map about Clifford after reading the first story "Clifford the Big Red Dog."

Here's our author study wall.

We also had our (Canadian) Thanksgiving lunch. It's an annual tradition at our school. We provide the students with chicken noodle soup and a bun for lunch, and the whole school gathers in the gym to eat. Yummy and fun tradition for the kiddos. They had a table decorating contest while we waited for the food--our class one the prize for the Grade 1-3 category. They were so proud! :) Each class also made a list of all the things they are thankful for to hang up in the gym.

I was doing some organizing of my counters/cupboards and decided to invest in three palstic drawer sets. I wanted to get the big 12x12" drawers, but my Walmart didn't have them in stock anymore. I had to settle for 8.5x11" drawers, but they are working out just fine. I have a drawer for each day of the week, a drawer for extra work, and three drawers for stuff to file, copy, or laminate. You can download my drawer labels {here}.

Last up, my class really needed to work on an attention signal, so I pulled out my good listening poster from a couple years ago and turned it into a "Give me 5" poster. I got them really excited about showing me five by making it into a game--told them I would always be testing them and that it could happen at any time of the day! Sometimes they would even ask me if I was going to do the "5 Thing" today. If I try to get their attention another way, they usually remind me about it too. So funny, but it works! :)

And that's it for now! I promise I will be back sooner rather than later. I've got a few products in the works and a fun giveaway coming up soon! Have a great weekend all! 

Happy Thanksgiving, eh?

So excited the long weekend is finally here! Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian followers and fellow bloggers! Can't wait to eat some turkey this weekend! We have been talking about turkeys all week, so I can't wait to enjoy some! I just realized that I use a lot of exclamation marks. I'm going to have to work on that. Not today though, because it's Friday!!! Woo hoo!!

I don't know what it was today, but my kids were just in a silly, giggling mood right from the get-go. Maybe it was the snow? Maybe it was the fact that it was the Friday before a long weekend? Maybe it was a full moon? Something in the water? I don't know, but we had fits of laughter going on throughout the day. Well, silly me... I decided to read the book, "10 Fat Turkeys". Now, usually I pre-read books that I am going to read to the class just to be prepared, but I kind of skipped that with this book. Right after I read the title and the class exploded with laughter, I knew this was going to get interesting. My favourite line was, "Looky!' said one floofy turkey.... even I burst into laughter. Floofy?? Is that even a real word? I almost couldn't read the page. I kept cracking up at floofy. But we made it to the end and the kids really enjoyed this silly, counting down book.

We finished up our paper bag turkeys and they turned out so cute!! I love when one student comes up with a silly idea though, and everyone thinks their turkey should look like that too. That is why about 7 kids are going home with turkeys wearing pirate hats and eye patches. There were a few bikini wearing turkeys too. And one in a tutu. Gotta love their creativity!

Here's a few turkey freebies for ya... Heather over at Heather's Heart had an adorable ten frame cover up game that I just loved! Unfortunately, the school I am at does not celebrate Halloween, so I will have to save her games for another year. I decided to make one similar to hers though, featuring turkeys! It's called Turkey Trouble. Students roll two dice, add the dots, and cover up (or colour in) the turkey with the matching ten frame. First one to cover (or colour) all the turkeys is the winner! I have included a colour and black/white version for you. Clipart is from the ever fabulous KPM Doodles. Click the picture to download yours! (Font looks a little funny in Google Docs, but it's fine when you download the pdf!) And check out Heather's blog to get her adorable Halloween ones too!

So I am in love with Mr. Harry's Kindergarten videos on YouTube. We use a bunch during our calendar time. We also starting practicing counting by 10s, so we love Climbing Up this Mountain to practice! We actually stand up and climb as we sing. Lots of fun. Anywho, we also enjoyed the 5 Little Turkey song. I typed up the words so that we could glue it into our poetry notebook. We add a new poem every Friday and the kids can read their poetry journals during Read to Self or Read with Someone time. Click the picture below to get your own copy of the poem (half page or full page sizes included). Words by Mr. Harry, clipart by KPM Doodles.

Well, enjoy your weekend or long weekend. In celebration of Thanksgiving, I decided to have a little sale! Everything in my TpT store is 20% off from now until Monday! Click to picture below to check it out! :)