December

December was a short month but definitely did not lack any fun!

This is our new friend.....a dwarf hamster.  We voted on it's name but they all seemed to have made up their own names for it.

Candy Canes....

 We learned about the history and the making process of candy canes and then performed some experiments with them.  Below is an experiment that showed how the colors would come off in water.

Gingerbread Men....

We did a unit on The Gingerbread Man.  We labeled a gingerbread men with as many adjectives as we could and we learned about the five points of a story: Characters, Setting, Problem, Solution, and 

We then made our own gingerbread man to eat.

 

Decorating their Gingerbread men.....

Sending our Love....

We decide to do a small tribute for the people in Connecticut.  We all wore green and white to school and release 20 green and white balloons in the air.  One for each of the lost children and teachers.  We sent our love and thoughts via the sky!

Our Elf on the Shelf....

Starlight, our classroom elf left us a few messages this December as well as a few messes.  This was the message he left us the morning of our last day of school before the break.  We will miss him!

 This is another message Starlight left us one one the mornings in December.

"Polar Express Party"......

The last day of school before the break we had a "Polar Express Party".  We all wore our pajamas to school and entered through the train decorated door.  It was a really fun day.  The kids had a blast doing all of the activities.

This was us making our own homemade hot chocolate with crushed up candy cane...Yum!

 We also made and decorated melted snowman cookies...Very cute!

 Here's a picture of all of our pajamas.

 They played some card games during recess and worked on stations during the morning work time based off "The Polar Express" that helped math and literacy skills.

 The last part of our day was really fun!  Each student was given a bell and a magic ticket to enter back into the classroom.  The movie was already started and they got to enjoy their hot chocolate and popcorn as they watched it.....So much fun and good memories!

Thankful

I am not sure where this month went.  I know it was a short one but wow, it has flown by.

Here are some activities we did this month...........

We have been learning about the pumpkin for the past two months so one of the lessons on the shelf was to create your own pumpkin life cycle.  This is the finished product.

I found this template on-line. It is a huge template that is the newest wedding memorabilia idea.  You are to print it on a large canvas and then all of the attendees at your wedding give a thumb print leaf and sign their name.   Well, I thought we could just make a thankful tree.  I shrunk the picture and copied it onto an 8 1/2 x 11 card stock paper.  Each child was given a homework assignment to list 10 to 15 things they were thankful for.  The next day they added fingerprints to their tree and wrote their list on their "leaves".  I added their name and date at the bottom of the picture in case their parents wanted to frame it. They came out very nice.

We made tepees....

We first mixed cupcake mix as usual and poured it into a sugar cone.  Baked them and cut the points off.  Then, stuck three pretzel sticks in the top. Next, we iced the bottom and rolled it in sprinkles.

 Pretty cute.... huh?

Fall Festival

Our Fall Festival was a huge success and a lot of fun!  A big THANKS goes out to all of the parents who helped make it a smooth and exciting day for all of the children!

The students made spider shirts earlier in the month for the big day.... appropriate right!

Pumpkin bowling.....

 Decorating pumpkins....

 A Gypsy surprise....

 Ring toss onto a witches hat....

 Fishing......

 Face painting......

 Spin art......

 More ring toss.......

Big Fun and LOTS of smiles!!!!

Fun Activities

These are just some pictures of some fun activities we did during the month of October I thought I needed to share.......

I introduced my students to a really fun place value game this month. Each student draws three vertical lines on their board and labels each column with ones, tens, hundreds, thousands.  each students takes a a turn rolling the die and all of the students choose what column they want to place their number.  After four numbers have been rolled, each child goes around and reads their number to the class (good practice), I then choose a "winner card".  They say things such as, "the winner is the person with the largest total number" or "with the smallest number in the tens place".  They loved the game and begged me to allow them to keep playing it.  I have now placed it on the shelf for two students at a time to play during our work cycle.

This was a lesson I put on the self for the month.  The students have been really interested in cursive.  I have had them start cursive practice with their name.  I found this idea on Pinterest and thought it would be fun for them to create.  

First they needed to write their name in cursive on a folded in piece of paper.

 Then cut it out very close to the lines.

Next, they open their name up and it creates the torso of a skeleton and they cut out the arms, legs, hands, feet, and skull to make the rest.

Spiders

This unit was a lot of fun.  The students did three part cards during our work cycle on spiders to familiarize themselves with the parts of a spider and the differences between spiders and insects.  They participated in lessons such as categorizing spider based phrases into what spiders "do", "have", and "are".  We also read a few fables from different cultures about the spider and why it has two parts to it's body.  

At the ned of our unit we created a life cycle.  The students were asked to choose a piece of paper and cut out a circle.  They were then given all of the items necessary to create the life cycle and told to put it in order.  I gave them a few minutes to work independently.  They did great!  

 We then glued them to the circle and they labeled each step.

 This was soooo fun!!  My students are still talking about this next activity.
 Each student sat in a circle on the ground.  I handed one student a ball of yarn.  They were to say a fact they learned about spiders and then toss the yarn to another student to say a fact, while still holding a pinch of the yarn.  As they continued they noticed it was making a web.

                                      
We then discussed how spiders may have many eyes but they still have very poor eyesight.  We talked about what we learned in regards to how they know an insect has landed on their web....... THE VIBRATIONS!!  They got it!!

I then had them close their eyes as I threw plastic insects into the web.  If they felt a vibration they needed to raise their hand.  They had a lot of fun and a lot of giggles with this activity.  See all those bugs in that web?

Pumpkins

This month was a whirl wind.  We did a unit on pumpkins, spiders, and our skeleton.  The students had a lot of fun learning about the parts of a pumpkin, so with that, we actually dissected a pumpkin, baked it, and made pumpkin pie...... YUM!!

 Here they are eating their pumpkin pie.   A total Success!!