Five for Friday - a look back at October

So since Halloween was on a FRIDAY, I didn't get around to posting about Halloween on Five for Friday like I wanted to. So today I'm doing a flashback to October!

I always have a pumpkin & fall themed day on or the day after Halloween because the first school I ever worked at had kiddos who didn't celebrate Halloween. One of the crafts we did was Candy Corn Men which I actually got from Kacey at Doodlebugs Teaching for free. Check it out!

I had an awesome mom come in with 2 easy-peasy foam crafts which the kiddos LOVED! One was a Day of the Dead themed skeleton and the other was a jack-o-lantern. They came out super cute and even though they were pre-cut, they all took on a look of their own!

Another fun thing I've done the past few years is read The Biggest Pumpkin Ever, write about how we'd grow the biggest pumpkin ever then use water colors to decorate pumpkin templates. You can get everything to do this activity and craft from my TPT store here.

We played some fun games that were fall themed. This one is Pumpkin Push. Just like other "push" games, once you have 2 "pieces" on a number you keep the number. If there is only 1 "piece" on the number the other player can "push" it out. I wish I could remember where I got this game a couple years back. If it's yours, let me know so I can give you credit!

Another game I wish I remember where I found it (let me know if it's your product)... Students roll dice to cover different parts of the jack-o-lantern. They race to fill up their pumpkin first.


What did you do to celebrate Halloween or Fall last week?

Five for Friday, 1 week until summer!

I haven't linked up to Five for Friday in a few weeks which is pretty rare for me this school year! If you want to see what I've been up to (my end of year checklist) go check out my post earlier this week here.

I'm also linking up with Teaching Blog Addict for Freebie Friday. Scroll down to #5 for a classroom volunteer freebie!

[one] Tie Dye!
Remember a few weeks ago when we tie dyed? Well last week at Challenge Day (field day) we rocked our shirts! We also rocked them (if we remembered) on our field trip yesterday (see #5). Challenge Day was such a fun day and hands down the most organized field day I've ever attended (comparing to 2 other districts)

The shirts came out pretty awesome and all 3 second grade classes looked just a little different which was neat to see!

[two] Author's Purpose
I LOVE teaching author's purpose mostly because this craft is just too cute! Although I 'indirectly' teach author's purpose all year, making sure the kiddos can say why they think the author wrote it or why the author made certain choices, the last 2 years towards the end of the year I've done a set of very explicit lessons where we make these on the first day. I found this craft here last year.

Author's purpose is also one of the only anchor charts I have laminated to use year after year. I love anchor charts when kiddos help make them either by giving ideas or literally writing on them, but no matter how hard I would try, I'm almost positive my kiddos would not come up with P.I.E. for author's purpose so I use it as a kick off to the craft instead.

[three] Father's Day!
I always feel bad for the dads because many times they get left out of the "cute crafts made by their kids" game because Father's Day is usually after school gets out. I still try to do a craft when we won't be in school for Father's Day (we made tickets for dad last year) but this year it was a must because we are in school the week before and after Father's Day.

I found this ADORABLE craft for dads on Emily's facebook freebie page. Go check out her blog, I Love My Classroom and follow her on facebook to grab this cute freebie (maybe for next year!). My kiddos were SO into this, making it look great for dad :)

[four] Field Trip!
We went on our end of year field trip yesterday to the CT Science Center... had SO much fun with my grade level partners. They're the best!

On our way home we checked out a cool butterfly exhibit!

[five] Volunteer Gifts!
Since I will be gone at the WBT National Conference most of next week, I had to catch my volunteers this week. Thanks to the brilliance of the 3rd grade teacher across the hall, these ended up looking WAY better than originally (she suggested wrapping them in tissue paper).

If you'd like a copy of the tag without volunteer names, find it here or on the picture link below. If you'd like me to add names leave your email address in the comments and I'll be happy to get in touch and get those tags to you ASAP :)

When you hear from my again I'll either be at the WBT National Conference or just home from it!!! So beyond excited :)

Ready but not ready for Summer

So today marks 19 days to go... in some ways that feels like a lot of days to get through... like when I have to repeat my directions 85 hundred times but feels like not enough time AT ALL when I realize that 19 minus 4 days at the WBT conference minus Challenge Day (field day) minus end of the year field trip minus the couple afternoons that will be spent at meetings minus the last day of school (bc it just doesn't count).... equals.... 11(ish) days of instruction left with my kiddos! Ahhh... I still have an entire math lesson to teach, yikes!

Anywho... I'm linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching for Five for Friday...

[one]

The exercise balls are here and inflated! Mrs. R was NOT kidding when she said she had to do LOTS of modeling with them for her kiddos. I already have 2 kiddos who lost theirs for the week because they decided to "dribble" theirs around during packup... oy vey! But on the plus side, it is easy to see how much it is helping the kiddos I chose to test them out!

[two]

We released our butterflies this week. The kiddos were so excited! It was amazing how quickly these creatures went from little teeny tiny caterpillars to beautiful butterflies!

[three]

Terrible picture, but we tie dyed shirts this week to wear on Challenge Day which is our school's version of field day. Every class does some kind of shirt so they all match. The whole second grade team decided on tie dye. I let my kiddos tie them up but myself, my sister and a mom volunteer handled the dye. I was a little nervous what 7 and 8 year old hands might do with dye that just so happens to be very permanent!

[four]

We decorated our door for the end of the year. It didn't look like much like an ocean until we got the fish and turtles up.

[five]

On Thursday with 20 days left of the school year, my kiddos each wrote about what they hope to do in the remaining 20 days. It goes along with an ice cream cone count down I have outside my door. I got both of these in Just Wild About Teaching's freebie here.

Have a great weekend!

Five isn't enough & Giveaway!

Linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching Five for Friday, but feeling like 5 isn't enough to retell my crazy crazy week, but I'll try!

[one]

If you haven't already, you should check out my giveaway! I'm giving away your choice of products from my TPT store if you win! You have through the weekend to enter, the winner will be announced on Monday.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

[two]

My grade level visited my former school this week to learn more about Daily 5 from one of my favorite teacher friends! If you didn't get to see the post earlier this week, it's a worthwhile read. Mrs. R is a phenomenal teacher and we learned so much that I plan on having a part 2 post about our visit.

[three]

I read about gonoodle from a few bloggers last week, and tried it with my kiddos this week. They are IN LOVE with it and absolutely OBSESSED with reaching the different levels for our character. It has been a nice motivator... we'll do a gonoodle brain break if we can (fill in the blank). It also was perfect for indoor recess Thursday when it was rainy.

[four]

We did a fun shapes activity with food! I did it last year without much organization other than naming each food shape and sorting in different ways. This year I found a table that organized by shape, but we ended up editing the different columns with whiteout, I plan on making a nicer version for next year so if you like this activity be on the lookout for that freebie!

[five]

This week was a "craft" week. We did a cute mother's day ice cream cone book... you can find it free from Primary Circus here.

 I also had a second reading and craft event, read about our first one here. We read Not Norman A Goldfish Story and did this cute fishbowl craft. We had high school friends to help us again, so it wasn't too much work for me :)

 

[bonus]

Check out this cute Teacher Appreciation week cupcake the PTO gave us! They also provided breakfast Monday, lunch Friday as well as a little treat each of the other days, so sweet :)

Have a wonderful weekend, I hope you all felt appreciated this week!

After School Fun!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Five for Friday...

This week has been busy, busy, busy and on Sunday the hubby and I leave for our honeymoon (6 months after the fact!) Yay for April Break, I really need it this year!

 

Last Friday (after I had already linked with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday, we had a writing celebration. My kiddos had worked very hard to write a non-fiction piece, researching, writing, typing and illustrating so we had to celebrate! Half the kiddos read a section of their piece, then we had a "gallery walk" where the students walked around and could read stories out of each others' published boxes, then the other half got to read a section of their piece.

Remember the Marcy Cook workshop I went to last month? Well, I finally introduced these number tile task cards to my kiddos. If they had started using these earlier in the year I think these cards would be way to easy, but a lot of my kids are finding these as an exciting challenge because there is only one correct space for each of their number tiles and if you put the wrong one in one place you have to practically start over. Some of the kiddos are picking up on putting the "have to" tiles down first (places where no other number would fit) and working from there. So glad I purchased the tiles and cards. I think I may order more cards for next year from her website.

We are working on place value to 1,000 so I went searching for place value games on Teachers Pay Teachers and found loads of FREE games to use for math centers. Here are a few my kiddos have loved and a link to where I found them...

The above picture show a mystery number game, available free from Love to Learn here.

This shows a penguin place value dice game. This game came bundled with a few other games as well. Get it for free from Stephanie Stewart here.

This picture shows a Place Value Go Fish game that can be played with or without recording matches on the recording sheet. Find it free from T is for Teaching here.

As a part of my grad class that I am currently in (Multicultural Literature) I had to do a community outreach project. So I recruited a high school teacher who happens to be a mom of one of my students and some of her high school juniors and seniors. The recruits came after school one day this week and helped as I read The Legend of Blue Bonnet by Tomie DePaola and then did a craft with BLUE popcorn. Find the craft idea here.

The kiddos and high school folks had so much fun, we already planned for another event in May! So excited :)

In celebration of the FINALLY feeling like Spring weather, here are a few pictures