As some of you know, this is my second year teaching first grade. For those of you who aren't teachers, let me just tell you that October is a SCARY month for teachers. There are first quarter parent-teacher conferences (where you meet with ALL parents), report card assessments and testing, the class trip to the pumpkin patch, and HALLOWEEN WEEK combined with Red Ribbon Week just to name a few.
I don't talk about teaching nearly enough in this space, and would like to change that. So, without further ado, I am going to share some snippets of what my class has been up to this pre-Halloween/fall season, complete with links to the resources! (Yes, we get by with a little help from our friends {Pinterest/TPT}...our super creative teacher brains just simply don't have enough time to always create our own materials to use.) It's not about what materials you use, or how long you spent making them (or finding them on Pinterest), it's about how THE STUDENTS can apply them and use them in their own learning.
Part of why I love teaching so much is the fact that the kiddos (first grade, anyway) get SO excited over the little things. So the holidays (the seemingly big things) are always a BIG deal! We do things big in first grade! We have been doing themed fall writing ever since the weather got cooler.
I am waiting on Thanksgiving writing until after Halloween, but we did "Hello Fall" with details about fall, "A Trip to the Pumpkin Patch" after our trip to Begg's Family Farm, and now we're starting "If My Teacher Turned into a Scarecrow". This pack is linked here from Teachers Pay Teachers. I love how it included the brainstorm "mind maps", the sheets for practice sentences, the final paper, and the different choices of toppers. These looked really cute hanging in the hallway with their colored choice of topper.
To go with the "If My Teacher Turned into a Scarecrow", I printed out my school picture from this year in black and white. I'm going to let them use paper/raffia to actually turn me into a scarecrow to go on top of their writing. They thought this was HILARIOUS! I'll try to post pictures of the final product, but remembering to take pictures of things is difficult within the hectic day!
A big first grade reading skill is determining which nouns are proper, and which nouns are common (and knowing which ones to capitalize). I found this freebie this week, and have already done a few activities with the kiddos. Like I said, anything with a theme is 110% better for them, captures their attention, and is more fun for me too! This pack had a sorting activity that we're going to complete whole group, a fun candy jar, naming proper noun activity (see pic below), and a find the proper nouns Halloween story that we're doing tomorrow.
Another focus in first grade is reading/listening to a passage and using details to figure out the main idea, so I am using a couple of these main idea pages in the coming days for some extra "theme-y" fun.
Our Halloween party is on Friday. Yes, the day after Halloween. So we essentially have 2 days of Halloween... (insert cringe)... actually the whole week has held so much Halloween excitement. Pray for us, y'all. My contribution to the class party is providing different things to make a Halloween Trail Mix I've seen all over blogs and Pinterest this season.
I'm doing a version of this one. I already had the chocolate chips (witch warts) and the cinnamon toast crunch (monster scabs), and I have big marshmallows already. I'm going to use those and either just call them ghosts or they'll just be really large ghost poops 😂. The only things I'm buying are the candy corn (goblin teeth) and I'm gong to add unwrapped Tootsie rolls (bat poop). I think the kids will be so excited, and they'll love the gross names!
Here's to surviving Halloween Week!
xoxo,
ljs
I love this trail mix idea!! I might have to steal it for our Fun Friday activity. I have everything except the cinnamon toast crunch, but I think I can substitute pretzel sticks (bones?) haha!!