BOO! HALLOWEEN IS HERE!

Well, Halloween is finally here...What a whirlwind! Today was a fun, but exhausting day! The costumes were wonderful and everyone had so much fun. Now I get to enjoy seeing all the cutest 'lions', 'monkeys', and 'zebras' come to my door step! Oh my goodness they are all so precious!

Here are a few Halloween pictures of the washing machine costume I wore to school today. While it was extremely cheap (less than $20), and not too difficult to assemble, it did take some time and preparation. I loved how it turned out, and the kids' expression was priceless! I also took a picture of the 'M' monogram pumpkin that I carved. After getting over my cold this weekend, one pumpkin was unfortunately all I could manage. The idea for the pumpkin came from Martha Stewart, and the font I used was Lucidia Calligraphy. 

I have to admit that I am not looking forward to tomorrow in the classroom. The little ones are going to be so tired and coming down from their sugar rush! I hope everyone's day goes well tomorrow!

HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN MATH

One more day until Halloween...I can feel the excitement and impending sugar rush of my firsties already! Halloween is always so much fun, but also so much fun! Does that make sense? Halloween is such a great time to incorporate fun activities into learning. One of the things I have done in the past is create some pumpkin activities around measurement, weight, and estimation. 

As part of fun Halloween based centers, I have the students estimate the circumference (length around the pumpkin) of the pumpkin with string. It is a great activity that they always love to do. We also do some weight estimations with items that the students believe are either heavier and lighter than the pumpkin. A final fun activity is for students to estimate the number of Halloween coloured jellybeans in a jar. While none of these activities are necessarily new, they are Halloween tasks that I use in my classroom every year to work math into fun and engaging ways.

Halloween Pumpkin Math

SHAPES JACK-O-LANTERN

With Halloween quickly creeping up on me, I tried to think of a new activity that was fun and engaging for the students, but also curriculum related, as report card writing is approaching. I knew I wanted to do something with 'shapes', and thought we could decorate pumpkins with various shapes. After the students decorate their pumpkins, they are expected to write about their pumpkins and the shapes they used to create a jack-o-lantern. I love it when I can incorporate several subject areas into a single activity, especially Math and Language Arts! Another variation of this same activity would be to complete the pumpkin as a 'jack-o-lantern glyph' with each of the colours and shapes denoting a particular student attribute. If you have some shape punches around, the prep work required for the activity is minimal, so it is something you can do the very next day. I have also included the writing sheet for you to use with the shapes jack-o-lantern!

Shapes Jack-O-Lantern

 

Shapes Jack-O-Lantern

WHAT DO YOU SEE ON HALLOWEEN?

In Canada, we celebrate our Thanksgiving this weekend, so of course I am already thinking of all the wonderful things we can do for Halloween, which is only a few weeks away! I like to start off grade one with various writing activities centered around colours. It is a great review of Kindergarten, and the possibilities to incorporate various colour activities is endless. So of course, I read my firsties the infamous book Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr & Eric Carle. They almost always declare that they have already read that book, which opens up a whole discussion on why it is so wonderful to read books more than once. After reading the book, I have my firsties work on their own Halloween colour booklet, entitled 'What Do You See On Halloween?'. The Halloween colour booklet uses the same sentence frame as BBBBWDYS?, so it is something that most, if not all, students can read.The activity is a wonderful way to celebrate Halloween, but also wrap up our work with colours! I know there are so many different version of classroom books out there based on BBBBWDYS?, I hope you find this version helpful and something you would like to try in your classroom!


The 'What Do You See On Halloween?' booklet can be printed on 8 1/2" by 11" paper, but cut in the middle, so it is essentially a mini-book. I usually print it back-to-back (double sided) to conserve paper.  


Enjoy!

 

Halloween What Do You See

HALLOWEEN TREATS

With the temperatures falling, the leaves changing colours, and October officially underway, I have begun to think of Halloween and all the ways I can make it special for my firsties. Besides lots of fun activities in the classroom and a Halloween party, I usually give my students a small treat to take home and enjoy. After looking through the new October issue of Martha Stewart, I immediately was inspired to create a special, simple, and inexpensive Halloween treat for my students that I knew they would love. While you can up the 'wow' factor by using fancy Halloween ribbon and decals, I chose to keep the cost down using paper from school, and buying the chocolate Caramilk bars and stickers from Dollarama. The Caramilk bars have a beautiful copper metallic wrapper, and do not contain peanuts! 

 Halloween Treats

I hope this inspires some tasty treats in your classroom!