A Hoot of a Kindergarten Class!: week of October 26

What a wild, spooktacular week!!!

This is going to be a long post so hold on to your witch's hat!!!

One of our morning journal topics was

"Children should be allowed to..."

I thought these answers would amuse some of you ;)

We learned how to count syllables in our first and middle names.

And we began working on our pumpkin books. Our study theme was Pumpkins.

Last week and this week, we have had very special visitors coming to read to our class from the Bright Minds Reading Program.

Ms. Debbie read to us during lunch.

And Ms. Gail read to us in our classroom.

Our Write the Room this week was all about Halloween.

Here the students are using "pumpkin" to Write the Room.

And our emergent reader for the week was Five Little Pumpkins.

{click here for the free printable}

We rarely do cookie cutter crafts but we couldn't pass up making these spiral ghosts to hang in our room last week!

{click here for the free printable}

Ms. Amaal taught her Technology in Education lesson in our room and it was all about shadows.

The students compared their shadows and placed each other in order of tallest shadow.

Then they had fun making shadow puppets!

Ms. Amaal traced their shadows for them so they could see it better.

Then they got to make their very own shadow puppets and put on a skit!

Then, Ms. Sonya came and taught us all about the life cycle of a pumpkin.

She read them a book and showed them pictures of each stage and even brought her own pumpkin along for students to look in and see the pulp and seeds.

Then, they drew their favorite stage in the life cycle.

And lastly, they used puppets while Miss Sonya read a great story about the life cycle of a pumpkin seed!

We PINKED OUT the school last Wednesday for Breast Cancer Awareness!

Ms. Kim made ribbons and I painted ribbons on faces.

We had a wonderful lesson on sea turtles by the Blackbelt Museum.

The students were able to observe sea turtle fossils.

Then each student colored a scute or body part for our very own sea turtle!

The students also learned about sea turtle eggs and that they are the size of ping pong balls.

Then we all took a pledge to pick up litter and throw our trash away properly to protect sea turtles.

Our next stop was the endangered species presentation.

College students dressed in character and told us why they were endangered, interesting facts, and how we can help.

Then we got to look at some really cool animals.

First up was the red-eared slider.

This picture is of a coyote skull.

And we saw a crocodile skull, too!

This was the clue to our last animal...

Yep, a corn snake!!!

Ms. Kim brought the class some spider cookies for snack!

Dr. Minear's class took over SWAP this time.

Every October we have a Mad Scientist SWAP.

Dem Bones Room

After reading Shake Dem Halloween Bones, the students danced to Dem Bones on Youtube.

They learned the names of the longest and shortest bones in the body

and then had a fun "femur" for snack!

Torn Paper Halloween Pictures room

The students listened to Shape by Shape and recalled all the shapes they saw in the book.

Then they got to make torn paper pictures!

Growing Monsters room

The students enjoyed listening to Monster Trouble being read

and as you can see our big friends even dressed like mad scientists!

The students learned that their special ingredients (vinegar and baking soda) made a great reaction when put together in their bottles. So much so, it made their monster balloons grow and expand!

Then they danced around the room doing the Monster Mash!

Crayon Resist Halloween Pictures

After the students listened to The Very Busy Spider,

the students made their own gigantic web with yarn.

They tried to catch a few friends but the only one who ended up getting caught in their web was ME!

#happyclassrooms

Then they had fun watching the magic of crayon resist!

Friday was a BIG day.

We headed out that morning to go trick or treating at Lyon Hall and Bibb Graves.

The faculty dressed up and decorated their doors just for us!

Ms. Annie and Miss Davida had a fun activity planned for us, too!

Even some of our education majors got in on the fun!

We saw Rapunzel and Pascal!

When we got back, we had some fun with pumpkin math and carved our jack-o-lantern!

Friday afternoon before our party, we had fun trunk or treating with UWA sororities, fraternities, and other volunteers.

Then it was party time!

We finally got to put together our ant farm!

Our ants were dead when they got here the first time during our ant unit. :(

No matter now because the students are loving observing them!

Libby lost a tooth, too!!!

limited centers:

literacy- candy corn alphabet

dramatic play- the students put together a Pumpkin Stand with my artificial pumpkins and the cash register. They made a sign and decided on the price list.