It's Time for Ghoulish Fun!

One of my favorite times of year is just upon us....that's right my friends, Halloween! Halloween is a HIGE event in our neighborhood! So big, that tour busses drop people off to trick or treat in our neighborhood. Now, our 'hood is not like Candy Cane Lane at Christmas time, but people get into it. We always have a gathering at our house with families from our kids' school and some of our friends. Each year, I search for new ideas to make the party better than the last. Pinterest has been a savior the last couple years. Here are a few of my favorite finds so far:

I made these Frankenstein Rice Krispie treats last year. The kids loved them and they were a hit!. You need a lot of green food coloring to get them the right shade of green.

                                

I also made these mandarin orange cup jack-o-lanterns. These are great school treats because they are a healthy alternative to candy. All you do is draw jack-o-lantern faces on each of the cups and arrange them in a cute halloween bowl. Ta-dah!

I thought these looked super cute too! Here is the SOURCE.

How cute are these? Easy peezie and adorablness all in one package. SOURCE

Now, let's get to the good part. Halloween is not all about the kids. I found this drink recipe on Pinterest. Here is the SOURCE. Looks yummy to me!

I would love to find some ideas for main dishes and side dishes for the party. We are getting pizza for the kids and making ghostly red velvet cupcakes (picture to come). Last year I made butternut squash lasagna and salad for the adults. The lasagna is a good make it ahead of time dish. I would love to hear some of your ideas? What are you making for Halloween?

Spider Week Has Begun & a FREEBIE!

I have a confession...I am NOT a fan of spiders! I don't jump up and down and freak out when I see one, but I'm not a lover. With that being said, this is my first time highlighting these little creatures in my classroom. Spider week was never suppossed to be...It all came about on Friday when I was going through my files for some Halloween activities and I realized I had several spider activities that I have never used. Time to get busy and Spider Week was born!

These are a few of the files I will be using for Spider Week: 

1. Spiders by Aimee Salazar is jam packed with so many creative ideas to get the kids excited about spiders. I hope I can fit them all into our schedule. Hmmm...maybe spider week will have to be extended. 

2. A Spider Craft and Poem Writing- a freebie from Amy Lemons. We will be practicing our adjectives and verbs with this lesson

3. Spider Sentence Fix from Jamie Rector will help us with our proofreading skills.

We kicked off the week making our spider craft. These will be used to inspire the kids to come up with verbs and adjectives to describe spiders for our poem writing tomorrow. I can't wait to share the final product with all of you!

We are also going to be reviewing parts of speech with this little FREEBIE I created to share with all of you! My kids will be using this during center time this week. It will help them with nouns, verbs and adjectives. The kids will sort the spider cards and write them into the correct categories and then write sentences using the words.

I hope this gets you excited for Spider Week in your classroom too! If you grab this freebie, I would love for you to leave a little feedback love. Thanks so much, everyone! Enjoy!

Odd Todd and Even Steven Have Arrived!!!

Last week, I was planning out my coming week of math activities and realized I was going to be teaching the concept of odd and even to my little kiddos.

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 I remembered seeing some great ideas from Cara Carroll at the First Grade Parade. 

I decided it was a MUST to get the book Even Steven and Odd Todd to introduce the concept and get my kids attention- to Amazon I went.

Even Steven and Odd Todd

                                               

I created my own Even Steven and Odd Todd to use as a visual for my kids as I read them the story.

I had my kids sit in a circle on the floor and I placed Odd Todd and Even Steven in the center. Then, I brought out a container of candy corn that we were going to use to show odd and even numbers. 

I chose one student to randomly choose a number between 1-30. He chose the number 15. I had him count out 15 candy corn and place them on the napkin in front of him. I asked him if he thought the number was odd or even. He wasn't sure. So I suggested we ask Even Steven and Odd Todd for help. As I was saying this, one of my smartie pants said we could look at the bottom of Odd Todd's shirt to see that if a number has a 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 in the ones place , it HAD to be odd. Ok, my sweet little smartie-PROVE IT! Together, both students counted out the candy corn, one at a time, in Odd Todd's hand. When they were done, I asked them how they knew the number was odd. They explained that in one of Odd Todd's hands was 7 candy corn and the other hand had 8. If the number was even, each hand would have the exact same amount. Nice work, Smarties!!!

Next, I paired up my students and put a handful of candy corn on a plate in between them. They worked together to decide if the amount of candy corn was odd or even on their plates.

After the groups had time to sort and count their candy corn, we wrote the number on the plates. They came up and had to tell me if the number was odd or even and how they knew that was the correct answer.

After this introduction to odd and even, I gave each student a capital E or a capital O. They cut them out and I had them write two and three digit numbers that were either odd or even, depending on the letter they had. They had to underline the number in the ones place to show they understood why the number was odd or even. We added some eyes, thumbs up and legs...TA DAH... Our odd and even buddies are now hanging around our room. 

We are going to be reviewing odd and even all week. I have more centers and activities planned to show you. 

Meanwhile, you can see some of them in my new packet Odd and Even Activities.

Also, if you would like to make your own Odd Todd and Even Steven, I am sharing my labels with you. Just click on the picture to download it. Enjoy!

{DON'T FORGET IT! PIN IT!}

Odd and Even Giveaway

Really quick post tonight, my sweet blogging friends! My boys and I are getting ready to cheer on our beloved Dodgers and I still have to make dinner! However, I wanted to share my newest unit with all of you. Hot off the press... ODD and EVEN Activities and Strategies

I am giving away one copy of this unit on my FB page. Make sure to head over, like my FB page, and leave a comment with your email address. I will choose one winner at 9pm PST tonight! 

Congratulations, Jenna F!!!

Make sure to leave your comment on my FB page, not here, in order to be entered to win. 

This unit will also be on sale through tomorrow night! 

I will write a more detailed post about these activities later this week. We are starting odd and even practice tomorrow. I will have tons of pictures to share.

Good luck everyone! GO DODGERS!

Oh Friday, How I Love Thee...

It's been a long week, folks. I held parent conferences all week and still have 3 more scattered throughout next week. I am happy to say, I am ready to get this weekend started. I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to give you a peek at my week.

I ordered these turquoise bins last week. I love that they matched my classroom color theme. However, free shipping took F-O-R-E-V-E-R to get them to me. They finally arrived yesterday. I made some labels and now my place value math centers are ready to go! I will show more pictures of our centers later next week. If you are interested, the centers come from my Place Value POWer packet. 

We were knee deep in place value this week! Place value is one of my favorite concepts to teach during the year. We made these candy corns to show understanding of standard form, values of each number column and expanded form. I got this idea originally from Nancy at First Grade Wow. My kids loved it! Some of my students used two digit numbers and some chose to use three digit numbers. 

We also made flap books to review expanded form, number words and base 10 blocks. The kids chose their own 3 digit number and wrote or illustrated each way under the correct flap. After this activity, I realized many of my kiddos still need more practice with the Base 10 blocks, so we will tackle that next week. I have some tricks up my sleeves for them.

We also worked with adjectives and nouns this week. We made an anchor chart of nouns and verbs that described scarecrows. After, we wrote acrostic poems about scarecrows and used our writing to create our own scarecrows. You can find all the writing prompts and scarecrow templates in my Scarecrow Craftivity pack.

I went to Michaels after school today, and of course I had to buy something. I picked up this cute little guy for my front yard. Let the fall decorating begin. 

I hope you all had a great week. Be sure to link up and share your week in pictures too.

October Currently, Candy Corn Place Value and a Giveaway!

Holy smokes! It's finally here...one of my favorite times of year....OCTOBER! I am linking up with Farley to share this month's Currently with you.

My house is empty at the moment. Everyone is at sports practice. It is a little strange actually. I am not sure what to do with myself. 

I LOVE Fall and everything about fall. It is still a little warm here. But I am SO looking forward to bustin' out my boots and scarves soon.

I just found out Starbucks has brought back their salted caramel mochas!! That brought a smile to my lips. I must get one NOW.

I can't wait for the leaves to start changing colors and the cool weather to arrive. It is such a beautiful time of year. 

I am in the middle of parent conferences right now. As much as I like meeting all the parents, it is so exhausting. I can't wait until Friday afternoon!

Here is a special TREAT for all of you. I am part of an incredible giveaway over at Table Talk with C & C. They are hosting a Best Seller Math Linky and Giveaway. Head on over and check out all the great math prizes. If you win, you will get my best selling Measuring Up unit!

I wanted to share a fun place value activity I did with my kiddos today. I got the idea, last year, from First Grade Wow. 

We are currently working on place value to 100, but I have some math whizzes. So, I kicked it up a notch and some of the kids chose numbers up to 1000. I gave them the choice. If they felt comfortable, they could choose a larger number than 100. They loved tracing over their work with a black felt tip marker. That is a special treat for them! Enjoy!

Make sure to link up with Farley and let us all know what you are currently up to for October!