Sophie {Our Elf on the Shelf}

          Look what I bought today! She arrived in a package from Santa and we read the book. I let the kids write on a sticky note what they would name her. Then I wrote the names on the board and we took a vote with their heads down. The decided on Sophie.

Pumpkin Projects

The week before Halloween our pumpkin book projects were due. The students picked a character from a book and told me why they chose the character they did, what the character was like in the book and what they liked about the character. The students then decorated their pumpkins like the character they chose. The kids did a wonderful job!

During the week of Halloween we did a series of science experiments. I bought two pumpkins and divided the kiddos up into two groups. They had to count the lines on the pumpkin, measure how tall the pumpkin was, see if the pumpkin would float or sink and count the seeds in the pumpkin. 

Red Ribbon Week

                                                                Monday: Nerd Day

Tuesday: Twin Day 

Wednesday: Wacky Wednesday 

Friday: Superhero Day 

We decorated our door using monsters from TPT. Monster Madness 

Johnny Appleseed Day!

The other day was Johnny Appleseed day and we celebrated it all day long!

We started off the morning by doing an apple experiment. I cored out an apple and had the students mix  cinnamon, apple pie spice and baking soda. I mixed vinegar and green food coloring. The students took turns putting the baking soda mixture in the apple and I poured the vinegar in. The apples smelled amazing. Before we started the experiment we filled out a scientific method sheet that I found on teacherspayteachers. Apple Recipe

 After the experiment we tasted green, yellow, and red apples. The first few weeks of school we talked about bar graphs and this worksheet reinforced how to make tally marks and bar graphs.

For snack time we taste tested apple pie, apple butter, applesauce, apple juice and apple cider. 

I figured with Friday being the day after Johnny Appleseed day it was going to be hard to keep their attention. We did do work and read in the morning, but the afternoon consisted of each student decorating a canvas and melting crayons. We have been talking about melting and freezing and this was our art for the week. I attached a huge plastic tarp to my board and put duct tape on the back of the thin canvas to make it stick. I laid the crayons on a strip of tape and the put another strip of tape on top to make it stick to the tarp. The crayons did take a while to melt and I found that the sticks were a little to thick. This made it hard for the crayons to get in certain places, but the stickers were easier to peel off.

  

Fall is almost here!

                    I have been busy all weekend working on classroom stuff. Here is our new
                                                                      Fall bulletin board!

I started the daily 5 last week. The students love it so far, but I needed to do 

a lot more work to get us well prepared. My room is owl themed and 

this is our daily 5 rotation chart. 

I downloaded this chart for free on TPT from Nicole Bunt. My clothespins

look like this. 

I wanted to add more to my word work area and work on writing. I made these

apples and came up with a few writing topics to help the students along. I will 

change these out for pumpkins in October.

I made these writing journals for my writing center. The labels I made myself

and the first page inside gives the students words that they could use while talking

about the journal topic. I bought the spirals at Walmart for 17 cents!!!!

The Start of a New Year!

      Before and after pictures of my new classroom.

                                         

       
  The back wall of my classroom is used for my writing center, reading center and birthday wall
I downloaded my pencil on my writing wall for free from The Teacher Wife Blog. As for the rest of my word wall I purchased it off of {Jessi's Archive}, but it would be easy to make yourself. My read letters I bought at Hobby Lobby and modge podge paper onto the top of them. My rug came from Walmart and the owl boxes came from Target!

    This wall became my word wall and my art display wall.

I used these cards for my word wall! Owl Word Wall

My shape wall pictures I found for free on Firstie Tales. She also has 3-D shapes that match!