A Little Behind

I have gotten a little behind on blogging.  It started with catching whatever many of my littles had. Thankfully, I am feeling SO much better.  We had a busy week that week, with Halloween and the excitement of kinders that goes with it.  Halloween was a whirlwind, but so much fun!  I had some mom helpers come in and help run centers.  We had some game centers, then our snack, then some crafty centers.  Next year I will shorten the game times, and extend the craft times to make it feel less chaotic for me.  Here is some of what we did.

Ghostly Bowling - We had water bottles that looked like ghosts and used a jack-o-latern playground ball to bowl.  One of my teammates let us borrow her set and the kids had a ball!

We played another game suggested by my teammate called "Witch's Brew."  You have confetti pieces (or you can cut out Halloween like shapes and give each kid a straw and bowl.  The pieces are all over the table.  The kids suck each piece up and get it in their bowl, to make their brew.  When time is up, they count how many pieces they got.

We played a version of "Clear the Board" using M & M's.  Who doesn't like chocolate before 9 a.m.? Original idea found here.  There are a whole bunch of other math games found here too.  I use quite a few of them in my classroom.

The next game we played was from a different teammate.  I called the game Candy Scoop.  Each player gets a spoon and two bowls.  One bowl has candy corn in it and the other bowl is empty.  The kids scoop as much candy from one bowl to the other in the amount of time you give them.  Then they count how many pieces they got. You can play multiple rounds and change the rules; i.e. using the other hand.

We measured different sizes of bats with candy corn using Jessica Boldridge's Bat Measurement Activity.  You can find it here for free.

Our fun snack, I have now done two years in a row.  It was inspired by an idea I saw on Pinterest that used pudding.  The link no longer exists :/.  I choose to do jello, because I love how bright and vivid the green is.

 
For our craft centers we had the Cauldron Kitchen (we made a few tasty treats), we had a painting center, a Frankenstein craft, candy corn craft and mummy craft. 

The kids painted stripes on a half sheet of paper, and a mom helper painted and stamped their feet for a handprint calendar we do for the families for Christmas.  When the kids were done painting they did some Halloween puzzles I found at Target in the dollar section a year or two ago.

In the recipe center kids made these sweet treats:

Snack idea from here, and here.

Frankenstein Craft similar to this one.

Candy Corn Craft similar this one.

Mummy craft similar to this one.

The crafts were all inspired by the links above.  Some of ours look the same some, are altered a bit.  Either way the kids had a blast.  I had the kids decorate a paper with their names and witch's legs to use to put all their crafts as we did them.  Here is what our floor looked like in the midst of it.

The day after Halloween my kids were pretty mellow and had a fabulous day of listening. It made for a very happy teacher who was worn out from being sick and all the excitement through the week.  I had the kids write about what they did for Halloween.  Here are some examples of their writing.

Early in the week, we finished up our bat study by labeling a bit bat and writing facts we have learned.  The kids were in groups of 3 and I was so proud of them.  One of my kiddos said something about this being really fun!

The kids just eat up all the facts about bats, and everything really.  Next stop... spiders!

We've Gone Batty In Kindergarten!

We have gone a bit batty in kindergarten...but truth be told, kindergarten in and of itself is a bit batty. :)

Some of our Batty Week I talked about in this past week's Five For Friday.

Our centers last week (and into a few days this coming week) are all batty themed.  We postponed centers two days last week because I had so many of my little kiddos out sick..7 one day!

Whole group we did a "Counting on Bats," similar to our "Counting on Apples".  I used this cute bag from Target to hold our batty numbers.  We pass the bag around, write the number we pull in the bat and then write the following three numbers.  We discuss the different strategies, backtracking a bit, using the number lines on the walls, as well as using the number lines on the name tags.  I love that the kids tell me the different strategies, and even better... USE THEM!

You can find a copy of Counting on Bats here.

We used Cara Carroll's super cute beginning and ending sounds Bats.  You find find the link to it here. In addition, you will find her "Rhymes with Bat/Doesn't Rhyme with Bat" mats.  We are loving these in centers this week.

We went batty with graphing.  Students sorted their pieces by shape and then created a bar graph to show the data.

My littles are so good at counting by 10's to 100, we practiced putting them in order.

We are counting and recording numbers from ten frames.

We also went batty over rhymes.  I created this stamping page and then pull out my stamps from Lakeshore. However, I do not see the set I have any more. I bought it a few years ago.

They stamp two rhymes and then in "kid writing" write the words they stamped.

On Thursday, I had 7 kiddos out.  I didn't want to introduce new learning with SO many students out.  So instead I wrote numbers on half sheets of papers counting by 2's.  I gave each of my kids one and the first round we put them in order together.  Then I collected them all and handed everyone a new number.  This time, I did not help and we timed how long it took them to get in order.  We played a total of three rounds and they LOVED it. So simple. Then they cut and pasted bats in order counting by 2s.

In my Five for Friday, I mentioned making a bat craft.  I gave the kids the following papers.  We cut the small brown one into the body.  We folded the big brown one in half, drew a wing, and cut two.  Then we folded each white one in half.  One was for the eyes, one was for the teeth.  I love how with the same instructions, no two bats turned out the same!  They make me smile.

 

Here's to another great week!

Five For Friday (a little late)

Linking up again with Doodle Bugs Teaching for a Linky Party, just on Saturday.  I don't know about you all, but there is something about the end of the week, that I am wiped out! :)

What a week it has been learning about BATS!  My kiddos LOVE learning about them.

[1]

We started our week out by creating a "Do You Think Bats Are Creepy or Cute?" graph from Cara Carroll over at The First Grade Parade.  It was an exact split in our room.  12 of my kiddos think bats are creepy and 12 cute.  We then analyzed the data.  I love hearing the kids use math talk to describe the graph.

[2]

We read our scholastic reader about bats, focusing on finding sight words, using the pictures and beginning sounds to help with words we don't know.  We read the book together and then students buddy read.  We also did some EEKK reading/blending with our bat word slide.  Oh my word, the kids LOVED this.

[3] 

Right in the middle of the week, I got to have a super tasty dinner with my favorite little guy and his mommy from To Second Grade, With Love.  Could that face be any more adorable!?!

[4] 

I pulled out the tree map and the first words out of my of my kinder's mouths was, "There are two sight words!" and then proceeded to read them. Love this!  Another kinder said, "I think we write bats in the top box."  We have done this one other time with Apples, so I LOVE that they are understanding putting the topic at the top.

[5] 

After our graphing, and tree mapping, and reading so many books about bats, we of course had to create bats!  I gave each child a small brown square, a brown rectangle, and two white rectangles.  We first cut the bats body out of the small square.  Then we folded the rectangle in half (either direction) and drew one wing.  I taught them that when they keep it folded and cut once, they will have symmetrical wings.  Then we did the same with the two white rectangles (folding them in half).  One was used to create the eyes, the other the teeth.  With the scrap brown.  They had a blast, and they all turned out differently.  They make me smile as I walk by our room.

Have a wonderful and relaxing weekend!  I'm off to lunch with a friend.