Halloween Fun and 2 November Craftivities

So, I'll start with my adult costume! I did my Skippjon Jones costume for the school day, which was appropriate and kid friendly. See that here. 

However, that evening after that school carnival, I ran home to change so I could attend another party. My boyfriend and I decided on Wayne and Garth. :-) 

Now, back to school fun...

On Friday, my kids were dressed up in costumes excited for the carnival, so I figured I only had about two hours of work I could get out of them, then the rest we would do Halloween stuff because, let's face it, the Friday before Halloween is a terror.

So we did a prediction unit! Using our class pumpkin who has been in our room since the beginning of October, we carved a jack-o-lantern.

1. We predicted what the inside of the pumpkin would feel like once I cut the top off.

2. Then they predicted how many seeds there were in our class pumpkin. 

(I requested the students help me separate the seeds from the guts before we counted.)  

And finally...

Here is a peek at two of my non-Thanksgiving November products at my TPT store! 

Skippito Friskito

Our school Halloween celebration was yesterday. I decided I was going to do something free and easy that was already at home, but then I had a great idea to become our classroom mascot. I decided I just had to be  Skippyjon Jones! 

Me and our mascot! 

You will not believe how many students and teachers didn't know who I was. I can't tell you how many times I was asked if I was a mouse, a bat, or a bunny. It broke my heart that amount of students that hadn't ever heard of Skippyjon!!

I think the ears were the problem!

They are quite mousey, but I don't think that the bandit mask and green cape are characteristics of a mouse/bunny/bat. :-)

And here I am with my two teacher pals! They teach in Kindergarten and their team consisted of Santa and 3 elves. 

Hop on over to my store! 

I am having a 20% off sale all weekend! 

I Love Donors Choose

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Halloween Party in class

Red Ribbon Week

Program Review Meetings

Halloween Carnival 

Table Decorating

AH!! This is the week that will require two weeks of sleep to fix! 

However, this organization completely turned my week around...

My DonorsChoose product was funded! I received 5 CD players for Listen to Reading all based on donations! 

Let me rewind.

My Wednesday started like this....

If you are able to tell, my touch screen remote control to my ActivBoard is shattered. I clumsily dropped it off the edge of my computer stand. I've always heard if they drop on their fronts, they will shatter. When I heard it fall, I looked and saw the shattered pieces. I was terrified to flip it over to check. But, my biggest fears came true. I broke an extremely expensive piece of equipment.

Then I received this halfway through the day and my negative feelings were erased! (I still felt terrible for breaking something that was so expensive to the school). 

My Donors Choose project was here! 

I couldn't believe it.

5 wonderful individual CD players

Freedom for the kids!  

I have a second project on Donors Choose, which was just matched by Build a Bear. 

They cut my funds in half!! I now only need $105 more to give my students 13 different books for their listening station!

Class on Saturday?

Yep! For the NKU Gifted and Talented program.

I taught this over the summer during a 3-week program, but during the Fall, it is offered 5 Saturdays during October and November. 

Check out my summer posts about ExploreMore:

First Couple Days of Summer Teaching

More Gifted and Talented

Rainbow Fish Art

Final Week of Explore More Art

This 5 week program I am teaching...

"Amazing Animals and Art"

Week 1: Ocean Animals

Project #1

Paper plate fish

Finger paint

This was Project #2

Using sponges to "blot" not paint

Project #3

Watch video on ocean life

Make a list of all the animals we see

Create a mural of our list

[Unfortunately we ran out of time to color!]

This is my college classroom for Kindergarten- 2nd graders. I can't imagine what they think about this boring old room! 

Haven't had one of these in a while! 

I had fun writing on this! 

My materials table before the kids came in. 

We had lots of research for the first 30 minutes. 

I, of course, had to make sure we were getting exit slips and some education in there and not just painting! 

Sight Word Work

I have had some great success with my 2nd graders and their sight words. I'm coming up from Kindergarten, so keep in mind, I'm used to having to drag words out of kids. So, having students on all lists of Fry words makes me very excited! 

When I test Fry Sight Words, I start with my Sight Word binder. 

Since I didn't want to use 21 binder separators, I just stuck a Post-It on each kids' set to keep their words separated.  

Every week, my students get 5 words to study. If they get these words by Friday, they get 5 new words on Monday. If they only master 3 of them, then I transfer 2 of them over to the next week. 

Each kiddo has their own set of all 10 Sight Word Lists. 

The Sight Word highlighting list plus flashcards are available in this product:

Then I found that some of my kids weren't motivated to study their words. They were accepting of the fact that they would just work on them next week with no consequence, so I created an incentive chart for my Fry Sight Word success. 

As the students complete a set of 100 words, they get to move their superhero up a level. 

Here is a close up on my 4th and 5th 100 Fry words poster. This is where I have the most amount of kids, the rest of them are scattered throughout.  

And yes, I have 2 that have reached the top!  

Here is a picture of the whole wall by my computer tables for the students to see.  

On a side note...

I must announce that my Donors Choose project was funded!!

In about a week or two, my students will receive 5 individual CD players for Listen to Reading! 

If you're interested in helping fund my next project, click on the picture below!

Math and Pie

I have been hard at work making some Math packs to use in my classroom! I made a subtraction strategies pack and an addition strategies pack. Then, I realized after teaching my unit on addition and subtraction strategies, I didn't spend NEAR enough time on doubles, so I went pack and started making a doubles pack.

Check the packs out here: 

Side Note:

I am currently part of a giveaway at The Peanut Gallery's blog. 

My Adjective Fall Pack is part of the giveaway. Check it out!

And PIE! 

I know that's what is most important here. :-) 

It was Mitch's birthday yesterday and I made my FIRST homemade cheesecake.

I'm usually a Betty Crocker cake in a box type of girl, but I decided to make a real peanut butter cheesecake.

AH! Look at this mess! I was overwhelmed to say the least. 

But it turned out delicious and quite cute!