Hello? Hello? Is Anybody There?

Hi friends.  Maybe you remember me?  I’m the girl who used to be semi good about blogging here at The First Grade Parade.  Is anybody there?  I’m convinced no one reads blogs anymore…or maybe just that no one reads this one.  I’m sure it doesn’t help when I don’t post for a month :)  Living in a small little town means that sometimes you don’t have internet access…for extended periods of time…even when you call your provider and practically beg for them to restore your service. {{Sigh}}

So I enjoyed the temporary lapse in blogging.  And when Internet service was restored, I kept on enjoying my break.  Sometimes you just need a break, y’know?!  I know I’m not the only one.  I’m just glad that the good Lord forced it through means of an Internet outage.  Now I’m refreshed.  And I actually miss blogging.  So here we go. 

I was terrible about taking my camera to school this last month, so ignore the quality of some of these pictures.  Scary, at best.  Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we?!

Right after my last post, we celebrated Halloween at school.  I know it’s almost Thanksgiving, but bear with me.  Here’s a little activity I did with my kids for Halloween, but you could absolutely do it ANY time of the year.  We practiced working with the “Franken”line.  My kids thought that was hilarious.  I really want my kids to be fluent in using the number line and being familiar with the vocabulary we use to talk about numbers.  I love that they have a connection to refer back to when we work with the number line now.

Each of my kids got a “Franken”line, a little Frank eraser {Target $1 spot….holla!}, two dice, and a recording sheet.  We started at the point of origin…yes, I expect my kids to know what that is!…and had them roll their dice.  They walked the line that number of spaces and placed their little Frank on the number on which they landed.  Then I had them count up one number and use that in a sentence.  For example, if they landed on 6, they would move up one space to 7.  Then I had them tell me, “7 is one more than 6”.   Then I had them return to the point of origin, roll their dice again, and move their Frank to that number.  Then I had them find the number that was 1 less than what they rolled….and they had to tell me in a sentence what that was. {5 is one less than 6}. 

After we did this a few times, the kids recorded their work and then made their own little Frank as a visual connection.  They LOVED this!!!


The printables & templates for this mathtivity can be found in my FrankenFun Math packet if you're interested.

Moving right along…

We started the month of November with a pumpkin week.  Nothing but pumpkins.  And it still seemed like there wasn’t enough time for everything I wanted to do!! 

You might remember me posting about these activities a few years ago.  This year I changed up my brainstorming map just a bit…to make it easier for the kids to tell the difference between the descriptive words for both the outside and inside of a pumpkin.  We created these little anchor charts as we were doing our pumpkin investigations

We used the descriptive words in a little writing activity that you can check out HERE.  We didn’t use similes though…my kids just completed sentence prompts…The outside of a pumpkin can be _______.  The inside of a pumpkin can be ________.  My camera died before I could steal a pic! BOO!

We did some non-fiction pumpkin writing as a follow up to the schema/new learning chart we created.  I’ve noticed that my kids tend to write so much more…and so much better!…when we’re writing non-fiction pieces.  I know it’s because it’s not so abstract, but still.  I’m just so proud of them!

 

At the end of the week, we culminated our pumpkin learning with a little pumpkin tasting party.  Just as I predicted, the kids were pretty reluctant to try some of the pumpkin flavored goodies.  I have to admit that I’m not the biggest fan either.  I like it in small doses.  I love pumpkin bread.  Chocolate chip pumpkin muffins.   And even a few little bites of pumpkin fluff.  But everything else?!  Notsomuch.  I still can’t get on board with the beloved pumpkin spice latte everyone raves about.  But I digress.

Here’s what was on the menu…

 

Pumpkin pie.  Little Debbie Pumpkin Delights.  Pumpkin Fluff with Vanilla Wafers.  Pumpkin Bread.  I was going to have the kids try pumpkin pie pop tarts {ewwwwww}, but they were out!

Here are the results…

I had a few that refused to try anything.  Bless their hearts!  I know my son would’ve been the exact same way!

Oh…I almost forgot.  We used our life sized tens frame & number line {to 10} to practice addition to 10.  We tossed the die, moved the counter on the number line to match, and then filled the tens frame that number of spaces.  Then I had the kids write down the first addend {the number rolled}.  Then we talked about how many more counters we would need to get to 10.  We counted it on the number line and filled the remaining spots on the tens frame.  Then I had the kids complete their number sentence on their little dry erase sleeves.  Love.

We had fun celebrating the 50th day.  A whirlwind of a day, of course.  We spent the day working on lots of activities from my 50th day packet.  Making root beer floats was definitely a class favorite!  Mine too :)  You can check out some of the things we did HERE.  Once again, I didn’t take very many pictures!

We also celebrated Veteran’s Day.  We read a couple of non-fiction stories about Veterans and then made a little anchor chart.  We used our anchor chart to help us with our writing craftivity.

You can find this writing craftivity in my Veterans Day Mini Packet HERE.

“Veterans help.  Veterans are strong.  Veterans are in the Army.”

I also had the kids write about their real life heroes.  I LOVED reading what they had to say!  Just PRECIOUS!

This template is also included in my Veterans Day Mini Pack!

“My hero is my Popo because he fights for our country.”

“My hero is my mom because she takes care of me.”

That one **might** have made me tear up.

This past week we worked on TONS of Thanksgiving stuff.  And sadly, I took a picture of NOTHING.  Well…I took lots of pics of my kids in their Native American vests and headbands, but that’s about it.  However, I did a lot of things I’ve already done in the past, so not much changed about my plans for Thanksgiving stuff.  If you want to check out what I’ve done in years past, you can read about it all HERE.

One new thing I added to the mix this year was this fun little Turkey craftivity.  Colorful and fun, we made these little turkeys to go along with some non-fiction writing.  The kids absolutely LOVED these and they were SO easy…and quick!…to prep and create!

So…in a nutshell…that’s what we’ve been up to in Kindergarten. 

We have the WHOLE week off this week and it is MUCH needed.  I’m prepping for North Carolina {will I see you there?!?!?} and finishing up a few requests I’ll be adding to the shop later this week.  I did manage to add a little something new last week to help some of my kids who need more support with “sneaky e”.  You can check it out HERE.

Glad to be back to blogging!  See you tomorrow!!