Autumn Owls

During our autumn unit we learn all about owls! This year we decided to make fall colored owls. This was such a fun project (and makes for a very nice colorful display!). 

Materials:

2 large paper plates

1 small paper plate

Googly eyes

paint

hot glue (this is to make sure that everything stays together once you hang it up)

To start, I took the small paper plate and cut a small square out of the top (to help it look like the head of an owl). Then I took one of the large paper plates and cut it in half (to make the wings).

 Next we painted all of our pieces.

 Once the pieces were dry we decorated our owls. We have been working on patterns so we practiced making a pattern on the owl's body.

Once everything was dry we put it all together! We glued the wings on first (have the flat side facing out) and then glued on the head. We made a beak for our owls by cutting out a triangle from construction paper.

Afterwards, we named our owls and hung them up on our bulletin board and placed a few of the books that we had read about owls underneath. It makes such a great autumn display! 

Apple Tree Craft Project

During our week of focusing on apples, we made apple trees! We had so much fun making these, and it was a great way to practice a variety of skills while talking about the parts of a tree and reviewing the life cycle of an apple. We started out by cutting brown construction paper in half and then gluing it to make a cylinder. Next we cut out the top of our trees using green construction paper. Then the students used glue and made dots to be the apples and we used red glitter to represent apples. Once that dried we attached it to the top of our cylinders (hot gluing it worked the best so that it stuck quickly and wasn't moving around) and we had apple trees! They also made for a cute display on top of our shelf in front our our display that we made for the seasons of the apple tree. 

top of the tree

cutting out paper to be the trunk of the tree

glitter for the apples

Our apple trees!

Learning all about autumn and apples!

 This week as part of our fall unit we are focusing on apples. One of our math center games is filling in apple themed ten frames for numbers 1-10. We have used a variety of materials in our ten frames, including unifix cubes, counting bears, floam and play doh. The play doh was the favorite to use because they could make it look like 'apples' for the ten frames. I have a few students that were even organizing their ten frames and filling it out from left to right which made me happy because I have not introduced that yet. Our big thing that we are working on is counting and counting each object. Even my students who can count all the way to 100 we are having to remind to touch/point and count each object.

In our free writing center we have lots of fall themed word cards for the more advance students to write the words, and I also have leaf and apple themed letter cards for my other students to use in their writing.

fall theme writing

In science we have been focusing on the life cycle of an apple, the parts of an apple and characteristics of apples. My students are doing a fabulous job with the life cycle of an apple and will tell you all about it! We also have made some great charts about apples, including what apples have and what you can make using apples.  

Be sure to check back to find out all about our apple tasting this week! Have you done any fun apple activities this fall?

I've Been Boo-ed!

I was boo-ed by Amy over at Adventures in Teaching! Be sure to stop by and check out her blog, she has some really cute stuff!

If you've been booed, copy and paste the above pic and these "rules" into your post.

 1.  Give a shout out to the blogger who booed you and link back to their site!

2. Share 3-5 October activities, books, products (yours or someone else),or freebie(s) that you love!

3.  Share the Boo love with 5 bloggers- make sure you check this link to make sure you don't boo someone again:

 http://toristeachertips.blogspot.com/2012/10/ive-been-booed-fun-october-linky.html

And don't forget to tell them that they have been BOOED!

4.  Link up {here} so that others can find you and read about your October ideas!  And while you are there... check out the other great blogs!

October Activities:

My Fall Theme Math Activities for Numbers 1-10

This apple craft that we are going to be making this week:

This freebie from Pocket Full of Centers. My students love playing this game.

These free word wall cards. They are perfect for any fall themed writing activity.

Here are the blogs that I boo-ed!

First Grade Fingerprints

Delightfully Dunn
A Special Teacher for Special Kids

Fall Art Projects and Bulletin Board Displays

 We have done so many fall themed art projects these past 2 weeks. After spending a couple of days talking about autumn and the signs of autumn we made a class autumn mural. The students took turns painting and adding different items to our mural including trees, leaves, apples and pumpkins. They did such a great job painting and working together! We received many compliments on our mural and students were asking if we could make another one. I was impressed with how well they worked together and would add to what previous students had already painted. It was a great activity for team work!

working on the mural

Our finished autumn mural

Students also made lots of individual art projects. We put to of the art projects together to make our large autumn bulletin board display in our classroom. Each student made an autumn tree and a wreath. For the autumn trees we used construction paper and cut out the trunk and branches of the tree. Next (we had torn paper into small pieces before starting the project) we added our leaves. The students fully made the trees themselves and understood that the leaves are changing colors and that leaves are falling off of the trees.  Next we made our autumn wreaths where we practiced our cutting skills and cut out leaves to glue on our wreaths (and then wrote our names using glitter). 

Our finished display! 

Fall Activities- Sorting Letters

 Last week we started our month long unit about fall, apples and pumpkins. One reason that I love this month long unit is because there are so many different activities and ideas that you can do! One of our skills that we are really focusing on right now is letter recognition and the differences between upper and lowercase letters. Last year I created 4 file folder games to help with this skill and this year's class loves these games. They are available in the literacy center and students can decide whether they want to do the game individually or work with a partner. These games are a fun way to practice letter recognition and students that are a variety of skill levels can play the games. Plus it's a fun, easy way to assess the students as well (and they don't know that they are being assessed!).

This game focuses on sorting upper and lower case letters

I also created a set of awards that I am giving out to students as they are able to recognize their letters. You can download the awards here for free.

Don't forget to enter my birthday celebration giveaways that are currently going on!

October- Month Long Fall/Apples/Pumpkins Unit

For October, we are spending the entire month learning about fall, apples and pumpkins. I am so excited! I have so many fun activities planned and I've already started talking to my students about it. While planning this unit I've spend a lot of time on TPT and Pinterest looking for lessons/activities/games/crafts. Here is a preview of a few of the things I have planned:

One of the games that will be available during math centers. 

My new emergent reader that I made- can't wait to use it (plus its a freebie at my TPT store)

We will be measuring with apples and pumpkins.

One of the many books that we will be reading. 

I love these cards- they will be displayed in my writing center. 

A few other things that we will be doing include: making charts and graphs about apples and pumpkins, exploring the inside of apples and pumpkins, tasting different types of apples, and many craft projects. 

All of the images above came from my theme- fall/apples/pumpkins board on pinterest. Do you have a fall, apples, pumpkins or halloween themed board on pinterest? If you do, link up below (you can add more than one board)! Be sure to check out some of the other boards- you never know what cute activity you might find :) 

Fall Theme Freebie and Giveaway

I've been working on preping for our month long (the entire month of October!) unit on fall/apples/pumpkins. I have made a variety of math activities to go along with this unit, including number order cards, number puzzles and counting activities. You can get my fall leaf number puzzles for numbers 1-20 here for free. If you are doing a unit about fall/apples/pumpkins be sure to check out my pinterest board that has a variety of free and paid products along with bulletin board ideas, books and craft activities. 

Don't forget to enter my Fall Theme Giveaway! It ends this Friday! There are all kinds of great prizes to win to go along with a fall unit/theme. 
Diving Into Learning Fall Theme Giveaway!

Friday Freebie Spotlight!

I have lots of freebies to share this week to help everyone start getting ready for upcoming fall/apple/pumpkins themes/1

Freebie spotlight #1 is Apple Math Work Station Missing Numbers 0-30 by Pocketful of Centers. This activity is great to go along with learning number order and recognizing numbers (and it's perfect to use with upcoming fall themes!). It includes 31 apple themed number strips to fill in the missing number.

Freebie spotlight #2 is Fall Word Wall Words by Pocketful of Centers. These word cards are great to use for building vocabulary and to use for writing. I plan on using these both with my pre-k and first grade class. With my pre-k class we are going to use the cards to help increase our fall vocabulary and to label pictures that we are going to draw. With the first grade class they will be used to help with writing prompts and to label art as well. I also have printed off a second set and have cut apart the pictures from the words so that students have to match the word to the picture.

Freebie spotlight #3 is for my I have, who has numbers 1-20 fall theme. This is a fun fall theme game to play with your students to practice counting and number recognition.