Let's Paint Some Howling Good Characters!

It's Halloween.  Paint.  Just paint.  Every child needs time with paint and a BIG sheet of paper. 

BOO!

October is Fire Prevention Month

Firefighter Otis visited our classroom to teach us some important fire safety rules. 

He gave us pencils, badges, and fire safety activity books to help us remember the concepts.

Great Pumpkin!

We named our pumpkins, drew faces on them, weighed and measured them.  We estimated the seeds and did an actual count.  We put them outside near our adopted tree, Thor.  I asked why we would do that and some of the answers were, "To keep Thor company in the winter," "To put food back into the dirt for Thor," "To give animals something to eat."

Teamwork and Cooperation

Tactile and Sensory Experiences

Ten seeds per circle, ten circles per sheet = 100 seeds per sheet
(Let's squeeze some more math in there!)

Estimation and Actual Count

In addition to the afore mentioned reasons for putting the pumpkins outdoors, I'm hoping we can see the process of decomposition first hand.  We also saved some seeds to plant in the spring.  Full cycle.

Animal Adaptation

How does an animal adapt to its environment in order to survive?  Well, a beaver is quite specialized for wet and cold conditions:

• Beavers have orange colored teeth because they utilize extra minerals and iron.
• If a beaver didn't continually chew, its teeth would grow until it seriously damaged the beaver itself.
• Beavers have two kinds of fur - guard hair for keeping water away and fleece for keeping it warm.
• They have clear eyelids to see better under water and in muddy conditions.
• Ear flaps and nose flaps keep water and cold temperatures from bothering the beavers.
• Webbed feet allow the beavers to swim better. 
• The tail helps with balance and is used to slap the water to warn other beavers of danger. 

Of course, our adaptations left a little to be desired, but we had a lot of fun.  Hands-on learning always makes the concepts and scientific principles really stick.  

Odds and Ends of October

We just can't get enough of leaf rubbings.  What cool textures.  And a discussion about leaf color.  Why do they change from green to other fall colors?

Maple seeds, a.k.a. helpcopters, another way that seeds travel from place to place.  Oh, and they're super fun to toss up in the air for about 10 minutes.  

Stage 1 in making spider webs.  

An oldie but a goodie for first graders.  Repeated readings and controlled vocabulary ensure success for all.

Second graders are reading Marc Brown's Arthur books.  Marc hides his children's names in each book. It adds another level of humor and interest.  Can you find Tolon, Tucker, and Eliza in these illustrations?

We tally the number of school days each morning.  Thanks C.B.!

Every week or so we estimate how many pockets we have on our clothing that day.  Each child then takes a cube for each pocket.  Then we work cooperatively to stack the cubes in sticks of ten and leftover (remainder) ones.  

We are strong and kind citizens.  We demonstrate the four B's of behavior each day.  Lakewood Paw power!

Leaf Litter

We learned about a different kind of litter.  Not garbage litter, but leaf litter.  The kind that lays on ditches and on the forest floor.  In our Scholastic News magazines, we read about critters that live and hide in the leaf litter.  We also learned about animals that hunt creatures in the leaf litter (predator and prey).

In addition to learning science concepts, we are practicing the skill of using highlighters to focus on the main idea, details, and conclusion.  

Then we ventured outside to delve into our own leaf litter.  

We found lots of little critters of our own.

After about 20 minutes of exploration, the lesson dissolved into joyful giggles with leaf angels, leaf tossing, and hot dog rolling down the hill.

It was a perfect lesson on a perfect fall day.

Halloween Fun

Students had a hand-tickle when I brushed black paint on their hands.  They made handprints on a background and then they added their own spooky details.  We have been studying plot, main idea, and details.

This activity was a great lead-up to the concept of "setting". 

What better story starter than Frankenstein chasing a cat?

Or maybe a skeleton and Frankenstein taking their cat friend to a Halloween party?