Halloween Favorites!

Halloween is one of my very favorite holidays! Why? Well, first of all, it's a chance to be something you're not. What kid (of all ages) doesn't like to play pretend? 

I also love Halloween because of all the great children's literature out there!  Here are some favorites!

Who doesn't love Room on the Broom?

 

 

Dogzilla is a favorite in my classroom, along with its sister story, Kat Kong!

I'll be exploring the world of bats this week with my class, and Gail Gibbons is my favorite author for information books for second graders. She manages to put information in a way that little ones can understand it. 

I have 2 copies do In a Dark, Dark Room, and both copies are barely holding together!  That's a good sign it's a popular book!

 

I also have a few Halloween related joke books, and they are wildly popular! (And a good time to introduce homophones, since most jokes depend upon a double meaning!)

 

I usually read a kid's version of the classic: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow on Halloween day. If I have a class that can handle it, I'll turn off the lights, but I don't want to scare the dickens out of those sensitive ones!

 

 

Last, but certainly not least is my very favorite Halloween story, the Hallo-wiener! Who doesn't love a book where the underdog becomes the hero? (Pun intended!)

Besides books, I try to squeeze in some Halloween fun wherever I can! 

See the image above for this sampler of Halloween No Prep Worksheets and Printables! Or, for the whole set, see the image below:

 

We're working on sentences in my classroom. This set saw a lot of attention last week! Just see the image!

 Halloween Sentence Sample!

  

Or, if you'd prefer the full set, see this image!

 Halloween Sentence Reading Practice

 Or perhaps you're looking for some math?

 Halloween Math Stories

Here's a fun trivia activity on the Boom Learning Platform:

Halloween Facts: History and Traditions Boom Learning

 Check out this fun Boom Learning deck with a mapping theme: Halloween Mapping!

Still looking for Halloween resources? This bundle has plenty of October resources at a huge discount! 

October Bundle:

How do you celebrate Halloween?

What are your favorite books?

What are your favorite Halloween activities?

 

Learning About New Hampshire!

What better way to learn about your home state (and the nearby states) than reading in a fun book?

I've joined up with a group of bloggers for Booking Across the USA!

I was lucky enough to be involved in this project last year (See THIS blog post) and I couldn't wait to do it again!

For more about the Booking Across the USA Project, click the image below or click HERE:

This year is particularly cool, since we got to use these books, thanks to Blue Apple Books!

I shared Travelin' the Northeast with my class, and it's adorable! Each book represents a section of the United States, and has a page about each state, along with facts about that state. The best part? There's this cute little dog named Charlie that's on every page, and they absolutely LOVE searching through each state for Charlie!

Here are some of the facts we learned about New Hampshire from this book:

• The first free public library was established in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

• Tupperware was invented in New Hampshire.

• The alarm clock was invented by Levi Hutchins in Concord, New Hampshire in 1787.

• Alan Shepard, the first US Astronaut in space, was born in Derry, New Hampshire November 23, 1923.

• Plus, there are some cool pictures on the map page of New Hampshire that give us more information about the state!

• Brain research tells us making connections to the arts help children remember.

• Most teachers have these around their classrooms:

If not, they're easy to find!

How about these?

Pipe cleaners are easy to find! If you put these two

materials together, you can make something like this:

Here's how it works:  Each time a child can share a fact about one of the states they've learned, they get a new bead for their bracelet. As they build up beads, they can go through the beads, remembering each of the facts they have learned. The beads are helping the memory!

Another way to use the beads: Attach another bead to the bracelet for each state the children can find on the map!

An InLinkz Link-up

5 Resources for Earth Day

My Earth is pretty important to me! 

It's my home, and it's the home for my kids (both biological and students) and their children. If we make the effort, we can make our Earth and its resources last!

 

I plan to make the whole week all about protecting our Earth and its resources.  Here are some of my plans:

1.  Literature! I always use plenty of literature whenever I teach a concept.  Here are some great books that tell what happens if we don't take care of our Earth: (Click for an affiliate link to Amazon for more information about these books.)

• The Lorax
• The Wump World
• A River Ran Wild

     

Here are some more books to bring Earth Day awareness:

• Earth Day: An Alphabet Book
• The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Help Save the Earth 
• The Everything Kids' Environment Book

     

2. Resources! Here's what I'll be using next week to tie Earth Day into reading, writing and math in my second grade classroom: Earth Day No Prep

These Earth Day Math Story Problems are a favorite! 

 

The above resources as well as a few others are included in this bundle at a HUGE discount!  Earth Day Collection

3. Videos!  Speaking of Youtube, there is a wealth of information out there, and some of it is pretty good!  Here are a few I've found that are great for Earth Day:

4. Be a Role Model! If you want the kids to do what they can to protect our Earth, you need to show them how! Let them see you reduce, reuse, and recycle! I always warn my students not to use more than their share of paper, not to waste materials, and not to let the water run. They see me being careful about using paper. I even print on both sides whenever I can! If a paper has print on one side, I save it and put it upside down in my printer to use again. We have a recycling box in our class for paper, and save paper scraps, especially construction paper that can be used again on other projects! I also make a point to mention when I see a child being conservative with materials.

5. Dollar Deals! Here are a couple more Earth Day bargains!

Here's a Dollar Deal for students to write about their Earth Day plans: EarthDay Writing Paper

 

This Dollar Deal is a song to the tune of Take Me Out to the Ballgame! Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

 

Can you tell Earth Day is important to me? 

Happy Earth Week!

Signs of Spring Resources

It has been one long cold winter here in New Hampshire!

From what I understand, it's been a long cold winter all over the US!

Spring in New England shows up in mid-April, but as I was driving to my hair appointment this morning, I saw a couple of signs of Spring!

I saw buckets on maple trees!

 

I know Vermont is the big state for maple syrup, but we do it here in New Hampshire, too! The maple syrup tapping is actually late this year, because the weather's been so cold. They need cold nights and warm days for the sap to flow. We've had plenty of cold nights, but today, we had a warm day. The temp actually went up to 50! I actually took my coat off in the car, and didn't even button it when I was outside! It was fabulous!

Here's the other sign of spring I saw... 

a little something green:

Yep, McDonald's Shamrock Shakes are definitely a sign that spring is coming!

I have a few things about spring up my sleeve. I always make sure I have plenty of books about the subject.  Here are a few of my favorites:

The Reason for Seasons

Sunshine Makes the Seasons

When Will it Be Spring?

Everything Spring

Watching the Seasons

The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree

The Year at Maple Hill Farm

I always make sure I read a few to the kids, but I also make sure I've got them in the book tubs so the kiddos will explore them.

I think videos are great to help the children understand concepts, especially things like how seasons work.  Here are a couple I've found!

 

What Causes Earth's Seasons: (10:48 min)

How Seasons Work (58 seconds)

 

How Equinox's Work: Beyond Our Earth (2:24 minutes)

Try them all and see which one you like best!

As most teachers know, squeezing in science and social studies topics is tough, since most of our time is dedicated to reading, writing, and math! In my attempt to keep some of the fun stuff in the classroom, I've included signs of spring in with important literacy and math concepts in this set of No Prep Printables: Signs of Spring Printables: Literacy and Math. I've got some math story problems, popular fact games, word work, writing, and comprehension work, all somehow connected to Signs of Spring. 

Spring is a great time to teach about life cycles! Here's a bundle of crafts and activities for the life cycles of 9 different plants and animals, at a huge discount! Spring Life Cycle Bundle

Here are some other games and activities with a spring theme:

Some of my students are struggling to remember the +9 and -9 Facts, so I made this game to make practicing fun: Adding and Subtracting Nines: Spring Flower Theme

My kids are working on using mental math for adding and subtracting. This game board has a set of cards for addition mental math, and a set of cards for subtraction mental math. Plus, it's got built-in brain breaks! It's a favorite in my classroom: Mental Math Addition and Subtraction: Spring Board Game.

Finally, this is a collection of 6 different games that are related to spring. It has word work, grammar, and plenty of math games, all made for second graders, but are also appropriate for high firsts or review for third graders. See the image to take a closer look at Literacy and Math Games Spring Bundle.

Happy Spring!