Mid-Week Update!

It's Hump- Day!!! Just imagine the camel walking thru my classroom making such a ruckus!! LOL! We have been so very busy (as I am sure you all have been!). We just finished our 1st grading period and it was report card crunch time. I had to hurry and get last minute grades into our online grading system. Do you all have that? I have a love/hate relationship with it. It's nice because it calculates your grades for you BUT like all computer systems it gets glitchy! I'd love to know how you all keep track of your grades and how are you required to enter grades (formatives/summatives, how many of each, weights, do you do a total points system or do you have standards based grading?? I am sure I could open up a big can-o-worms with this one!) So, yeah... that kept my panties in a bunch last week. 

This week we worked on some fun and cute projects. I finally got my "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever" bulletin board up! Too cute!

We started by reading the story and then brainstormed ways to grow the biggest pumpkin ever.

My sweet friend and room mom, Shawna, did this for me! She had it perfectly set up for me and I was a dolt and didn't realize that she put the numbers ON THE BACK-- I had them write on the back! So she improvised my dumb mistake. I think it came out beautifully and I am eternally grateful for her!!!

And to keep my biggest pumpkin ever, my bloggy friend, Laura from Peace, Love, and First Grade had this adorable craft idea for a Jack-o-Lantern lantern! It is the cutest! Click on her name to get the directions on how to make this festive craft!

We also finished up our studies on nocturnal animals. We made our Owls in the moon and dissected our owl pellets. The looks on their faces were priceless when they saw and heard what they were but once they started digging in, they were totally engaged and in love! They couldn't wait to get home and share their bone findings with their families!

If you'd like to learn more about owl pellets, click on the pic above to see where I got them! 

Too cool! I love doing this project with them.

We are learning about Pumpkins this week to celebrate our field trip to the Pumpkin Patch next week. I plan on using my 

next week when we start my pumpkin math and science unit. It is always so much fun! If you downloaded it already, please go back and re-download it-- I added a circumference page to it! Just click on the picture to grab it at my store! 

We are also working on digraphs this week /sh/ and /th/ and I know that they will need extra practice with it, so I created a fun, pumpkin themed phonics game for this week to help them practice

If your kids like pick up sticks then they will LOVE this game. I just wrote /sh/ and /th/ words on Popsicle sticks and they had to drop them down and sort them for /sh/ or /th/ at the beginning or end of a word. 

Click on the graphic above to grab your FREEBIE today! 

And that's not all! I just couldn't let the creativity stop there! I guess I am just not a fan of phonics practice where you have to rainbow write words/write them 3 times each, bubble write your words-- sometimes those are great but it's fun to play a game and learn, too! I like to create phonics games for them and I was so tickled when my brain concocted this one:

The kids all flocked to this center! They were like ants all over my room looking and reading for clues:

I haven't quite polished it up yet-- I just had it classroom ready but as soon as its ready I will post it up! So as you can see, we have been pretty busy! We are working on Key Ideas as well in reading. I always theme my week and tie in the Common Core standard for the week. If you are working on Key Ideas, please check out my Key Ideas Pumpkins freebie as well (click on the pic)! It has helped my guided reading groups tremendously this week. 

Hope you all have a great rest of the week! Don't forget about the giveaway that ends Friday!! Click here to enter!

Love to you all!