It's All About the Turkey!

Happy Veteran's Day! Hope you all took some time to thank a veteran today! If you haven't had the chance, head over to my bloggy sister and fellow Chalkie, Deb Thomas' blog, Fabulously First and read her on-point post on Veteran's Day. Click her button to take you there! 

In other news, last week we were all about the Turkey! Yep, we learned all we could about turkeys and works out of my packet:

The kids had such a great time learning about turkeys and learned some new facts they didn't know-- like they didn't know that wild turkeys were different than the ones we eat! We also worked on the skill re-telling and made my "Featherful Fact Writing" craftivity turkey from my packet. Look how cute they came out! We read

and did a retelling of the events of the story on the feathers.

They did such a good job! SO proud of them! 

We also worked on re-telling using ordinal words: First, Next, Then, Last and wrote on my teacher desk to re-tell our guided reader. YES! Wrote on my desk. They gave me a double take when I said this but they were ready to work! 

It's another great way to interact with text with no paper product and you can still see their thinking! Love it and they always ask now to write on my desk when we read to jot down notes or connections. 

I also started one of my two family projects. My Thankful Hearts. I posted about them on our collaborative blog. You can read about them by clicking here. I only had a few pictures at the time but will post more here this week. :-) The other project I sent home is our Disguise the Turkey Project! I always get such a kick out of this project (I think the original idea is from Second Story Window-- Thank you for the inspiration! And really, there are just so many out there! Again, I am not entirely sure on the original idea but I saw it here first and many other places! Again, if you are the original idea creator, please let me know so I can give you proper credit for this amazing idea!) On Friday, we read

A hilarious book if you get a chance to read it to your sweeties!

Then I told them all about the Disguise a Turkey project. Here are some examples from last year!

My son, Gabriel, told me that he wants to do Iron Man Turkey! How fun is that? If you'd like to do this project, here is a copy of the letter I used in my class so you can see the wording. I am leaving you with a copy of a blank template as well as the blank turkey template we used to disguise our turkeys. 

Click to grab this "insert your own text PPT file". 

Click to download from teachers.net

Just a really fun idea and the kids (hope the parents do, too) love it! 

I also uploaded my newest Native American packet!

Click on the picture to take you to my store to check it out! 

I am putting it on sale along with my Turkey Pack! 

Have a great week! 

I survived Halloween and the day after Halloween!!

 Last week was Halloween-- as some of you were painfully aware if you had children. I actually like Halloween and so do my kids! They had a blast! Here are my cuties:

The brave Robo-Knight and Ironman! Felt totally safe except for the mosquitoes because yes, people, in Florida it was like 90 degree weather for trick or treating! My kids were so sweaty and the mosquitoes were awful every time I opened the door! They had fun, got some candy and hopefully they will like those same costumes next year (they were expensive even on sale!!!) but a mom can wish! 

We also did pumpkins last week and they had a blast! On our last day we cut open our pumpkins and counted seeds. 

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After the initial ewws and yucks (a few still refused to touch the seeds!).. our final count for our pumpkins was 190 and 432 (not sure about the last one-- I know it was 400 something!). A great book to go along with this activity is

It's a great book and all the kids in my class wanted to be a part of the Tens Club!!! At the end, the kids got to choose 3 seeds to glue into their Pumpkin Math and Science Journals. They get to take their booklets home tomorrow. 

Click here to to take you to my store if you're working on pumpkins!  

The fun didn't stop there-- I actually got some adult time with other adults! As you all know, my hubby is a pilot so most of the time it is just me and the kids. If Brian is home and we spend 2 hours of quality time together that is a miracle! So, my sweet friend and bloggy sister, Leigh from The Applicious Teacher  and I went out for a bloggy meet up with some other fabulous bloggers! 

Can I just say, starstruck? It really takes a lot to impress me and I was scared at first but really did have a great time. There is Tammy from The Resourceful Apple, Kimberly Geswein from KG Fonts, Deanna Jump from Mrs. Jump's Class, me, Leigh from The Applicious Teacher and Sabra from Teaching with a Touch Twang. Such sweet ladies and am so glad to have met them! And exciting for Deanna to have met another milestone-- 2 million dollars in TpT earnings! She really is sweet and down to earth. It was just nice to go out and talk with other teachers and spend some time with adults! Enough said! LOL!

This week we will be focusing on turkeys! How fun! I love to teach about turkeys and I always learn something new, too! I will be working out of my newest pack:

Click me to take you to my TpT store! 

Our focus skill is re-telling (again! LOL) and point of view (who is telling the story at various points in the story and how do you know?) So, we will be reading

and doing some opinion writing from my pack " Oh, I'm Glad I'm Not a Turkey" writing.

Here is a graphic organizer that I will be using. Click on the pic above to grab this FREEBIE. This is a page from my turkey pack. We will also be working with lots of non-fiction as well! I have also been working on a new Native Americans literacy pack. This is my favourite time of year as I love to create centers that enhance the season with hard hitting skills for their learning.

Here is a preview of (warning-- it is a hot jumbled mess but kinda artistic, too! LOL!) I am just needing to make a few finishing touches and it will be done. I love this one as this has has a lot of creativity and fun with the activities. 

I hope to get some proof readers soon to help me edit and then it will be up and ready to go along with my turkey pack! I can only stare at the words so many times before I feel my eyeballs start to roll! haha! 

Oh, and my collaboration board also has some fabulous Thanks-givings going on this month! Please stop by and see what each of us is up to! Jessica from The First Grade Nest is hosting tonight! Come on over and check out her blog post and some election day freebies and activity ideas!