Halloween Fun!

We have been getting ready for Halloween in our room.  My kids get so excited this time of year, which I love because anything we do that pertains to the Halloween theme...gets them totally engaged!  We have been learning about bats and spiders and oh how they love this.  These funny bats hang from our ceiling and I love the way they look.  We did them last year and the kids just loved them.  We write facts from what we have learned about what bats "can" "have" and "are" :

In math, we have been working hard on addition and subtraction.  I created these spiderwebs years ago and have always used the plastic spider rings to use as counters.  I now cut the finger band off because I kept finding that I needed to replace my spiders each year....hmmm....I wonder where our spiders could be disappearing to?!?!  I created a pack just like them with more addition and subtraction problems and to make their learning more concrete, I created recording sheets for the students to write the addition or subtraction sentence and the answer.  I copied mine on neon colored paper, but I created them in color or B&W for you to decide.   They are available in my store, if you like them.  Here is one of my students hard at work with their "Spooky Spider Math":

We have also been hard at work on our doubles facts.  I grabbed this adorable "Spooky Doubles" game from The Beehive at her TPT store...the best thing is...yep, it's free!  We used little lima beans as counters that I made into ghosts by drawing eyes on them with a sharpie...the students love this game!  Some of the students that are more fluent with their facts asked if they could use them as the game piece to cover their number because they love these little ghosts so much!

Up and Running!

Well, I can't believe it's October again!  I just get so caught up with the beginning of the year that I forget to blog!  I know,  I'm still fairly new at this...I promise I'll get better!  So, for the beginning of the year I made these super cute dice games!  The kiddos really enjoy practicing their numbers, creating them in various ways and playing these games in math centers. I also have "missing number" hundreds chart practice, but forgot to get pictures today.   I like that they don't require colored ink...I spend a fortune in ink!  Below are some pictures of my firsties playing just a few of the games...there are a ton more if you want to check them out in my TPT store!

Almost to the finish line!

So, even though I am newer to the Blogging world, I am not new to teaching.  I am now wrapping up my 14th year! (GASP!)  Where did the time go?  I have been creating things to use in my own classroom for many years and was very excited to find TPT a few years back.  I finally got brave and have decided to share some of my creations.  This is an end of the year assessment that I have been working on for math.  It touches on all of the skills we have worked on this year and aligns with the CCS.  It is at my TPT store.  Check it out: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Heather-Stover
On another note...we had our school festival today and it was a super huge hit.  This is the "official" end of the year for our school. (Well not really, we do have 8 days left with those little darlings!)
 I have a huge feeling that I will be Pinterest addicted this summer...again!!

To continue with our fraction practice, I created this cute game to use with counters.  I just laminated it front to back and placed four copies in my math tubs.  The students continue to practice at math stations and they love this game!  Here is a "freebie" for you at my TPT store:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Roll-Count-Shake-Pour-Fraction-Practice

Thanksgiving - Pligrims

I can't believe how fast this year has gone.  I have a great class and my student teacher is wonderful!  She is going to make a great teacher.  This year for Thanksgiving, we read many books about Pilgrim children.  We discussed how their lives were similar and different from our own.  We used a Venn Diagram to show the similarities and differences.  Then we wrote about what we would like to do if we were a Pilgrim Girl or Pilgrim Boy.  Their Pilgrims turned out so cute!!  

Bats-Halloween

This year, I have a wonderful student teacher!  She found these adorable bat activities to go along with our Halloween/ Bat and Spider unit.  I LOVE this time of year. The kids are so into the activities.  I hope the enthusiasm continues!  After they were finished, we hung them from the hooks in our ceiling that display the student work.  Look how cute these turned out:

We also discussed whether or not we thought bats were "cute or creepy" and graphed the results.  My student teacher was blog hopping and found this adorable bat craftivity.  We made these adorable bats to go along with the results.

September- seasons apple tree

This year to continue with our study of the changing seasons,  the students created this cute "window tree" that displays all of the four seasons in one picture.  They were all so creative!  We used tissue paper to create each of the season's changes on the tree.  These are just a few of the adorable trees!