Sunday. The day of rest for everyone except teachers. Sunday. The day where teachers near and far write lesson plans, create resources, harass friends and neighbors for ideas, analyze data and do what we do best so we can reach our children! Oh yeah, Sundays mean planning and strategizing for a new week! Last week I had ZERO motivation/desire/willingness to plan because I was just back from THE HONEYMOON! This week I am back to my old self and have planned another Earth moving, kindergarten rocking week of fun and learning. Get ready. Grab a Coke Zero. Here is what you are waiting for…
This week is all about Pumpkins at Monsters, Inc! It’s going to be a messy (Mr. Greg will need some stress relief after some of these activities…trust me…you’ll understand!) week that concludes with a field trip!
Monday
We kick our week off with the letter O. That means, of course, we will not be focusing on the letter O. I mean, why would we focus on a letter and sound? Anyway, I digress. Not focusing on O means we get to make our world famous hats. This week is an Octopus hat. People, can I tell you how excited I am about this one?! It’s going to be awesome! Tomorrow, you will all see me in an octopus hat! We will read There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bat and the monsters will create their own flow map so I can assess their ability to retell and sequence a story. I know they can do it!! I just need the assessment piece to submit to the principal. (Yes. We have to turn in EVERY. SINGLE. ASSESSMENT to her with a form about the results. Every one. Every week. True story. And guess what? We can’t use our reports from GradeSpeed either. Nope.) I am a big believer in working smarter and not harder and this does not fit into my special Mr. Greg reality. Just sayin. Anyway…ADD moment…back to Monday! We will start our pumpkin study with a KWL chart! My kids love these and I love seeing what they “know” about a subject and hearing what they want to know. It’s a great motivator for them because they want to know the answers to their questions! KWL chart=motivator!
And since I got a little …ummm… embarrassed about my sad little charts, I committed to making them cute! So if you want some chart labels for pumpkins, here is a freebie for you!
We will be counting on this week in math. I found a great way to introduce this challenging (OOOO I love a challenge!! I will never back down from a challenge. Hence my non stop working to be a better teacher since the word “disappointed” was tossed around at our school…just sayin!) concept on Facebook but I forgot who posted it and cannot find the post. If you are this person or know them, let me know. The first step will be for the monsters to make their own number line. I will provide them with a sentence strip that is pre marked with the lines for the numbers. We will use dot stickers to mark the lines. After they put the stickers on we will write our numbers to 10 (look at that…creating a sentence strip meets standards…number writing…number order…counting…smarter not harder people!) After we create the number line, we are going to use monster counters glued on top of paper clips. The paper clips are bent so that the monsters are standing up. GENIUS, right?! That Facebook post is life changing! I will spin the spinner on our Smart Board and the monsters will ID the number and place the monsters on the number. Then we will count on. For example, we will put our monster on 5. Then we will move our monster to each number and count 5…6…7…8…9..10. I will post pictures of this amazing activity, don’t worry.
And of course, no day in Monsters Inc is complete without a craftivity. Today we will be making a stained glass pumpkin. And by stained glass I mean tissue paper squares! The monsters will use orange squares of tissue papers to cover their pumpkin. When it dries, we cut it out and hang it on our windows. Stained glass pumpkins.
Tuesday
Today I get to read The Legend of Spooky The Square pumpkin! After we read the story, we will complete our story map. We also have a cute little art project to go with our story….wait for it…each child will get 3 squares of paper. I will squirt red and yellow paint onto their squares and they get to mix it to make orange! After our squares dry, we will snip off the corners to make 3 pumpkins. The monsters will get to add faces to make sad, happy and scary pumpkins!
We will continue to practice counting on using a game from my friend Maggie at Maggie’s KinderKorner! The game is called Zoom! The students will draw a number from the bucket and read the number. Then class will zoom on counting from that number! FUN! Thanks Maggie! The monsters are going to go monster crazy for this one. Fun…engaging…learning…smarter not harder. (I am good for being a disappointing teacher!)
We will continue our pumpkin adventure by making a tree map for pumpkins. Pumpkins are, make, have. This is step two of our new experiment in writing! If you want to know more, check out my post about writing here! (And if you can help me figure out how to be better at teaching writing, please help! I need lots of help…in lots of ways…) And guess what?! You can get the labels for your chart here!
Our pumpkin craftivity today comes from our friend Pinterest. What did we do before Pinterest?! And it involves my favorite art supply ever. Anyone? Guesses? GLITTER! SO MUCH GLITTER!! We are going to use died macaroni wheels and glitter to make a pumpkin! A glittery pumpkin! Does it get better than this?? I think not!
Wednesday
As we continue our week of exploring and gaining knowledge we will start our day off by reading the book Pumpkin Town and discuss the story. The ending of the book is great for predictions and writing more of the story, so guess what we will do? Yep, write a continuation of the story!
I think Wednesday is the day that I like to push my students to the limit. Especially in Math. Wednesday math always seems to send them over the edge for some reason. And one they go over the edge, guess who follows? Yup. Mr. Greg. So today, in math we will keep counting on, but we will add in a new step! Each monster will roll a dice and write the number on their sheet. THEN they will write the next three numbers! BAM! Meltdowns are sure to happen! Actually I think they will do fine. We will practice whole group first using the Smart Board and I will be working with my lower group in a small group setting. But they can do it. I know they can. My monsters can do anything!
Our pumpkin adventure continues with step three in our writing process. We will take our tree map from Tuesday and generate sentences. The students will share their sentence and I will model good writing as I write the sentence. Then we will echo read the sentences!
We will label the parts of a pumpkin and finger paint a pumpkin! I love finger painting! I love seeing the kids get messy and creative! Thank goodness I have my manly apron so my clothes don’t get messy and creative( the Mr. doesn’t like when I ruin clothes!)
Thursday
Today we will read The Biggest Pumpkin Ever! I love this story! This story leads us into our discussion of the life cycle of a pumpkin. We will sequence the life cycle of the pumpkin (there is a more to this coming up tomorrow!!)!
In math we will do an assessment of our counting on. The students will have a number line with the first number and they will have to cut and paste the next numbers in the sequence!
And then we will estimate how many pumpkins tall we are (Mr. Greg will have 20 die cut pumpkins taped to the door and we will estimate how many from looking at those pumpkins!) After we estimate then we will be measured to see how tall we really are. I will photograph each monster in front of the pumpkins for a class book! (FREEBIE! Chart labels if you want them!)
Friday
FIELD TRIP!
We will head out on our adventure to the pumpkin patch! Here we learn all about pumpkins and the life cycle of the pumpkins! We get to pet animals, climb on hay bales and ride a tractor! And then…we get….to…pick…a pumpkin to bring home! Last year, it was SO COLD AND WINDY on the trip that we were miserable. This year, the forecast is much better.
After we return to school, we will continue a Mr. Greg classroom tradition. We will (As in Mr. Greg…a knife…still super DANGEROUS. I tend to not pay attention sometimes and usually end up injured. The Mr. worries a lot!) cut open our pumpkins and clean them out. I LOVE this. The kids are always so funny sticking their hands in the pumpkin and feeling that slimy goodness! After we clean out our pumpkins, we fill them with potting soil and plant a pansy inside! GASP! I know, isn’t that so much fun and precious?! The idea came from my amazing classroom volunteer (who is no longer my volunteer…sad day.) a few years ago and I have done it every year since!
Our pumpkin week ends with another tradition. Mr. Greg reading the favorite, “It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” and enjoy some pumpkin pie!
Of course, we will do our daily picture sorts (I am THE KING of picture sorts!), math journals, centers and morning meeting. We will learn two new centers this week. I will be introducing big books and listening (listening=arch enemy)! After this week we will be able to start our center rotation using our center wheel! I will share more on that later! Also this week we will celebrate red ribbon week so we will be adding a red ribbon to our buggy door (smarter not harder) so we don’t have to do a whole new door! And we get to dress up! Tuesday is silly socks, Wednesday is hat day!
And that is our pumpkin week! What are your plans for the week? Will you use any of our ideas in your classroom?
And while you’re here, check out my newest product for helping our friends with first sound fluency!
And I wanted to link up with Michelle at The 3 AM Teacher to share the bliss of my first year as a blogger!
This was easy. The best is when fellow educators leave comments on my blog and say that they would be honored if their children were in my classroom. That is the ultimate compliment for me. A parent educator who would be “honored” for me to teach their child is powerful to me! To those of you who have said that to me, thank you. I am beyond honored and thankful for such amazing support!
Link up with Michelle and share your first year blogging highlight!
