Goodbye October, Friday Freebie, Thanksgiving!

Is it just me or did the calendar change to November already?  What happened to October?!  October was a whirlwind of a month.  We were very busy and with Ms. Edwards being out, I have been consumed with the classroom.  FYI teaching Kindergarten is not a 1 woman job!  Last week we welcomed Mrs. Domer and my sanity, who is filling in until Ms. Edwards returns.  Phew!  I was super excited about Halloween this week and apparently so were my Kinders...they were WILD this week!

We had a lot of fun things planned for Halloween day, so I held it over them until each thing happened!  In the morning, we had Halloween Rotations.  In my room, I talked about Halloween symbols and sorted them on the SMART Board and then they sorted Halloween Rings...they were extra excited when I told them they could keep one.  In the other rooms they played Halloween Vocabulary Bingo, heard a ghost story, played musical chairs with Halloween music (I heard the howls all morning long!), and read Spookley and made a "square pumpkin" with a graham cracker and orange icing. Mrs. Domer took the kids around so I could teach my lesson to all 5 classes.  I asked her to snap some pics! :)

   Bingo with Mrs. McGregor 

 Ghost story with Ms. Reel

  Musical Chairs with Mrs. Mitchell 

 

I wonder who won?

 Spookley with Mrs. Biggs!

  Yum! 

 Sorting in my room! :)

 

 

  Sorry for the picture overload!  Too cute not to post!

In the afternoon, I invited the parents to come carve pumpkins, decorate mini pumpkins, and have a Halloween snack.  I am so thankful that I had several parents volunteer so I could take pics and enjoy my children while they each oversaw a group.  The pumpkins looked great when they finished and the kids really enjoyed cleaning out the pumpkins.

When they finished carving pumpkins, I gave them some materials and let them decorate their mini pumpkins.  Excitement overload! The pumpkins were ADORABLE!

Last, they decorated a sugar cookie (talk about sprinkles gone wild!) and had their snack of orange jello squares (Have you seen them at the Food Lion? So convenient!) and cheese puffs.

I somehow made it through the day even though we welcomed a 20th Kinder into our class in the middle of the day and I discovered a rotten mini pumpkin and almost got sick from the smell!  I was tired from being on my feet all day, but it was worth it!

Now onto Thanksgiving!  I just posted my Thanksgiving unit on TpT!  Stop by and grab it if you need some ready made centers.  There are enough for 2 weeks at least and lots of supplementary activities.

I have to go back to the Write from the Beginning and Beyond training Monday, so I left this shape worksheet for review while I was gone.  I didn't want to leave a sub to introduce the new shapes.  Enjoy this freebie!

Last but not least, I had to do some "homework" for my training and my students "wowed" me!  We have just started writing on storybook paper because I have been focusing on details in illustrations.  My homework was to have them write a sentence with because in it.  Umm...some of my kids can't write their name and they can barely answer a because question and you want them to do what?!  After having a panic attack pumping myself up, we had a discussion about why they did things....like get up, go to lunch, etc.  Then I asked them why they liked certain students in our class.  I modeled by writing I like Mrs. Domer because she helps me and then sent the to their seats and took my model away.  I didn't help them, I didn't spell anything for them....I told them to use the word wall, their dictionaries and to write what they heard and my kids did AMAZING!!!  Here are a few of my favorites :)

Teaching Kindergarten is so rewarding when you see that they can independently do something you've been working on.  Those illustrations make my heart melt :)

This was a long post so if you are still with me - Thanks! I hope you have a great weekend :)