Body Shapes in Math

This is one of my favorite activities!  It is quick and simple.  It also helps the kids see how many sides and vertices shapes have. 

I asked them to make a square.  Four students stood up and got on the floor to make a square with their bodies.  We counted the sides and the vertices.  They did a great job putting it together on their own!

I have my students make a triangle.  So, I ask them how many students do we need to make a triangle.  3!  Then, I let them make the shape with their bodies.  Sometimes the students sitting around them try to help them if they get confused. 

We made a rectangle and I thought this was awesome.  My kids on the ends to make the short sides decided to curl up!  This way we were still able to use four students.  Two long and two short sides, and my kids came up with the short sides on their own.  :] 

We had to do a circle together as a class standing up.  This way we could see that it didn't have any sides.  We used a string to hold onto and make it round. 

How do you review shapes?

Bats and Spiders Classroom Decorations

During October, I tried to set my room up as an exciting place for learning!  We learned about bats and spiders, so I decided to add some decorations to our room to make it more fun! 

I made a super simple bat cave by taking black bulletin board paper and draping it over my classroom library.  I used my crate seats to tuck the paper under and I taped it to the top of my bookshelf.  My kids LOVED this part of the room.  :]

This was fun and simple.  I found a bat image online, and then I took my kids pictures.  I cut out their faces and glued them to the face of the bat.  They colored their bats whatever they wanted.  I posted it on the outside of my door.  I thought this was so adorable! 

I used string and draped it across my door.  Then, I printed a spider and hung it down the middle.  It was super simple and a fun way for kids to enter the classroom!  They had to duck a little to get under the string.  Sometimes I would forget it was there and would almost walk right into it!

How do you decorate your room for the holidays? 

Pumpkin Bubble Experiment

We completed a fun pumpkin bubbles experiment!  All you need are two pumpkins (they can be small), dish soap, straw, and water.

First, we made a hypothesis about which pumpkin would make bubbles.  The pumpkin with soap and water, or the pumpkin with soap, water, and air.  We would add the air by blowing through a straw.

Then, we drew our observations. We drew the pumpkin with soap and water, and then we drew the pumpkin with the added air.  

We could see that the pumpkin with the air made more bubbles.  We learned that the air is what fills up the soap to make a bubble!

We recorded our results and whether our hypothesis was correct. 

Then we wrote down what we learned!

You can find this experiment by clicking on the image below!  I hope you have as much fun as we did! :] 

Exploring Pumpkins

Exploring pumpkins is SO much fun!  You must do this in your classroom. 

I was lucky enough to have my mom and dad here to help.  So, I was able to place one pumpkin at each table.  We each cut open the top and let the kids get their hands dirty by placing them inside the pumpkin.  

Some of my kids loved it and others really didn't like it. :]  We then wrote about how the pumpkin felt.  It helped us come up with adjectives.  We also counted the pumpkin seeds and saved them to bake and eat. 

Pumpkins are so much fun!

Think PINK Sale {Supporting Breast Cancer Research}

I am joining some friends to help raise money for breast cancer research.  ALL the proceeds will go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  Everything in my store is 20% off.  

I am also adding an incentive!  For every new follower I have for my TpT store, I will donate an additional $1.  Please, when you check out my store, click follow at the top.  This will also notify you when I add free products, new products, and I will be able to donate more money to Breast Cancer Research. Thank you! :]

Here are some of my top sellers!

My aunt passed away from breast cancer when I was a young girl.  Any money raised towards helping researchers find a cure for breast cancer would mean the world to me.  We need to work together to help bring an end to this.  Thank you for taking the time to look at my store, and I hope you find something useful.  Please share this sale with your friends.  We'd love to send a big check to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation!

Thank you!  Check out other sales below. :] 

An InLinkz Link-up

Pumpkin Math

We explored our pumpkins by measuring them!  We used cubes to measure the height and how round it was. 

We used string to wrap around the pumpkin and then we measured the length of the string.  The students did an awesome job!

We also recorded our predictions before we measured, and they were actually pretty close!  You can find the recording sheet here for free thanks to Amanda Richardson. :]

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Jack-O-Lantern Craft

This craft was SO simple and turned out so cute.  All I did was give each student a sheet of orange construction paper, 3 black squares about 2x2, and 1 black rectangle about 2x4.  I also gave them a rectangle piece of brown construction paper about 1x2 for the stem. 

The students cut all the pieces on their own and created their own jack-o-lantern.  Then, I had them write about it.  You can grab that template here for free!

If you have your students make some jack-o-lanterns, please share them below. I'd love to see them! 

Pumpkin Investigators

 

During our pumpkin day, we were pumpkin investigators.  We made investigator hats and magnifying glasses.  The students colored the hats and glued them to a sentence strip.  I stapled it to fit around their head.  Then, they colored their magnifying glass and glued it to a craft stick. The kids loved this and totally played along!

We completed many pumpkin activities and recorded our information in our pumpkin booklet. You can find it here for free!  It was awesome and I loved how all the information was in one place.

Happy pumpkin investigating! 

Pumpkin Number Matching

Here is a fun pumpkin number game to use in your classroom!  All you have to do is copy the cards on paper, laminate, and post around the room.  Students take their clipboards and walk around the room.  They find the card to match the square on their paper.  Then, they record the number and draw the picture of pumpkins to match the number. 

My kids love wandering around the room! It's a great way to keep them active and learning. 

You can see that they found the box that has the square and wrote the number 4 on the paper.  The card has a square in the corner.  This helps them make sure they get each card in the room and don't write a number more than once. 

It is FREE in my TpT store.  Grab it below. :]

Pumpkin Pie Fun

  We had a day full of pumpkin activities!  One of our activities was to make a pumpkin pie snack.  We had so much fun getting messy and a majority of my class LOVED the snack!

First, we placed graham crackers in a ziplock bag.  Then we crushed them up with our fingers!  I warned the kids to be careful not to punch a hole in the bag. 

Then, we added a scoop of pumpkin pie mix to our pudding cup.  We mixed it ALL up!  This was a little messy. :] 

Next, we poured the graham crackers in the bottom of the cup and poured the pudding on top of it.  We also added some whip cream on top! :] 

Finally, we ate our delicious snack! 

We wrote adjectives to describe our pumpkin pie.  It was a great activity for following directions and to practice using our five senses to describe things. 

You should definitely try this out in your classroom!