First, 5 million views? My blog just reached 5 million views! Can you believe it? I sure can't. You guys and gals are amazing! When I started this blog, I just wanted to place to document my teaching journey...now it is so much more than that! From the bottom of my heart, thank you!
Now, on to my post! Six weeks of school has come and gone (well for most of us) and October is right around the corner! I cannot wait for cooler weather, leggings, boots, and sweaters!
October can be a little crazy in the classroom though! The weather changes, kids know Halloween (and a sugar high) is well on its way. They can get off task very easily! I mean even as teacher we are like...gimme allllll the candy, right?
Since October...and November and really even December can be challenging...lol, I wanted to share some of my favorite activities to do during October!
First, I try to make time each day for an October themed activity or game. Of course we are learning during these games but the kids love seeing the holiday or seasonal themed games.
Now, on to my post! Six weeks of school has come and gone (well for most of us) and October is right around the corner! I cannot wait for cooler weather, leggings, boots, and sweaters!
October can be a little crazy in the classroom though! The weather changes, kids know Halloween (and a sugar high) is well on its way. They can get off task very easily! I mean even as teacher we are like...gimme allllll the candy, right?
Since October...and November and really even December can be challenging...lol, I wanted to share some of my favorite activities to do during October!
First, I try to make time each day for an October themed activity or game. Of course we are learning during these games but the kids love seeing the holiday or seasonal themed games.
These games are fun for the students, help reinforce their vocabulary skills and can be done in groups, partners, or as a whole class! Also, they are free (yahoo!) You can grab your copies here!
My student also LOVE reading these Halloween Poems! I place them in centers each year and have the students work on poetry fluency and strategies such as numbering lines, counting stanzas, reading with the punctuation, and using expression! They beg to come read them to me! It is adorable!
To go a little deeper, my students have always love doing reading passages that are themed around the month. I do not just pass out a passage though and tell them to be quiet and get busy. We make the passages fun. I always do one with them during the week. I use this as a time to model our strategies such as finding text evidence, isolating vocabulary terms, and rereading for understanding! We do a fiction passage and a non-fiction passage each week!
We also use this time to practice our inferencing skills and writing skills! Each passage we complete has inference exercises and writing exercises. We might even whip out the chrome books and let them do the digital versions!
The key is to make the reading passages fun! You can add in some fun Halloween erasers, reading trackers, or do some good ol' flashlight reading during these as well! Anything to spice up that reading time! If you want to grab these passages for your class, click here.
Lastly, (well really first thing in the mornings) we love doing Wake Up Your Brain! This resource is completely paperless and has a clickable PDF...talk about easy to use! The students look at a picture on the projector then do what the assignment tells them to do! My students love this resource because they get to write their answers on their desks in dry erase markers! The discussion after they are finished is always great too! So many great (and different) ideas!
I hope these suggestions have helped give you some additional ideas on how to keep your students engaged through the month of October! Keeping those students focused will keep your our sanity intact!
Today I had a unique opportunity to talk to my son about solids, liquids, and gases. Now, we don't usually spend time discussing this at...
Vocabulary is crucial for your students and finding an engaging way to teach it can be hard! I use this Vocabulary Curriculum in the cla...
We have all been there, right? It is time to teach THEME and we bust out Aesop's Fables. Well sure, that does teach theme...in the most ...
Hey All! This will not be a fancy or long post...I am completely breaking my DO NOT WORK ON SUNDAY rule. *face palm* But many have been aski...
Halloween is quickly approaching! You may not do things for your students (or you may) but if you don't, hopefully you will still find t...
How do you engage readers? There are so many ways this task can be accomplished but we can all agree that making reading interesting is one ...
I know...it is September 1st and it is technically not fall yet...but...can we pretend? I am thinking about all of the fall things. Pumpkin ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)