Fall Time Acrostic Poems + FREEBIE!

Try to ignore the fangs, apparently my student has an obsession with vampires! :P

Happy November, friends! It's Alexis here from Laugh Eat Learn. I'm here to share my (newly discovered) obsession with writing with you in the form of Acrostic Poems. This year I've been blessed to be teaching writing to a great group of ELL students. We have been working hard on building vocabulary and understanding parts of speech. Around this time every year, I spend a good portion covering all things Fall (not just because it's my favorite season :]) but because there are so many things to describe and remember. This makes Fall time my Parts of Speech MVP!

HEAD OVER TO LAUGH EAT LEARN TO

READ MORE & GRAB THE FREEBIE!

Fall Frenzy Recap

Hi friends! It's Gina from Teaching With Heart {formerly Miss Peluso's Kindergarten} here to share with you some of my favorite activities that I've done this Fall season. With school starting, Fall is a whirlwind that tends to go by before you even know it! By the end of it, I can never really wrap my head around all of the fun that we had! That's why I decided to share a few of my favorites here for you all in one place so that you can squeeze some more Fall fun in this year, or save these ideas for next!

We started out Fall going strong and studying Johnny Appleseed. Conveniently for us, our field trip to the apple orchard was planned for the same week as Johnny Appleseed's birthday! We took our trip to the orchard where we learned all about how apples and pumpkins grow, and even got to pick our own!

When we came back, we taste tested and voted on our favorite apple color! Surprisingly, yellow won by a landslide!

After we learned about apples and pumpkins from the farm, we learned who Johnny Appleseed was. We even made our very own Johnny Appleseed "pots" to wear on our heads!

The weather stayed warmer much later this year, so it was a while before we noticed the leaves changing color. Once they started, we made our Fall trees. We used q-tips and some red, yellow, and orange paint to make the leaves on our trees! We'll keep the Winter, Spring, and Summer trees blank until the seasons change again!

In math, we began to talk about numbers 1-10. I always find it hard to teach how numbers are all made up of smaller numbers, so we used some apple pie math to figure it out! This real-world connection helped many of my kinders make the connection in their minds.

Keeping with the Fall theme in math, we needed a little more fun in our whole group math time. I VERY quickly cut out this little pumpkin and wrote numbers on it. One student at a time tossed a bean bag onto the pumpkin. Whatever number it landed on was the number that the rest of the class built on their ten frames. Just a little twist made this lesson so much more engaging!

This past week, it was time to break out the REAL pumpkins! We had a blast doing some pumpkin investigating to see if our pumpkins would sink or float, and to discover how many seeds were inside our pumpkins! This week, we will vote on what face we should carve into our pumpkin, and use our 5 senses a bit more to explore!

Finally, with Halloween coming up this week, it's time to bring out some favorites from last year, Greater Gator and Cauldron Trace! A little Halloween spin makes simple math concepts fun to practice!

What are your favorite Fall or Halloween activities? Post some links in the comments section to share with our readers!

Happy (almost) Halloween! Stop on by my blog to enter a great giveaway hosted by me and Amber from A Smiling Teacher!

Fall Pinterest 'Make and Take!'

Fall is in full force and there are so many things to do!
Hi all!

It's Jenn from Crayons & Cuties In Kindergarten

This is my 1 year 'Blog-iversary' Post on The Primary Pack!
I can't believe I've been a 'Packer' for an entire year already!

I am here today for a

Raise your hand up HIGH if you L-O-V-E Pinterest...and more importantly if this is you:

There are so many wonderful things to find on Pinterest- for home, school. recipes, crafts, gifts- it's so easy to get roped in!

If you follow my Facebook page, you know that since August I have been trying to post a pin a day (some days 2 because I find so many to share) to help my followers find great ideas since I know our 'time to browse' is limited!

So how do I find the time to find all of these pins?

During my morning exercise!

Yes!  That's right!

I take my iPhone with me while I go on the elliptical and 'browse' my time away finding and pinning great ideas!

It's quite the win-win... 

*'time flies when you're having fun' (I LOVE Pinterest, so my time on the elliptical goes so much faster!)

*I am working my core! (it took some time and practice but now I can go up to 85 rotations per minute without holding on!)

*I fill my boards with pins (ideas) I want to revisit and/or share so that I can go back in and schedule my posts to share.

So I was thinking...there have to be so many other WONDERFUL Fall ideas out there to share!

At the end of this post there is a linky for you to add a pin you found that you have tried, love and/or want to try!  This will give everyone a spread of wonderful ideas all in one place!

To start the 'party' I'd like to share a few pins I found and tried:

Fall Candle Holder:

Here is how mine came out:

I found the jars at Michaels, the leaves at Dollar Tree and the twine at Target Dollar Spot!

Here they are all 'modge-podged': 

And completed, on my table, all a-glow: 

This was a delicious pin:

My sons and I went apple picking and then got to work:

And when it was all done we packed them up and gave it as 'Happy Fall' gifts to teachers and daycare!   It was SO good...and we loved it spread on toast for breakfast!

Cute Columbus Day Craft:

We modified it a bit, but it still came out great:

A Cute Halloween Treat:

I teach this poem EVERY year, so when I saw it I knew it was something I wanted to give my students!

I did change it a bit and copied the topper on orange (instead of white) to make it look more festive!

I found these pumpkins (and the snack size bags) at Dollar Tree (thanks to a tip from fellow packer Laura!)

Each bag of pumpkins gives you enough to complete 7 '5 Little Pumpkins' bags.

I lined them up, sealed the bag...

and stapled the topper I had downloaded via the pin to the top!

Now they are all ready to hand out as treats 

(and I even bought enough to make for my boys to each hand out too!)

And not all pins go as planned...as what happened with this pin:

It looked so simple using contact paper, but the contact paper 'failed' and I wound up having to glue each piece to the apple forms!

They kids had contact paper sticking to their fingers and there was tissue paper flying everywhere!

The end result looked wonderful, but I will be sticking to the wax paper method I know works every time!

And then some pins inspire ideas!

For example, I found this pin

but we have only learned 13 letters so far and I have 13/20 ENL learners this year so I have to make sure my activities and centers do not confuse them.

So I made this:

which you can read about and download for FREE on my blog!

I know all too well how easy it is to get lost in Pinterest!  

Here are just a few of the pins I recently found that I have scheduled to post on my Facebook page:

So are your ready to participate in this Pinterest Fall Themed 'Make and Take'?!

Super easy!

Fnd a pin you love or have made- add it to this linky!

See a pin you love or want to do- 'take' it from the linky!

Links can be added up until the last day of Fall (12/20/15) but you can access the pins from the linky at any time!

I 'started the party' with a few links I have found and know you will love!

An InLinkz Link-up

Wishing you a fall full of Pinterest inspired fun!

'Chat' again on 11/24!

Pumpkin Counting Mats

One of our early math goals is to develop a strong number sense in children. We want them to be able to identify numbers, use one-to-one matching while counting, and also to be able to subitize (visualize) quantities. These Pumpkin Counting Mats are a great way to practice all of these essential skills, in a very fun, playful and developmentally appropriate way.

Click HERE to see exactly how we use these Pumpkin Counting Mats in our classroom!

Scarecrow Math Craftivity

Fall is in the air and there are so many fun activities to do with you class during this season.  We just completed this adorable Scarecrow Math Craftivity to practice counting by tens.

You will need a hat cut out a brown construction paper, a strip of yellow paper, large wiggly eyes, pipe cleaner (optional) and 6 jumbo popsicle sticks with the number 10-60 on it.

Have your learners cut the yellow papers into strips and cut a few in half for the bangs of the scarecrow.

Next, let them glue the paper to the hat and glue the half strips of paper on the center of the hat.

Then, have the learners place the popsicle sticks in the correct order. 

 They may then glue the sticks on top of the yellow paper.

Finally, turn the scarecrow over and glue on the scarecrow's face.  Wiggly eyes, a pom-pom nose and pipe cleaner mouth or just draw it on with a permanent marker.  

All done!  You have a fun and easy craft that can be done as a math center, small group activity or as a mini-lesson to help teach or reinforce skip counting by tens!  Find more ideas on my blog, Mrs. Jones' Creation Station.