Five for Friday

50th day of school activity 

Fall tree tear paper art

Hello Fall, Goodbye Summer Poems

Bat Habitat Dioramas

Rocky Road Apple

Since Fall has finally arrived in California this week has been filled with fall leaf activities. Tomorrow afternoon we are going on a nature walk to find leaves. We finished out bat habitat project. I am so proud of how they turned out. And really who can pass up a gourmet apple. Thanks to a teacher on my 1st grade team, I will be treating myself to a rocky road apple for dessert. Although, it almost looks to pretty to eat...almost!

Spooktacular Halloween Fun!

 Mummy Door Decoration

I wanted to do something special for Halloween seeing as my new school goes all out with a Halloween parade and party, so I searched around Pinterest and found this spooky mummy door. I was able to use the white butcher paper and black and yellow construction paper, so it didn't cost me a dime! Yay for DIY decorations!

Black Cat Glyph

I have always wanted to put this up on my TpT for sale. I just love these little black cats. I was hoping that this would be the year, but being pregnant has not helped my energy level at night. Once I am on maternity leave, I will start making putting together some of my cute activities that are found in hard copy only. Look for this one coming soon...

Pumpkin Descriptive Writing

I have loved teaching about descriptive writing during the fall season. Pumpkins are just wonderful to talk about and write about. I found this activity on TpT from Foxwell Forest. It comes with this piece and a pumpkin pie piece that I do in November. I love this piece because it can stay up through November, which means less after school work for me. 

 Ghost Days of School and Writing

Both of these ghost activities were so engaging for the students. Above, we count every ten days of school with an activity. Each student had 4 ghosts and 10 "ooo's" per ghost. The ghost were actually die cuts from our schools machine and the O's are just Avery white reinforcement labels that can be purchased  on Amazon. 

I used the same die cut for the ghost writing activity. If you do not have The Ghost Dinner, you should try to find it on Amazon. It is out of print, but a very cute story. The story is about ghosts who drink and eat different things at a dinner party. When they drink or eat they turn the color of the food. The students then choose three foods and write about their ghost eating each food and the color they would turn. The kids had such a fun time with it which always make something easier to teach.

Franken Authors Flip Book

This project took a couple of says to complete for my 1st graders, and the assembly took some time for me, but I just could not pass up creating these monsters. My grade level is focusing in on retelling a stories main events including the moral of the story, so this fit perfect with our focus. I had the kids retell each part of the story with a partner. Some students wrote a paragraph for each section and some wrote a few simple sentences. Each student saw success. This is a must for the Halloween season!

Bloglovin

I have official changed over my blog name on bloglovin. I couldn't figure why my posts were not going to facebook, but then I realized that it was still The First Grade Playground. Oops.

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Bat Caves

It is that time of year when bats, spiders, pumpkins, and spooky decorations trickle their way into my classroom. I was at the Palo Alto Art Center last weekend and saw beautiful bat cave dioramas. They are a must this year. These sparkly caves will definitely put me in the Halloween spirit!

Apple Season

Fall is my favorite season. I love all of the themes that go along with fall. Teaching about apples and Johnny Appleseed is always a highlight. This year was no different.

This year I worked on adjectives with my students. Each student had to say one adjective even if it was the same as another student's word. This helped my English language learners participate in the activity. After we put out apples on our tree, we wrote apple 5 sense poems.

We read many books on Johnny Appleseed and learned so much. By the time we were done, the students were able to write an entire paragraph about him. I kept it a traditional expository paragraph with a introduction sentence, three details, and a conclusion sentence.

We are currently working on opinion writing. I had the students taste three types of apples. They then voted and wrote a small opinion piece about their favorite apple.

Apple tie die art is so easy.

Step 1: Have students color with market on a coffee filter
Step 2: Spray coffee filter with water using a spray bottle
Step 3: Let the coffee filter sit and dry

The marker will bleed together. After this, I used an apple template to make the frame. I taught the students how to cut out the middle by folding the apple in half and cutting out the inside. They make the perfect window design!

There is so much that can be done with apples. I also held apple stations where the students measured, weighed, floated, and cut apples in different ways. It met some math and science standards. After the students were done, we cut up all the apples and made apple sauce using the crockpot! Mmmm Delicious!

Up, Up and Away

I decided to go with Up as the theme of my door decoration this year. I projected the Up house onto a piece of paper and traced it. Then I used marker to color it in. I purchased the balloons  and borders at my teacher helper store. Each child's name was placed on a balloon. Everytime I open my door, it makes me so happy and excited to start my day. 

The Best Nest

Every year, I am blessed to have Living Classroom lessons put on by wonderful science docents. The lessons focus on plants and animals and do a great job with enhancing our science curriculum. In the Best Nest lesson, students learn about birds and the nest they make. The docent brings in real birds nest from a handful of birds, and the students build their very own nest out of material that they find around the school. This years docent was spectacular. He is a bird watcher, so he was very knowledgable about the local birds and bird habitats. He brought in some of his bird calls and puppets. These really helped the students get excited about the lesson. Then, the students were asked to go exploring outside for materials that would make a great birds nest. The students collected their materials in small, green strawberry baskets. When they were done, they received a plate with mud on it. The mud is made special for this particular lesson. It is like clay, but has more water. It dries around the items so that the nest stays intact. There have been students who placed their nest outside in their backyard, and lo and behold a bird moved in! How exciting would that be!