5 for Friday Spooktacular October Edition

This month has FLOWN by! I can't believe that next Friday is already HALLOWEEN!!  Since I have been a terrible blogger, this 5 for Friday is a peek into the Amazing Ants' classroom during the month of October (AKA what I thought to take pictures of): 

We learned all about Bats! Here is our KWL chart 

Students had lots of misconceptions about bats (including the "fact" that they eat rocks...what?!) and so they were eager to learn more about them!

 One of my favorite things that we did was play an "Echolocation" game. After learning that bats find food using echolocation, I chose one student (the bat) to close their eyes and yell out "ECHO!" while all of the other students (the insects) yelled out "LOCATION!" until the bat caught one of them. I saw this adorable game following one of the fabulous teachers on Instagram. I cannot for the life of me remember who it was so if anyone knows, I would love to give credit where credit is due!

As much as the kids loved our Marco Polo style game, I think that they loved this JumpStart Echolocation song just as much, if not more! I have had at least one student ask to hear it every. single. day. since the 1st time I played it for them! To check it out for yourself just click the picture below!

We also incorporated bats into our literacy lessons producing words that rhyme in the -at family during our morning message.

For some batty workstations, I love these great freebies over at The First Grade Parade. If you haven't already downloaded them, you definitely should!! You can go straight to her incredible blog by clicking the picture below!

One of my favorite things to use when teaching in October is pumpkins!! You can use them so many different ways. First we investigated the outside of our pumpkin using descriptive words. 

Then we counted the ribs of our pumpkin and measured how many unifix cubes tall it was in math.  In science, we tested  our pumpkin to see if it would sink or float.

Finally, we got to the messy (real fun) of the pumpkin investigation...cutting it open and looking inside!

1st be predicted what we would find inside. After someone said "a robot" I knew I had lost them and they were just getting silly....

After we took all of the seeds and pulp out, we made a brace map containing the parts of a pumpkin.

Looking back I see I left out the stem...whoops!

Then we taste tested a handful of roasted pumpkin seeds. As you can see, most kids liked them and even asked for seconds :)

Finally, we voted on how to carve our pumpkin. These sweet babies decided they wanted their pumpkin to be friendly, not frightening! 

Here is our finished jack-o-lantern! 

Then of course we had to learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin! After reading several fiction and non-fiction books and listing to this song about life cycle of a pumpkin we made the life cycle on paper plates

and bracelets

I was really proud of my kids because both the science teacher and their parents both told me the kids were able to explain that the white bead was the seed, the yellow was the flower, the green was a green pumpkin, and the orange was an orange pumpkin!

Finally we had to plant our own pumpkin seeds to see if they will grow.

I sure hope they do!!

Aaaand a quick little post about the Fall Festival! This year each class decorated a pumpkin to display and for the parents to vote on by making donations. 

I decided we had to do a book character and after a quick pinterest search, gave the kids a few options to pick which character we would transform our pumpkin into:

It was a close vote but in the end, Rainbow fish won. I traced the student's hands on sparkly paper for the scales and I just love how it turned out!

 
Although I did not even take a picture of my game or my booth, here is the Rainbow fish on display!

Hands down my favorite parts of the fall festival are seeing all of my current students dressed up in their cute little Halloween costumes and having former students come back to visit me! Working at a school that is all pre-k, once my babies leave my class I don't get to see them in the hallways or around school like at a regular elementary school. So when they come back to visit, it is really special! One of my students from last year even brought me this sweet Halloween card with a Walmart gift card!

She wrote, "To the Best Teacher". How sweet is that?!? Definitely made my day!

Have a great weekend!!