Five For Friday!

Happy Friday! Being out a day this week has really thrown me off. I have been a day behind all week and my post this week proves it! I seem to have forgotten to take pictures of some of our projects this week but I promise to come back and add them ASAP! 

This week we have been doing a lot of great creepy, crawly, and spooky things the past two weeks and I have picked some of my favorites to share with you all this week. A lot of the ideas/lessons came from Pinterest. (See my Kindergarten Creepy & Spooky Board Here.)

Night Animals

To begin our creepy and spooky unit we began with some not so creepy or spooky night animals. I even learned something new - animals that are awake mostly during the day are called diurnal. We played a game (from A Place Called Kindergarten) using a double Venn Diagram to sort different animals. Then we took a deeper look at bats and owls. We read fiction and nonfiction books as well as watched the Reading Rainbow about Stellaluna, which had some fantastic bat facts.

 Bat Glyphs from the book Critical Thinking Glyphs (Teacher Created Resources) 

Torn Paper Ows (from here)

 Go Away Big Green Monster

I was actually out with the lovely stomach flu and my sub did this with me kids. They read the book and then did a directed art project to create their very own Big Green Monsters. I also found (from where I don't know) a Flipchart for my Promethean Board with this story. As the kiddos retold the story using the Promethean Board, they drew their version of the monster. I have since seen a few different versions of this activity that are really cute and have them create the monster as you read the book the first time and not showing the pictures. I have put that in my file to try next year!

 The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything

For this lesson we read the book and talk about all the sounds that the old lady heard. I teach them the word onomatopoeia and we make a list of the words from the story. My kids also thought of their own words so we added them to the list. If they had their way, the scarecrow would have been covered but it was time for lunch  so we had to stop! (I got the idea for the cute anchor chart from Welcome to Room 36.) I also have a Promethean Board  Flipchart called The Strange Visitor. It is very similar to this book so we make a Venn Diagram of the two.

 Inside a House That is Haunted

This is one of those times where I had a cute activity and needed a book to go with it. In this book, a kid dressed as Frankenstein scares all the residents in the haunted house. Since I found this very cute directed art idea from here I though, why not! I also found a video of the song Monster Mash on YouTube that shows the mad scientist bringing Frankenstein to life. The kids LOVED it!

I saved the very best for last! I have to brag on my wonderful school. This week is Red Ribbon Week. Each year the third grade students are able to apply to win the Red Ribbon Week Award by sending in proposals for a service project. The staff votes on the service projects submitted to choose a winner. This year our service project was "A March for Super E" to support a former student of ours that was diagnosed with cancer last year (& in remission now!!!) to help cove expenses. Students made donations to the Super E Fund in order to participate in the march. If they sent in $5 or more, they could bring and wear a cape as we marched. We had set a goal of $1500 but our FABULOUS students raised OVER $3000!!!!!! I am so proud of our students and their families for donating so much to such a great cause! 

Don't forget to check out the other Five for Friday posts at Doodle Bugs Teaching!

(I edited my photos on piZap.com)