Pumpkin & Halloween Madness

We made black cats, shared our pumpkin knowledge in drawings, made 3-D pumpkin life cycle books, practiced some spooky sight words, and learned two new poems.

BLACK CATS

Every year I make these adorable black cats. They’re super simple, but I think they’re so effective with their bright eyes!

With the Grade ones, I always give them tracers to cut out the body and head (head’s a little smaller).

Then I fold over coloured paper and draw an eye shape on each one. They then cut out the double eye. You’d laugh if you could have seen how many kids found that concept oh so difficult to understand — ha ha!

They cut triangles for ears and more black construction paper for whiskers. Then they draw on their cute little nose and mouth with chalk.

The only tricky part is the tail. I’m sure you’re all familiar with how to make those funky spiral tails, but if not, you can see how in the pics.

Not the greatest pic, but I always like to hang them from the wire that’s strung across our room.

DRAWING EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT PUMPKINS

After reading a book about how pumpkins grow and watching a pumpkin video (there are lots of great ones on YouTube), the kids worked in groups to write/draw everything they know about pumpkins. They love this activity and afterwards I always get them to share with the class.

3-D PUMPKIN LIFE CYCLE BOOKS

Then we made these very cool 3-D pumpkin life-cycle books. You can find these at Sweet Tea Classroom. I made up my own, but she sells the template for super cheap!! You must pop over and visit ~ Robin has lots of great ideas.

SPOOKY SIGHT WORD PRACTICE

We also practiced our sight words yesterday using foamy Halloween stickers and chalk. This idea comes directly from First Grade WOW!

PUMPKIN POEMS

Here’s a pumpkin poem for you. The cute graphics are by The 3am Teacher.

A HUGE shout-out to Cindy from Granny Goes To School.  This sweet blogger gave me a copy of her doggie spelling game today for no other reason than she’s so darn nice!! Because I posted about a dog book (and mentioned how dog crazy I am) she decided I’d like her game. And she was right!

And last but not least, another VERY BIG shout-out to Cheryl from Crayons and Curls!

I just won her Skippy Jon Jones t-shirt giveaway. I am ONE happy girl ’cause like everyone else, I love Skippy!!!

But not only that, Cheryl also gave me a copy of one of her math games:

You can grab this fun packet at Cheryl’s TpT Store.

Okay, I’m outa here. We’re watching “Revolution”. If you haven’t seen this new TV show, check it out! It’s amazing!

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