Weekly Round-Up: October 20

Hi friends!

I'm back with another weekly round up.  Here are some things we have been up to in our room this week!

1. GHOST LETTERS

I found this adorable idea on Mom+3's blog and knew I had to make it for my kids too!

You can click here to read the original blog post which has step by step instructions on how to make this centre.

The letters are made out of hot glue.  I printed off a sheet with letters on it, taped it to my desk and taped a piece of parchment paper over it.  Then I went over the letters with hot glue.  I freehanded the ghosts and added googly eyes while the glue was still hot.  Then when it dried I peeled them off the parchment paper and put them in a bin with rice!

The kids were invited to find a letter and then trace or colour the matching letter on their recording sheet.  I provided both options so the kids could choose the option that was just right for them.

This printable is in my Kindergarten Halloween Activities pack on TpT.   You can click here or click on the image below to grab it.

2. HALLOWEEN WRITE THE ROOM

I was having a hard time filling up both sides of this bookshelf weekly (I like to change up my books every Friday so that there is a fresh batch when they walk in on Monday morning) so I decided to do books on one side and store our clip board on the other side! We have 2 with "My Structure" writing papers for recording their structures they make at the building centre, 2 with the "Write/Trace the Room" recording sheet of the week, 2 with blank paper and 2 with lined paper that they can use as they wish.

My kiddos love write the room this year! They grab a clipboard, search for the picture cards and then trace or write the word in the corresponding box.  You can see the picture card for "jack-o'-lantern" on the top left corner of the bookshelf.  Currently, my seasonal/holiday write the room pack is a growing product, so if you think you might want to grab it before more holidays/seasons get added and the price goes up again you can click here or on the image below:

3. SPOOKY STENCIL CARDS

I ordered these from the (Canadian) October Elf Scholastic flyers because the winter ones were such a hit with my kids last year! My new group loved them too and they were doing a great job using the stencils and adding details to their drawings.  I also encouraged them to label their pictures (we have been working on this in our writing mini lessons) and adding a sentence below if they are able to!

4. PATTERNING WITH COUNTING BEARS

We started learning about patterning in math this week.  I used (and will continue to use) lots of activities from previous years (click here for my post from 2015 and click here for my post from 2016).

I updated these counting bear patterning cards with new clip art because my favourite clip art artist came out with the cutest counting bear clip art and well I'm a bit of a clip art snob.  They are a great simple way to encourage patterning with counting bears and also a great way to assess if they can extend a pattern.

If you already own my patterning unit or the year long math bundle, the updated cards have been added.  You can click here or on the image below to redownload the unit if you own it already!

5. POETRY BOOK

We've had out poetry routine going since week 2 but I'm finally getting around to sharing! Every day during Shared Reading time, we read the sight word poem of the week.  I've shared in detail about our shared reading routine in this blog post, if you want to check it out.

My new school sends the Shared Reading home over the weekend for the kids to share with their parents.  So I quickly made up a note to go on the inside of our shared reading folder (which we call our poetry book).

If you are interested in grabbing this free poetry book parent letter and labels (I print these on full page sticker paper and cut them out) you can click here or on the image below:

There are both non-editable and editable versions of both the labels and the letter in the file.  You'll need PowerPoint to edit the files!

That's it for me this week!  I hope you were able to grab some ideas to use in your own classroom!

- Yukari