Trick or Treat Sale and Halloween fun for the Bigger Kids

Happy Sunday, Friends! I just wanted to stop by the ole blog and little you know I'm having a Trick or Treat sale today and tomorrow!  It's the perfect time to pick up some Halloween fun for the bigger kids. :) 

You can visit my TpT store by clicking {here}!

I have been asked a few times lately to share what Halloween looks like in my fourth grade classroom.  So I dug into the blog archives to share some of the Halloween activities I typically do with my students. :) 

One of things that I always do is make extra copies of my Halloween Graphic Organizers to use throughout the month during their independent reading. 

I keep the extra copies in a binder and tab the first copy of each. 

 Then I put the binder in the tub I keep my seasonal books in for easy access.  My kiddos having been loving the extra practice with various comprehension strategies and story elements, and I have too. :)

On the actual day of Halloween, I allow my students to read a Halloween/Fall picture book with a partner and complete an accompanying Halloween graphic organizer.  You'd be surprised by how excited big kids still get when there is a cute piece of clip art on their graphic organizer. 

Of course, I use them throughout the month during small groups too. In fact, I used the summary graphic organizer just last week!

Several teachers who have purchased my seasonal graphic organizers mentioned that they use my graphic organizers in their listening centers, which I think is a GREAT idea! :) 

My teaching partner teaches math, so she gets to use one of my favorite TpT products this week, my BooHaHa Math Centers pack!

My teaching partner uses math workshop to organize her math block and she already has the BooHaHa recording sheets copied and ready to go this week. She uses centers for the hands on portion of her math rotations. :)  

She also has a math facts rotation and she is sweet enough to use my multiplication roll and covers in this center.  This month she has been using my Halloween Multiplication Roll and Cover set. 

The kids love them and they are so easy to implement. I always put them in a page protector and my students used dry erase markers or math counters as markers.  I got my twelve sided dice from Amazon {here}.  

Fluency is something I always work on with my struggling readers.  I've been working with my IEP students on mastering their third, fourth, and fifth one hundred set of sight words.  They LOVE to play my Trick or Treat Sigh Word Game! 

We have been starting our teacher time guided reading rotation with this game and it's been a great way to get their minds warmed up for reading and have some fun too!

I hope this post helps with your Halloween planning! Have a great week!

Trick or Treat: Sight Word Fun for Bigger Kids

Once upon a time, I was a student teacher in first grade.  I loved every minute of it.  I think if I ever went down to the lower elementary grades, first would be it.  I worked with an amazing mentor teacher, and still use a lot of the tips and tricks she taught me in my room today.  :)  

One of many things I picked up from my days in Room 604 was was a Halloween themed sight word game we played with our first graders with their Kindergarten inventory words, Trick or Treat. 

All of their kindergarten sight words, or as our district calls them inventory words, were put in a pumpkin with a handful of trick or treat cards.  As students play, they grab a card from the pumpkin, if they can read it, they get to keep it.  BUT if they get a trick or treat card, they either get a chance for more cards (treat) or loose cards to the pumpkin or another classmate (trick).  The student with the most cards at the end of the game is the winner. :) 

My fourth graders this year have some pretty low fluency scores, so I've been purchasing/creating resources to use during our ELA intervention block (about ten-fifteen minutes) to use with my class.  So I created a bigger kids version of the game my firsties loved so much when I was a student teacher. 

We played a few rounds as a whole class the past few days and my fourth graders LOVED it.  They are so pumped to play in small groups during our ELA intervention time over the next few weeks.  Especially the treat cards, they loved collecting as many cards as they could. :) 

We've been working with the 4th One Hundred Fry Words, but this resource includes games pieces for the 3rd and 5th One Hundred Fry Words as well.  If you're interested, I have added Trick or Trick {Fry Word Game for Bigger Kids} to my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  It's on sale until midnight tomorrow, 10/18. :) Just click on the cheerleader to check it out! :)

I've also had a couple people email about how I store my Halloween Themed Graphic Organizers that I blogged about a few weeks ago.  I just put them in a binder like so. 

 Then I put the binder in the tub I keep my seasonal books in for easy access.  My kiddos having been loving the extra practice with various comprehension strategies and story elements, and I have too. :)

 We also started our Boo Ha Ha center rotation today! So grateful for the sweet grandma of one of my kiddos who assembles all my centers for me! :)

I hope you are having a great night friends! :) The weekend is in sight! :)

Boo Ha Ha {Halloween Math Centers for Older Kids}

We started math centers this week in my classroom.  We are currently working through my Back to School Math Centers. 

We have a daily math intervention class that I refer to with my kiddos as bonus math time.  I struggled last year with how to set up this time, but I think now we have a plan that works.  On Monday and Friday, I intervene with my whole class on current topics of study.  Right now, it's subtraction with regrouping. Our math program, Investigations, doesn't formally introduce the formal algorithm and so my kiddos really need a lot of extra practice with it.  We are finally getting it with three digits...and we are working on four digits next week. *Fingers crossed and prayers please* :)

On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, some of my kiddos receive intensive number sense interventions in another room, and I work with the rest of my class.  I use this time for reteaching on skills from previous lessons/units that some of my kiddos didn't master.  Last week, it was rounding larger numbers.  We used a lot of materials from my friend Layla's Halloween Number Sense Review Packet.  My kiddos loved all the Halloween themed number sense practice! :)

 Even though I had a good chunk of students who really needed extra practice and review on rounding, I had a cluster of kiddos who clearly mastered the skill, so they worked on centers during our bonus math time.  They loved it and so did I. :)  They're independent enough to read the directions and set up with little help from me, allowing me to really work with my friends who needed extra instruction on some more difficult place value concepts. 

My kiddos loved doing centers last week and more are eager to join in on the center fun next week.  We'll still be doing my Back to School Math Centers for another few weeks.  Then we'll be moving on to some Halloween math center fun! 

I know my kiddos will love these centers.  They adore anything having to do with Halloween. :)

These centers review rounding larger numbers, comparing numbers to the millions place, subtraction with regrouping practice, finding multiples of a given factor, and figuring out the missing factor in a multiplication equation.  

I have uploaded Boo! Ha Ha{Halloween Math Centers for Bigger Kids} to my TpT store.  They will be on sale until tomorrow night. :) Click on the cheerleader below to check them out! I'll be uploading them to Teachers Notebook tomorrow night.

 My Buckeyes beat the Huskers last night, so I'm a happy, happy girl! :) Here's hoping the Steelers win today too for the hubs. :) 

Since my Buckeye won, I'll be giving away a set of my Boo Ha Ha centers to the first person who correctly guesses my favorite fall baked good. :)

Halloween Themed Reading Graphic Organizers

Oh my word friends, my students LOVE reading any seasonal book.  Doesn't matter what the holiday or season, they love them.  I think it's because of the connections they can make while reading, but whatever the case, seasonal books can get some of my most reluctant readers reading.  

I've collected lots of Halloween books from book orders and check out a large collection from the library.  I can hardly keep my kiddos hands off them.  Since a majority of the Halloween books I check out or own are below their reading level, I've usually required my kiddos to fill out a graphic organizer on the seasonal books they read.  Since my kiddos are usually so motivated to read the books, their organizers are of top notch quality.  This practice is highly beneficial for me as a  reference of high quality work later in the year, plus I've always found my kiddos can always benefit from independent graphic organizer completion.  

Yesterday while watching my Buckeyes' nail biting one point win, I created some graphic organizers to use with my kiddos for our Halloween book collection. 

 

Skills reviewed are: sequencing, story mapping, making connections, character traits, asking questions, main idea and detail, somebody wanted but so, and character cause and effect.  There are eleven different organizers in all and I have options for primary writing lines for my first and second grade teacher friends. :) 

I plan on keeping multiple copies of each organizer in a binder separated by tabs in my classroom for easy access for my kiddos.  I always give my kiddos a STAR Card, one of my school's PBS rewards, for high quality graphic organizers.  Considering our reward cart is coming around again at the end of October, I think I'll be reviewing lots of graphic organizers! :) 

However in your classroom, the possibilities are endless.  You can use these organizers for ANY book you read in October, what kiddos doesn't like Halloween clip art, for Halloween books you read together as a class, or for readers response journals.  I hope your kiddos love them as much as I think mine will! :) They are available at both of my stores, and are part of my fall TpT sale this weekend. 

Would you like to win a copy of your own?  Just leave a comment below with your email.  The first person to correct guess my favorite Halloween candy will have a free copy sent their way! :)

Enjoy the rest of your weekend my friends!