Halloween Treats for the Students

I am working with A LOT of students this year.  So I needed to come up with a Halloween treat that was easy to make and not very expensive.  

These bats are so cute and easy AND a bonus several of the classrooms were learning about bats last week.  

I used wiggle eyes, black construction paper and a mini Hershey bar for each bat.  I also used glue dots and double stick tape to hold everything together. 

I cannot wait to pass them to the children Friday.  

If you need some ideas quick you can read my round up of 10 Simple and Cute ideas Halloween ideas here.    

10 Simple and Easy Halloween Treats for Your Class

I love making little treats for my students for the holidays.  
I do have some criteria for my treat making:

1.   The treat must be simple to make.
2.   The treat must be fun to make.
3.   The treat must be easy to take home.  
4.   I have a lot of students (67) this year so it must not be very expensive.  

So with that criteria in mind I went searching on Pinterest for 10 Simple and Easy Halloween Treats for make for my students.  

1.  I love these Sticky Spider Webs.  I googled how to make cotton candy.  OK  This does not meet the criteria.  It's $40 to buy a cotton candy making machine or a very messy process to make it on your own.  BUT  it is super fun and cute!

spider webs

2.  These Candy People are a little closer to the simple and easy criteria.  You just assembly all the candy to the back and tape it.  I don't know how much it will cost.  

candy people

3.  The Pumpkin Treat Bag looks super simple.  If I go to Sam's club or Costco and buy a big tub of orange puff things it will not be very expensive.  Very Easy!

  

pumpkin treat bag

4.  These Bat Bars look super easy too.  There is a template if you follow the link below.  Black paper and google eyes.   Simple!

Bat Chocolate Bars

5.  The Mummy Bars look even easier.  Use white crepe paper and google eyes. 

Mummy Chocolate Bars

6.  I liked the Bugs and Kisses because I have a lot of leftover spiders from Oriental Trading that I am trying to find ideas for and this would help.  I don't think I would have such a fancy bow for 67 students and I would put them in baggies.

Bugs and Kisses

7.  Lollipop Ghosts are super simple to make...Tootsie Pops and Kleenex or Coffee Filters and Ribbon.  

Lollipop Ghosts

8.  Last Year I made Pumpkin Pops, it was very easy as well.  I used Tootsie pops and tissue paper.  Very Easy.

Pumpkin Pops

9.  These Monsters are adorable.  It would take a little bit more work because you would have to make the bars, then dip and decorate the bars.  Finally wrap all the bars.  It might be a better treat for just one class.

Rice Krispie Monsters

10.  These are super cute...pumpkins or ghosts.  You just need goldfish (which kids LOVE) or popcorn, bags and little ribbons.  Looks very easy to do.  

Halloween Snack Bags

BTW -- I updated my Halloween stories and songs on my Teacher Resource Page.  

Fire Prevention Ideas

It's time to start planning for Fire Safety Awareness.  There are so many wonderful books to read to the class however a rare one to find is my favorite by Felicia Bond, Poinsettia and the Firefighters.  I checked on Amazon and it is only available to purchase as a used book.  The kids love the story most of them can identify with the character Poinsettia.  

I added the poem Ten Little Firefighters to my Poetry Basket this year.  As always I made a homework sheet for the children to share with their families.  I believe I found the poem on Pinterest, however I did not have anything marked down in my notebook from last year.    

Click Here for your FREE copy

My main resource for the week are these videos I found by the Ocoee Fire Department on Youtube.  I have them on my teaching site CK Primary.    They are super cute with puppets and firefighters.  My class loves them.  I also used a free Fire Safety Pack by The Clever Classroom as a follow up.  I do not use all the pages.  I pick and choose which ones  that are the most important to me based on the time we have together that week.   

Finally, I found some free apps that I am looking forward to checking out.  They all can be downloaded on the Apple App Store.  

 

October Challenge Work

It has taken me all month but I finally finished my October Challenge Pack.  The first graders absolutely loved the September Pack and so do the other first grade teachers.  My challenge activities are for those students who finish all there work and are asking me..."What do I do now?"  The kids have been busy all month working on the activities.  

However a new month is here and it is time to change up the activities in the challenge drawers.  Of course I did everything around the Fall and Pumpkin theme.  I have some amazing and fun activities for the children.  

Challenge #1  Sight Word Bingo

I always like to work on the sight words so of course I have a sight word bingo game.  It is building on the sight words I used in my September Pack.   I feel it is so important to practice practice practice those words!

Challenge #2    Pumpkin Patch Base Ten Blocks Match

During September the First Grade Math Unit was all about Base Ten Blocks and Ten Frames.  So I have a quick review in here which they should be able to do easy peasy.  

Challenge #3  Scarecrows Number Order

This is another September Math skill, put the numbers in order from greatest to least and then from least to greatest.  This was a hard concept for the first graders so I want them to review this again in October.  

Challenge #4   Creepy Crawly Mixed-Up Spider Sentences

These sentences are super easy because I am introducing them to the idea of mixed-up sentences.  My first grades always love mixed-up sentences, they giggle and laugh the whole time they are working on them.  

Challenge #5  Pumpkin Time Poem

Here I found an easy poem for my first graders to read.  After they are done reading they work on the short a sound and rhyming skills. Next they draw a picture to match the words in the poem.  

Challenge #6  Counting Money Cards

In September the first graders counted pennies, now they will count just dimes.  I know money is not part of common core however I feel it is important for them to have some exposure to money before second grade.  So I like to have one easy money activity each month.    

Challenge #7  Batty Math

I'm not gonna lie about this one, some kids get it and some do not. I put hundreds charts in the challenge bin and demonstrate over and over and over and over how to find 10 less and 10 more.  The first graders can not practice this concept enough.    

Challenge #8  Count and Compare

I created my own I Spy the Halloween pictures page and then have the students count them.  Next they compare the numbers with greater than and less than signs.  Again this is review from our regular math lessons.  

Challenge #9  Halloween Reading

This is similar to our daily classroom reading except they must read all Halloween stories.  I made some QR codes for the listening center as well.  

 Challenge #10  Pumpkin Shake and Roll A Word

During spelling the first graders are working on short a and e, so I found this cute idea on Pinterest and made it in Halloween colors.  I know the kids will LOVE it.  

Challenge #11  Tens Frames in the Pumpkin Patch

We have more math review but this time with ten frames.    

Challenge #12  Halloween ABC Order

I was introducing ABC order with making words last month and I thought this would be a great follow up.  I added picture clues next to the Halloween/Fall words to make it easy for the kids to read.  

Challenge #13  Sight Word Stick Bang

There are so many versions of this game on Pinterest, over the past three years my students have loved the stick activities from Reagan Tunstall so I also included one of those as well.  I highly recommend this activity. My class begs to play this game over and over.  

Go to my TPT Store Here

Spookley the Square Pumpkin

One of my goals this year is to improve my teaching in the computer lab and another one is to create more class books.  So I combined these two goals for this Halloween lesson with the book, The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin.  

The purpose of this lesson was to provide my students with a learning opportunity that would work throughout the Halloween week while still working on writing and technology outcomes. 

Lesson One:  (Shared Reading)

Focus:  To read and enjoy the story The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin and compare and contrast Spookley’s feelings.

Lesson Two:  (Computer Lab -- Day One)

Focus:  Using the program Notebook 11 create a unique pumpkin, print and save the document.    

Tools to Demonstrate:  Toolbar, Arrow pointer, delete, shape, enlarge, turn shapes, fill color bucket, print and saving the document.

Lesson Three::  (Writing Workshop)

Focus:  Write 2 complete sentences in writing journal to describe your pumpkin.  You can give your pumpkin a name.  

Materials:  Pocket Chart & Cards with Adjectives (Shapes, Sizes, and Colors)

Lesson Four:  (Computer Lab -- Day Two)

Focus:  Each student will retrieve a saved document and add two sentences to it.  Then they will print and take a picture of it with an ipad. .   

Bring:  Writing Journal to the Lab

Tools to Demonstrate:  Adding Text, Choosing a Font, how to print, and take a screenshot.  

I put all the printed pages in a binder to create a class book.  I like to use binders with page protectors because they stand up to student use and then at the end of the year it is easy to give the students back their work.

The computer teacher at my school created a power point presentation for the parents. Unfortunately I could not load it onto this page. If you want to see it let me know and I can email it to you.

VIP Day and Boo Fest

This was a crazy day.  Today our school welcomed all the VIP's to an afternoon of prayer and treats.  My students worked hard to get the classroom looking great.  Our primary hallway looked amazing as well.  I took a few pictures of some of the great projects hanging up to share with you.

The picture above is outside my classroom.  My students made the large Frankensteins.  I was inspired by the witches the other K5 made.  Tonight the children came back to school for Boo Fest,  trick or treating at school and some other fun and games.  Click Here if you want to see last years decorations.

My class made some ghosts to hang up from the ceiling in the hallway.

The four year old kindergarten made these adorable bats in art class.

The first graders made these two cute projects.

My class made these scarecrows, pumpkins and flowers.

My partner teacher had both K5 classes make this adorable friendship rainbow.

Pumpkin Scarecrows

A Little Variation on My Scarecrow Project

Scarecrows 2011 

I thought I would change it up a bit this year.  I know how much the children enjoy the story, The Little Old Lady Who Is Not Afraid of Anything, so I thought why not make a pumpkin head for the scarecrow head.

So that meant the children would have to do a little bit of cutting out a scary face on their own.  I think they turned out cute.  The children made the giant color flowers in Art Class, I thought they were so cute I hung them up in our Pumpkin Market.