Halloween Math Fun

If you love having your kiddos do Halloween Math activities and want some fresh new ideas... check out this post! 

I always try and have fun Halloween Math activities the week before Halloween and the kids LOVE it! 

Here are some fun activities that you can do: 

Witch's Brew

You can get the Harvest Candy Corn with three types of candy for your students to sort. You can give them a black cauldron or a pumpkin to hold their candy in and a sorting mat. They can work in partners, or sort by themselves. 

After your students sort their candy into three different piles, then they can write addition sentences to 10 or whatever sum you want them to do. They can write their number sentences on their template and then color it. I have also have a math journal that they glue in their interactive notebooks. This is so fun! If you're interested in checking out my Witch's Brew, click here

Addition and Subtraction Math Mats

These math mats are perfect for having your students write addition and subtraction facts! You can use plastic spiders, Halloween erasers, or candy! 

Each mat has story problem cards that you can read to your students: 

You can have your students do these mats at your teacher table, or in partners. If you're interested in checking out my math mats, click here. This resource has math mats for every month and holiday! You can change out your erasers of counters to give it more flair!

Halloween Sticker Stories

Why not give your students Halloween stickers and let them create and write their own story problems? How fun! I usually do this at my teacher table to monitor how many stickers they can use. The students love creating their sticker word problems. This is great for teaching how to write story problems and make it fun. Here are some more examples: 

You also have 10 and 20 frames for your students to use to add and subtract:

If you're interested in checking out my Halloween Sticker Stories, click here . 

BUMP! 

If you've never played BUMP, then you need to have your kids play this! This will be their favorite game! I have these games for every month and holiday! All you need are double dice and each player will need 10 snap cubes of one color. I like to change out the snap cube colors for each month, so for Halloween, I use orange and black. 

Here are the directions: 

In and Out 

For this fun game, you can differentiate easily with how many counters you want your students to use. I start with 10 and go up from there as they get more comfortable. You will need two players for this game and Halloween erasers or counters. 

Here are the directions: 

If you LOVE all of these math activities, then you can check out the BUNDLE! Click here! 

I hope you have fun with these Math Activities!

Happy Halloween! 

Love, 

Kara 

From Seed to Pumpkin: A Thematic Unit 

The Spooky Pumpkin! 

Welcome to our Pumpkin Patch!

If you are thinking about what units to teach in the fall, consider teaching one on pumpkins! The students LOVE learning about pumpkins and there are so many fun and engaging activities and skills you can pull in to this unit. I've written a thematic unit on pumpkins that includes: reading, writing, poetry, math and science activities with craftivities, interactive notebooks, vocabulary cards and an October Home Project. 

Unit Cover Page

My favorite part about this thematic unit is our first grade Pumpkin Patch. Every year, our students think about a book to read at home and write a book report about it. Then, they decide which character from the story they want to dress up as on Halloween. They decorate a pumpkin to look like their character and bring it to school with their book report. We decorate our hallways to look like a pumpkin patch and line up the pumpkins in the hallway with their books. On Halloween the students dress up as their character and we do a character parade around the school. Even the teachers dress up too! It is so fun and it's a sneaky way for us to dress up for Halloween too!  In this unit, I've written directions, a parent letter and a book report for the students to complete at home.

Pumpkin Patch Templates and Directions

It is so fun to see how the students will decorate their pumpkins! This is usually my favorite part of October.

Also included in this unit are lesson plans...of course! I've written 15 days of lesson plans with mentor texts, materials, directions and examples.

Unit Lesson Plans

I've included vocabulary cards that show the life cycle of a pumpkin, parts of a pumpkin and the scientific method.

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin
These are excellent visuals for the students to have on display in the classroom for a future resource! I like to have a pocket chart next to my author's chair and I keep these cards there for my lesson and future reference.

A unit isn't complete unless we have craftivities! I LOVE to incorporate as much art and writing as I can in my units. Each craftivity comes with materials, directions and examples.
One craftivity is making a life cycle of a pumpkin and writing a procedural text to go with it.

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin

Another crafivitiy is making Spookley the Square Pumpkin out of a cube pattern and decorating him with tendrils and googly eyes. The students can retell the story of Spookley the Square Pumpkin. Isn't he cute?
It's hard to tell, but he is 3-D.... honest!

Spookley the Square Pumpkin

The next craftivity is for the students to write a spooky pumpkin story by brainstorming adjectives and story elements. Then, they can make their spooky pumpkin. I LOVE this one especially his crazy eyes and teeth!

The Spooky Pumpkin!

Also included in this unit are math, reading, poetry and science interactive notebooks.

Reading and Poetry Interactive Notebooks

Math Interactive Notebooks 

Science Interactive Notebook

There are also math workstation games, such as BUMP. I've written directions and have two different game mats that you can use: one in color and one in black and white. I laminate them so I can reuse them every year.  The students LOVE this game and want to play it all the time!

BUMP Game for Math Workstations

At the end of this unit, after you carve your Jack-O-Lantern, there is a Rotting Pumpkin Investigation. I know this probably sounds gross, but your students will LOVE it! All you need to do, is cut up pieces of your Jack-O-Lantern and place them in three different jars. One jar will have soil, the other one will have sand and the last one nothing, just air. The students will get to investigate to see which pumpkin in which jar will rot the fastest, the most, and the slowest. I've written an investigation log for your students to use. It includes a cover page, 8 days of investigating and a problem solving page at the end. Have fun with this one!

Our Rotting Pumpkin Investigation Log

I hope you got some great ideas about incorporating pumpkins into your science curriculum for October! It is so spooky and fun and the students just LOVE learning about them! If you are interested in checking out my thematic unit, click below.

From Seed to Pumpkin: A Thematic Unit 

Love, Kara

Graphics Courtesy of:

                                                     Thermal Energy with S'Mores

Have you ever wanted to make S'Mores with your class, but didn't know where to start? Well... this post is for you! Your students will LOVE making S'Mores and this is something they will always remember! Here are the supplies and ingredients you will need to start: 

Graham Crackers

Large S'Mores Marshmallows

Hershey Bars

Small Box with an open top

Aluminum Foil

                                     Black Construction Paper

                                               Siran Wrap

                                                    Tape 

You will also need to read this book: 123 Make a S'More with Me. This is a great opening "hook" to your lesson: 

Here is a YouTube video of how to make your solar oven. I show this video to my class and then we make them together. Click here

I spent one day with my class making the ovens and S'Mores during science time. We spent the next day putting the ovens outside in the sun and then a couple of hours later we went back outside to see how thermal energy changes melts the chocolate and we ate them! It was so much fun! 

The following week, we wrote a Procedural Writing story about how we made our S'Mores. We used these cards on our pocket chart: 

Now that the students had made their S'Mores the week before helped them remember the steps. 

We wrote a story on our procedural writing template. This resource has different ones you can choose from that best meets the needs of your class: 

We colored a S'Mores topper and glued it to the top of our writing.

They look SUPER CUTE in your hallway! We got a lot of compliments from teachers and parents about them.

In math, we used the S'Mores fire mat and practiced making addition and subtraction sentences using real marshmallows. So fun! 

If you would like to see the resource click here

This is a great way to wrap up your Thermal Energy unit! I hope you have fun making your Solar Ovens and S'Mores with your class!

What a fun and exciting way to end your week!

Love, Kara 

                                          Community Helpers Thematic Unit

If you love teaching thematic units and want to include a community helpers unit in your classroom, then read on! Above you can see my theme center with a poster of community helpers, and activities, puzzles, hats, and books for the students to read. 

Here are some great mentor texts that you can read for Community Helpers! 

Here are some anchor charts with interactive notebooks that I use in my unit: What is a Community, Community Helpers and What is a Good Citizen? I love making my anchor charts interactive with post it notes! 

Here are some craftivities that I do for Career Day. Each student gets to write about what they want to be when they grow up and make a craftivity to hang in the hallway. They are super cute! 

Click here to see my Career Day writing craftivities.

Here is a craftivity for Officer Buckle and Gloria. Click here to see the resource. 

Here is a craftivity for Roxaboxen. Click here to see the resource. 

At the end of your thematic unit, you can have your students create a town or village that resembles Roxaboxen. You can use paper box lids and have your students bring in all kinds of recycled items for them to create their own town. Here are some items that I had my students bring in: paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls, sticks, pebbles, egg cartons, feathers, pipe cleaners, construction paper. Here are some examples of my villages that we made: 

They turned out so cute and the students really LOVED making them! Click here to see my thematic unit on Community Helpers. It includes lesson plans with suggested mentor texts, anchor charts, interactive notebooks, writing craftivities and end of unit project! 

Hope you enjoy it!

Love, Kara