Halloween Literacy Activities for 1st Grade

If by chance you've been checking out my Instagram, you might be aware that we are expecting our third baby girl any day now.  To be exact - our due date is today!  So right now, we are just in waiting mode.

Waiting.... 💕💕

A photo posted by Melissa Machan (@firstgradesmiles) on Oct 3, 2015 at 5:29am PDT

Or maybe you saw this post way back when where we told our other two girls they were getting another sister.  

If not, now you know.  This is the reason why this poor little blog of mine hasn't seen much action over the last 9 months.  But now that I am here just waiting for #3 to arrive, I have a little time to talk about one of my favorite times of the year.  

If I were in school right now (my last day was Friday) I would be taking out some of my favorite Halloween books.  

I might also be getting my favorite bulletin board ready.

And I would most definitely be getting some of the following activities out and ready to be copied for these next couple weeks.  I wanted to share them with you because even though these pictures are from last year, I never got a chance to properly share them amidst the Halloween chaos.  Plus, I'm a little sad that I won't be there this year for all the Halloween fun they will be having.  I'm sure my sub will be lovin' it all because I have a great group of kids this year that will eat. this. up!  So here are some of the activities (mostly literacy) that I love to do with my kids this time of year.  

First up is this little rhyming story that I LOVE to read with my students.  I was lucky enough to have Nikki from Melonheadz clipart make me these little witches and the other clipart to go with my story.  We read this book together and then the students complete some activities afterwards like some comprehension activities and also a pocket chart activity.  

As I mentioned earlier, I love to take out my Halloween books each year.  One of my favorites, and probably most teachers' favorites, is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.  I love using the book on tape (yes I said tape -- I'm not throwing away those cassettes until they do not work anymore).  This one is a fun one to listen to with the background music and noises.  Then students complete this sequencing activity and put together this mini-book.  

Halloween is also a great time to learn about parts of speech.  There are so many fun nouns and adjectives that fit with Halloween like: spooky spiders, creepy ghosts, wacky witches, and slimy skeletons.  There are tons of great activities to go with teaching Halloween parts of speech.  I like to sort them and practice using them first.  

Then we turn them into something adorable like this Witches' Brew writing and craft.  

OR this Haunted House book.  

I also have another quick activity in my store that uses nouns, verbs, and adjectives called: Halloween Fill-in-the-Blank Poetry.  

Did I mention I love to do as many Halloween read alouds as I can???  So an easy activity to do with a read aloud is a story map. 

Here is another book activity that is fun to do.  These two books are perfect for a compare/contrast lesson and finding text-to-text connections.  

Now after all this literacy fun, it will be time for a snack.  I love making this Witches' Brew with the kids.  I use the labels on paper lunch bags and put the ingredients inside so they can't see them.  I add them one at a time --- making a big deal about what it is.  "Time to add some witch warts --- now these are yummy!  But not as good as these smashed bugs -- plus, they have protein!"  You get the idea.  I mix it all up in a large bowl and serve it in cups for the kids.  Obviously they figure out that dragon wings are really Doritos and smashed bugs are raisins, but it's still fun.  

These activities can be found in my Bewitched: Halloween Literacy Pack.  

So although I won't be the one teaching these activities in my classroom this year, I can't wait to see the pictures and hear all about it from my sub.

I will be home, being a mom!  The best job in the world.  I might be able to go in to school for my daughter's classroom Halloween party that I usually have to miss.  Maybe I will bring in a snack.  The two snacks below are suuuuper simple if you are looking for something to send in to your child's class. 

The bottom pictures are just mandarin oranges with a black sharpie.  Sometimes it's nice to have something other than candy at a Halloween party.  The Jack-o-Lantern is made out of a pan of brownies.  It was so simple to cut the outline of the pumpkin, frost it with orange icing, and then use the leftover brownie pieces for the face.  My daughter loved it so much she has requested it again this year instead of a birthday cake for her end of October birthday.  

Even though this year will be a little different than it usually is for me, I am still so excited to have some Halloween fun!  

Happy Early Halloween to you!!!

Back to School Resources for 1st Grade

Hi friends!

I wanted to write a quick post to show you my must-haves for this time of year.  There is a One Day Sale over at Teachers Pay Teachers and I thought a post with some of my favorite resources might be helpful.  

First up is this All-In-One bundle I made for anyone just starting the year in 1st grade.  These packs keep me sane in the beginning of the year, so I put them together into this bundle.  You can read more about it HERE or click on the picture to see it in my store.  

I also bundled some of my favorite math resources that I use starting Day 1.  You can read about it HERE or click the picture.  

This next one is a new resource that I created.  I can't wait to use this with my RTI groups this year.  You can read all about it HERE.  

For small group instruction, I also made these Guided Reading packs.  This post gives you some more information on these babies.  

How about this fun sight word program?  My kiddos LOVED this and really learned their sight words.  I am in the process of writing up a post to show you these packs.  

But for now, here's some quick pictures to give you a preview.  

Finally, some Fall themed resources for my favorite time of year (that isn't summer vacation of course).  

These are two new fall themed packs that I just finished and am also excited to use this year.

  

I know that was a lot to throw at you, but I didn't want a sale to go by without letting you know all about it and sharing what I will be using!!  

I will be back soon to give you more about my prep for back to school (we go back after Labor Day).

Happy shopping!!!

My Favorite Witch

I think I just need to get used to the fact that the first month, more like month and a half, of school EVERY SINGLE YEAR is going to feel like I'm drowning and can't keep my head above water.  

Why is that???

This is my 13th year teaching.  But somehow, although it IS easier, it is still tough.  There is very little sleep to be had, hours of planning each week, and clearly no time to share any of this with anyone - like you wonderful people who visit my blog.  You can see a pattern in my blogging history with my lack of posts in September and October.  

I guess I have to just admit it - I cannot do it all and I will never pretend that I can.  Please tell me I am not the only one.  

With that being said - I do still want to share ideas when I have the time to do so and I really love knowing that some teachers find their way here and take time out of their busy schedules to read what I have to say.  It's an honor!

So let's jump right into Halloween, shall we?

The last couple years I have been loving all things witchy around Halloween time.  This bulletin board has appeared two times so far and I just LOVE putting it up.

When the kids come to school the day after this goes up they just stop and smile.  Some of them try to high five the witch.  It just makes my day!

So since then, I have been sloooooowwwly working on some fun witchy activities for Halloween.  But since I can never get ahead in October (see above) - I have not been able to pull these ideas together into a final product......

until now!

Can I get a Woot! Woot!!

I'm just so excited to introduce my Halloween literacy pack: Bewitched.



I've loved watching this come together and now am finally able to share it all with you!

I'll start with my favorite part.

This original story was inspired by the poem Five Little Pumpkins and is called Three Little Witches.  I was lucky enough (and so honored) to have Nikki from Melonheadz design a custom set of clipart to go with my story and I just adore them!!!!  She is Ah-mazing!!!

This next part is always a favorite of my kiddos so I wanted to include it and spice it up a little.

Along with the Witches' Brew recipe I included labels for your bags (cuter than my handwritten ones) and an adorable writing craftivity where students create their own Witches' Brew recipe.  We had tons of fun with this one.  

In order to create the recipe we needed to review nouns and adjectives so I included a center for that.  

To add onto the nouns and adjectives center, I included a haunted house writing activity.  Students can create a book, or you can make a class book, called What's Inside My Haunted House?  Kids just love talking about oozing eyeballs and hairy spiders and whatever else might show up in their haunted houses.  Gross, but oh so fun!

I also added some activities to go along with two of my favorite Halloween read alouds: Room on the Broom and The Little Old Lady That Was Not Afraid of Anything.  I included sequencing, rhyming words, story maps, and a few more writing activities.  

If you are looking for some more activities to add to your Halloween repertoire then I hope you'll check out this pack.  Or if you are also just trying to get ahead, maybe this will help you so you don't have to feel like you are drowning.  

And if you are searching for something to do after Halloween, try this one out:

Trying to catch up Part 1

Hello my friends!  

I am going to give a few posts here where I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.  I don't know about you, but life has been cuh-raaaaaaazy lately and unfortunately I haven't been able to blog like I've wanted.  I can't really throw ALL the pictures in just one post, so I'll spread them out in two. 

Here we go....

Observing the magic of Fall with our five senses

We used our handprints for the tree and painted on the trunk.

Then we used sponges to do the leaves.  My little firsties went NUTS over the sponge painting and many of their trees didn't come out looking like trees.  Oh well - they had TONS of fun so that's what matters.

Here is part of a project I am working on.  Yes, still working on it!  Maybe next year I will have it complete and ready to share, but for now here are some pictures of a very small part of it - our Witches' Brew!

I prepped these bags with the ingredients above.  The kids were so grossed out, but loved every second of it.  Of course they knew what they really were once they saw them, but it was still fun.

We mixed it all up and then scooped it out.  

While they munched, we talked about making our own witches' brew and what ingredients we would include.  We brainstormed a list of Halloween adjectives and nouns.  I typed them on the computer to make it a quick brainstorming and then they could see them at their seats.  

Then we put them together to fill in this recipe for witches' brew.  

 

One more little activity was a quick compare/contrast activity with these two picture books.  

We had some great discussion about story elements, character traits, and so much more.  It was such an easy way to bring in a little common core.

Be sure to jump over (or up) to part two of my catching up blog posts!  I have some deep insights as to why my brain cannot handle too many things.