Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Halloween Fun

This week we are putting our phonics and comprehension skills to the test with a Halloween twist.  We're taking all that we've learned through Unit One in Journeys Reading and using our strategies with Halloween-themed picture books.  



On Monday we read There was an Old Woman who Swallowed a Bat.  We sequenced the events and practiced retelling the story.  Your 1st grader came home with their own old woman who swallowed a bat pieces.  Have your child practice retelling the story to you using their props.  We paired this text with a similar text entitled There Was an Old Martian who Swallowed the Moon.  We noticed the rhyme and repetition.  And overall, loved the silliness of both fiction books!


On Tuesday we learned all about BATS!  We read two nonfiction books about bats to gather as much information as we could.  We then labeled our large inflatable bat since we noticed that authors use diagrams and labels to give us more information.  We wrote at least three new facts that we learned and created a bat from our own handprints.  We paired the nonfiction with a familiar fictional text, Stellaluna, to wrap up the day.  

Today we focused on pumpkins.  We read a shared text called From Seed to Pumpkin.  This book informed us about pumpkins and their life cycles.  We created our own pumpkin life cycle craft to show that a life cycle continuously repeats.  Have your 1st grader use their craft to talk about the life cycle of a pumpkin.  We also did a mini-lesson on adjectives and learned that adjectives are describing words.  We had some brave souls stick their hands into the gooey pulp of the pumpkin to come up with adjectives that can enhance our writing.  We finished our day by labeling the parts of the pumpkin and creating our own diagram.



Tomorrow's agenda is chock full of SPIDERS.  And on Friday we'll switch back to fiction to read and respond to the beloved Where the Wild Things Are.

Our 1st graders are loving all the activities this week and are looking forward to our QE Halloween Parade on Friday!  We hope to see you at 2PM on Friday to watch our parade!

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