Hodge Podge of Holidays {Tons of Pictures and Links!}

During my minor blogging hiatus the start of the holiday season was upon us... Halloween, Veterans Day, now Thanksgiving and holiday fun will continue full steam ahead. Since I was wrapped up in a few other projects at the time, I thought I'd reflect a bit on what we've been doing in the classroom. If nothing else, maybe you'll find a few ideas for next year to pin?

Halloween was my first official holiday as a general education classroom teacher. I survived, fairly unscathed, school wise. At home, we were moving, so things were hectic, but I survived on the home front too.

We created name symmetry posters for the hallway. A cute and fun project that you can read more about here.

 One of my student's brought in treats that I thought were super cute. A twist on the "dirt cake". Cupcakes complete with popsicle stick tombstones.

 The hubby and I went to a Halloween party put on by one of the teachers. Midmove, we threw something together. A hunter and the hunted.. brown shirt, some tin foil and masking tape and we became a hunter and deer. 

 Which fit in well with the rest of the Duck Dynasty crew that we attended the party with! 

 On the day of Halloween, I whipped up a shirt. It seemed fitting for the day! 

During the day, students wrote about what might happen if their pumpkin/Jack-O-Latern came to life. After students finished their writing, they were to color a picture of the pumpkins, from their I had a surprise...

Colar Mix app {free} will animate their drawings. This pumpkin sheet was a freebie and made for a wonderful surprise!

During our homeroom time, I did center rotations. Yay for freebies from TPT. I found a variety of math games and "just for fun" stuff to help our morning go a little quicker.

Halloween Board Games

 Math Zombie is one of my kiddos favorite basic math skills app, regardless of the time the year.  

We also did a listening/describing activity with "Go Away Big Scary Green Monster." 

Students attempted to illustrate the monster they heard about. Then, I left subplans for the students to write about their own monsters and partner with someone else to describe them. Fun activity that I learned about from 4th Grade Frolics.

The next holiday that we celebrated was Veterans Day. The highlight was the Veterans Day presentation, with students taking the time to shake the hands of veterans who attended on that morning and tell them thank you. One Veteran who attended had never been thanked like that before and sent in a letter of thanks that was so powerful.

To build up for the presentation, we wanted to be sure that our students understood the meaning behind the holiday.

I used part of Lovin' Lit's awesome Veterans Day Pack. The timeline and nonfiction reading activity was perfect for my crew.

I also utilized this freebie choice board one afternoon it comes from Ashleigh. Students loved the freedom from the choices in the activities. I asked that the choose one activity from the first two rows before doing one of the more time consuming activities from the bottom row. They were more than okay with that, and engaged throughout the hour.

Describing a veteran

Writing a news article over a veteran.

Creating picture books of national symbols on the iPad

Creating a card to give to a veteran.

Veterans Day acrostic poem

Synonyms for patriotic words

Our last classroom holiday focus was Thanksgiving.

We did a writing project with Pic Collage that you can read about here. 

Not pictured, but we also did the "How to Bake a Turkey" activity from Lovin Lit's pack. Another huge hit... but whenever YouTube is involved it usually is. A terrific way to review transition words. 

We also had another homeroom day... love them! Another morning filled with centers!! Again several TPT freebies!!

Thanksgiving Roll & Covers

Variety of Thanksgiving themed word searches

Thanksgiving "Scrattle" (Scrabble + Battle.. it was fun stuff!)

Thanksgiving bump

Students also loved reviewing text features with Amelia's Thanksgiving Centers. Such a great pack!!

Whew... now that I'm all caught up, it's almost Christmas! I have two new products that should be ready and uploaded for the big sale on Monday.. and for any early birds wanting to get a jump on their planning for the week, my store will by 20% off starting tomorrow!

 Happy Holidays friends!

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Skeleton Craftiness!

Let me premise this little project by saying...

A) You should be sure your students have a firm understanding of cursive.
      I discovered several of my kiddos are not... and cursive just looks cooler.

B) Do not attempt on a day that also has a field trip.
      My kiddos were filled with several ounces more of excitement.

C) Allow more time than you may think.

D. Enjoy a pretty cute Halloween-esk craft, with some symmetry and fun!

Start with a piece of white construction paper (to construct the main trunk of the body). I cut mine so that it would be smaller than the black construction paper background. I used the piece cut off for the other assorted body parts that could be added later.

Then, in cursive write your name ALONG the fold.  I suppose, you could do it in print... I thought cursive added a little something. When I bubbled the letters in the next step I added my dot and crossing of the "t". For the letters that hang low...I just had students drawl them up high, as seen in the example above.

 

I quickly bubbled out the letters. Drawing out the same letters only a quarter to a half inch further out worked well. I made sure that the dot to my "i" was connected to the base. 

 

Next part is TRICKY!  You want to cut out the letters, but you also want to leave some of the letters attached to the fold. You can see the a little on the bottom of the "c" and you can tell where I could leave part of the "h" easily connected.

It's easier to see here where things were connected in this picture. Cutting above the letter is easier... I helped several students with the below part (the part connected to the fold). Making the cuttings between letters and in between letters (like inside the "s") really add a lot to the skeleton body. 

Then fold out! I thought my "C's" made for good feet, and the "t's" looked like arms, so I didn't add a whole lot to my end product.

You can see my set up here. All I did was add my head and glue it on my black paper. Faces could be added to the skeleton by cutting them out or drawing them on.



 The following our some of our finished products. For the tag line I said "No Bones About It: 4th Grade is Great!"

A Halloweenish and unique display. The symmetry adds a lot, and the patterns that can be seen in the names is fun!

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