Kitty Cat Growth Mindset

We made these cute black cats today. They weren't that difficult to make, but it did take a certain amount of growth mindset. We practiced both optimism and persistence. All in all, well worth our time.

Go here to find the directions from Art Projects for Kids. She's got great ideas to share! 

All That Candy = Halloween Math Homework

Besides nightly reading, I don't ask my first graders to do homework.  All that Halloween candy is worthy of some time spent thinking about math though.  Here's what I ask my trick-or-treaters to do with it.  Click on the pictures for your own copies.

 (We make a graph with their favorite wrappers.  I found the idea somewhere on the internet years ago.)

(My favorite part of this activity is how the parents are guided through the process.)

Might as well do something productive with all that candy!

My October Favs

Barbara from Grade ONEderful, who is indeed very wonderful, was the first one who Boo-ed me.  I also want to thank sweet Rachel from A-B-Seymour, the lovely Kristi and Crystal from Teaching Little Miracles, and new friends Erin from First With Franklin and Barbara from It's About Time Teachers for Booing me as well.  The rules are as follows...

Here are my October favorites.  Click on the pictures to learn more.

This class book is one of our favorites, especially since each kid gets a picture taken with a large spider on their head.  

This book is fun to make if your kids get to wear costumes to school for Halloween.

My class had a fun time making these pumpkin drawings last year.  They learned about drawing, shading, outlining, and perspective.  They were adorable.  (I can't take credit.  Click on the picture to find the original owner.)

This maple leaf art project turned out great as well.  The kids learned about warm and cool colors and a little about the batik process.  (Again, this wasn't my idea.  The original owner can be found by clicking.)

We just painted these today.  I love how they turned out. (The picture will take you to Ms. Marciniak's blog and the wonderful bloggers who inspired her.)

I'm supposed to Boo five bloggers, which might prove to be difficult with all the Booing that's been going on.  If you've already been Boo-ed, you have permission to ignore me.

Lori at Conversations in Literacy

Kelly at I'm Not Your Grandpa, I'm Your Teacher

Julie at Lighting a Fire in Third Grade

Sandi at Literacy Minute

Connie from Welcome to First Grade Room 5

Our Halloween Book Collection

Halloween has come and gone, but it's left its mark on our collection of classroom books.  Here's a glimpse of four books that my trick-or-treaters will enjoy all year long.


This first book was inspired by a big book we read during shared reading called Jack-O-Faces.  One of the pages says, "This is Jack-o-happy."  That became the inspiration for each page of our book, but we inserted our names instead of Jack's.

This next book is fairly simple, but it has moving parts so the kids enjoy it.  When you lift up the ghost costume, a first grader is underneath.

We learn a poem every week in our room.  "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" is one of them, although it's not the traditional one that we all know so well.  Since the spider in the poem crawls up on heads, I put each child's name into the poem and took a picture of a spider on their head.  (Fake of course but rather real looking.)  I told them to tell a story with their face.  Too bad I can't show their full facial expressions here on the Internet.  They're hilarious.  Oh, and I made the book by taping the pages together accordion style.  Just mixing things up.

Lastly, I took pictures of them in their Halloween costumes and created this next book.  It's just like Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin, Jr.  I asked them to pose like their costume's character.  I sure got some creative pics.