Halloween Fun

So much fun today but oh.my.goodness!!! I am EX.HAUST.ED!!!! I'm heading to bed soon but wanted to share my Halloween costume. My assistant and I were cry babies!!!

 

It was so funny. Anytime as student would come up and ask us a question or talk to us, we would start "Boo Hooing".  I would stick my paci in my mouth too!

 

I have to show you these ADORABLE bags a parent made for each kiddo.

 

 

Cute, right? Oh. And I had a parent make double doozies for my kiddos. Not all the kids wanted them and there were 6 left over and I had to bring them home. Awww. Hate that!

 

Spooktacular Sale

I decided to join the crew and have a sale in my TPT store now through Sunday the 28th!

 

(Thanks Abby for the graphic!)

 

Here are few things you could grab at a great price this weekend!

 

My Letter Practice RTI packets. I only have the letters Mm, Aa, Ss, and Pp finished but working on Tt and Ii! These are great for RTI kiddos!

 

It's not too late to plan your Halloween centers!!

 

I still have some kiddos working on numbers 1-10....this is a great unit for that!

 

 

I'm working on more RTI packets and my Thanksgiving units!!! Have a great weekend!

 

 

What We've Been Doing

We've been having a lot of fun lately. I'll be honest....I'm pooped! So ready for the weekend! Here are a few things we have done this week.

I LOVE this Halloween writing from Thank God It's First Grade. You can grab yours here:

 

Look at this cutey with arms!!!!

 

We also did the Adorable Witch Craft from Miss Kindergarten. LOVE!



You can grab yours here.

We also made some ghost feet. I think I might have gotten this idea from The Mailbox YEARS ago. I save it and put it in their scrapbook. Can you see that grin? She was SO ticklish.

I also let them choose thier favorite peice of candy and eat it. I save the wrapper and glue it over the line! Pretty cute huh? What have you been doing?

You've Got My Vote

I know everyone is so tired of hearing about the elections. Call me bad....but I've really not heard a single advertisement, debate, or anything related to elections. We are renting a small home while we build and have 1 TV. It is either off all of the time or on Nick Jr. so no TV for me. I'm really not complaining though!
Although I'm not following the race really closely, we have began elections in our school. Our new principal went with an election theme this year as we are "All American Students". Instead of just choosing students council representatives for each classroom, we decided to hold an actual election for a class president.
Okay. Hear me out. The thought of holding an election with Kindergarten students was a little more than I wanted to take on, but oh my goodness was I wrong!!! Today we held our class elections and they absolutely stole my heart!!!!!!
I began by sending home a form explaining the elections to parents. They parents had to sign and return if they agreed for their child to run and that they would help them prepare are speech. We read some of these books in class:

 

 

 

Here are some more great books for K students about elections.

We had really good discussion about what makes a good leader:

• Hard Worker
• Kind
• Responsible
• Good Behavior (clips up)
• Helpful
• Trustworthy
• Honest
• Friendly
• Positive

Today was election day! Now....it was also pajama day for Red Ribbon Week. I realize that I didn't really think that through, but class presidents had to be picked by November 5th and I KNEW that next week I would NOT want to do it with Halloween, so today was the day. Imagine my surprise when a sweet student showed up in khakis, shirt, and tie instead of comfy PJs.

 

Seriously....can you get any cuter? Not only did he dress the part but he had campaign material!!!

He even passed one out to the principal! I was cracking up! He wasn't the only one with goodies. Another student passed out large suckers that have "Vote for ____" on his! Brilliant I tell you! I also have 5 other candidates that chose to run and give a speech!

I swear y'all. My heart melted when they gave their speeches. I literally cried. They were precious. They had all prepared a speech. Only 2 used notes, the rest were memorized. They were AWESOME. I've never been so proud. One sweetie who isn't the best role model but who I love dearly and he tries so hard to be good ran as well. His speech was so sweet and honest. He said "I try really hard to do good. I try to clip up...not as much as (insert another candidates name) but I do try." Be still my heart!

After all speeches were given they went to the ballet booth. (Made by an AWESOME 1st grade teacher.)

They circled their choice.

And placed their vote in the box.

We tallied the votes and at the end of the day, the sweetie with the cookies and gummies was the winner! (Food gets everybody, right?) But you know what...they were all winners in my eyes! It was a great day!

Red Ribbon Week

We always have Red Ribbon Week the week before Halloween. As if Halloween doesn't get excited enough, we have a week FULL of fun activities to go along with it. By the time Halloween comes around, I am one pooped teacher. I actually have purchased several pieces of clothing that I keep in a tub until Red Ribbon Week because we usually have about the same dress up days each year.
This year we aren't just celebrating for 1 week but 1 1/2 weeks since Halloween falls on a Wednesday. Whew Wee! Our guidance counselor does a great job of getting this week ready and having something small for each child each day (pencil, sticker, etc.)  Here is our week(s):

What do you do at your school?

Who Am I? (A Linky Party)

We are so very fortunate to be able to dress up at my school for Halloween. There are a lot of schools in our district who do not dress up and a couple who dress up just for the party. I think I would rather not dress up than dress up just for the party. The idea of getting 20 kindergartners dressed in their costume does not sound like a lot of fun to me!!!

It is so funny how everyone at our school keeps it a big secret what they are going to be! It makes it a lot more fun in the end! Most of our teachers dress up with their team. My assistant and I always dress up together. We still have not decided what we are going to be this year so I am looking for some great ideas! Join the linky party below sharing what you have been in the past for Halloween and/or what you are going to be this year. I know some schools don't dress up so if you have pictures of you and your friends or spouse at a Halloween party, we would love to see them! I can't wait to see the creative ideas!

I would LOVE to show you pictures of my assistant and I from every year but I cannot find them ANYWHERE!!!!! This was one assistant and myself about 7 years ago. We were 2 peas in a pod (on each end).  (Long story short...our kiddos always got us confused. They thought were were sisters. They always called us the wrong name.) This was an easy costume. Green hooded sweatshirts, add balloons, easy.

This was my assistant and I four years ago. We were M & M's. I made our costumes out of felt.

 

We have also been:

-Black eyed Peas....easy. Black sweatsuit, paint black around 1 eye, and put a big "P" on your shirt.

-Cowboy and Indian

 

So if you want to link up, just grab the picture below and link up!

 

 

Boo to You

I've been Boo-ed twice!!!! Boo! Boo!

Lori from Teaching with Love and Laughter Boo-ed me! If you haven't checked out her  blog, you must! She is awesome!

  I also got Boo-ed by Liz from The Happy Teacher!   Thanks ladies! I must admit...I think this game is kind-of fun! I love just about anything Halloween!!   Here is how it works:

1. If you've been booed, copy and paste the above pic and these "rules" into your post.

2. Give a shout out to the blogger who booed you and link back to their site!

3. Share 3-5 October activities, books, products (yours or someone else), or freebie(s) that you love!

4. Share the Boo love with 5 bloggers- make sure you check this link to make sure you don't boo someone again:

I've Been Boo-ed

And don't forget to tell them that they have been BOOED!

Link up {here} so that others can find you and read about your October ideas!

And while you are there... check out the other great blogs!

 

Here is what I'll be doing this Halloween season in my room:

 

1. My Halloween Fun Math and Literacy Activities and Games unit.

 We will be doing this the week of Halloween!
 

   

 

2. I am doing this craftivity tomorrow from Miss Kindergarten. I can.not wait!!!

 

 

3. I will also be doing this cute little Halloween emergent reader I got from the new blog Freebielicious. Have you seen that blog? Oh.my.word!

 

4. I played this game last year at our class Halloween party that I found on Pinterest. Loved.it. We will be playing it again!

 

 

So here is where I am supposed to Boo people. However...I think everyone has been boo-ed! I seriously can't find anyone who hasn't and I know some people don't "love" the idea of having to do these things on their blog (except me...I thought this one was fun), so if you haven't been boo-ed! Feel free to give me the credit for Boo-ing you!!!!

 

A Litte Extra Practice

I have to admit, I am little nervous to start back to school tomorrow. I LOVE my job (really I do) and never complain about going to work unless I've had a vacation. Don't get me wrong, I love a good vacation, but it is really hard for me to get back in the groove.
You are probably thinking...uh...you have been in school for 42 days and you are nervous. Yep. Here's why. Last year I posted about a great intervention kit called LLI (Leveled Literacy Intervention). You can find that here.

Well, after much persuading and looking for funds ($3000 a pop), we got not 1, but 2 of these puppies. A few schools in our district have used it and SWEAR upon it. Well, after taking some time to get in the groove, MAP test, and get to know our kiddos we start this program tomorrow. Unfortunately, we are a very small rural school with not a lot of extra funding. We barely get Title I. While we don't have a lot of children in low poverty, we still have kiddos (quite a few) that are Tier 3. Since our funding is very small, Kindergarten does not get a lot of extra RTI time. Well, okay....none. We do have full time assistants so we have worked out a way to get this RTI time done with our kiddos.

I will begin using LLI with my 4 sweeties tomorrow while the other students are in the computer lab everyday with my assistants for 30 minutes. I have no idea why I am nervous but I am. It takes a little preparation but I got that finished before I left for break. I am PRAYING that I see wonders done with this program and my little babies shoot right on up and out of this Tier 3. Do you use LLI in your school? I would love to hear your feedback on it.

Speaking of those little babies, I have a few one who hasn't retained anything we have learned. For the most part, my kiddos are sounding out CVC words like a champ. I do have 3 (my other LLI kiddos) who are struggling, but for the most part I can use what I am using with the rest of the class and differentiate it for their needs. I had this same situation last year where I just needed a completely different activity for a few students who hadn't retained any of the first 6 letters and we were starting to double up so I had to pull back with them. I began creating simple worksheets to use with these kids. Each week, the worksheets looked the same so they knew what to expect and do. The only change was the letter, sound, and/or sight word. I used these along with TONS of hands on activities (Lakeshore alphabet tubs, magnetic letters, letter bean bags, picture cards, etc, etc, etc). After having these files sitting in a file on my computer I am slowly adding them to my TPT store. (I am having to change some clipart so that it is royalty free and add cutesy covers...you know...you can't put anything up for the public unless it is cute.) I have now added Mm and Aa. If you are interested, you can get them in my TPT store by clicking on the pictures below!