Mentor Text Linky! Favorite October Reads

When I saw this linky I knew I had to do it.

 

mentor text linky

I love the Fall and all of the things that go with it, especially all of the awesome books that are written for this time of year. It begins with Apples and Johnny Appleseed and it ends with pumpkins and being thankful. We can't forget all the creatures in between (bats, spiders and owls)

My all time favorite book for this time of year is Big Pumpkin written by Erica Silverman.

 

where to buy this amazng book!

I absolutely love this book! I use it every year at this time. We make inferences, predictions and we discuss sequence. The students talk about their favorite part and we discuss if this can really happen. The kids love it when I pair it with the audio cassette because it has a catchy tune and they just love to read it and sing along! 

Here is the description from Amazon:

The witch has grown the biggest pumpkin ever, and now she wants to make herself a pumpkin pie for Halloween. But the pumpkin is so big she can't get it off the vine.
It's so big the ghost can't move it, either. Neither can the vampire, nor the mummy. It looks as if there'll be no pumpkin pie for Halloween, until along comes the bat with an idea to save the day.
How can the tiny bat succeed where bigger and strong spooky creatures have failed? You'll be surprised!

 

This is just one of my favorite books! If you have never read it, you must!!!!!!!

Go Red Sox

At Camden Yards to watch the Red Sox play the Orioles! Go Red Sox!!!!! Go Pedroia #15!! What a great night! The weather is awesome! Feels like baseball weather! :-)

Happy Birthday, Johnny Appleseed!

Today is Johnny Appleseed's birthday! Our kindergarteners got to meet and ask him questions today. They were so excited! They also made some wonderful Johnny Appleseeds and wrote about him.

Hee ate some pictures of our visitor and our Johnny Appleseeds we made!

Fall Festival

It is Apple time!!! I love this time of year. To kick off the fall season, I took my daughter to Millburn Orchards for Johnny Appleseed's birthday. What a beautiful day! She had  blast! She played on the playground, feed the goats, walked in the corn maize, made sand art and played in the bounce house. We saw Johnny Appleseed and had some of his birthday cake. Before we left we bought fresh hot apple cider donuts and a basket of Fuji Apple's! What an awesome day! Here's some pictures of our day!

CONSTITUTION DAY

September 17 is Constitution Day. To recognize this day, we read the book We the Kids. We listened to the preamble song by school house rock and we wrote our own class constitution. This is where we reviewed the lesson about being a peacemaker or a peacebreaker. The kids then made self portraits and we hung it out in the hallway. The kids loved it!

Here are the pictures if this activity!

Howard B. Wigglebottom

I attended a Responsive Classroom training this summer and one of the books recommended was Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns To Listen. I found it and bought it. I love it. My kindergators adored it! It was an activity I used for my morning meeting!

Well, then I mentioned this on my Twitter account and all of a sudden, who is following me but Howard B. Wigglebottom himself!!! I was very excited!

He has an amazing website called wedolisten.org. it has animated books. There are posters and songs. It is all based on the Howard B. Wigglebottom books. And best of all it is free.

For those of you not familiar with Howard. He is a rabbit who teaches us the importance of listening, being courageous, standing up to bullies and many more issues that affect the kids today. He is an awesome resource for character building.

Go check it out! It will amaze you!!!

___ my name is

We read the books, A My Name Is and A My Name is Alice. We compared and contrasted the two stories. The children enjoyed them and loved hearing the things that begin with the v letter of v their own names.
Then we made ourselves and attached a piece of paper that had ___ my name is and I like _____. They had to fill in the first letter of their name and their name. Then they told me what they liked that began with the first letter of their name.

We shared them and hung them up in the classroom. Here are s few of them: