Monsters and Pumpkins

This blog post will share with you a new pumpkin poem to use during 

shared reading time and some new monsters books! 

My friend Amy shared this poem with me.

How cute is this? 

Each child made a pumpkin 

that was attached to their name.  

click here for pumpkin poem

Click here for more Halloween poems.

 Interactive Writing in Kindergarten

I love how this teacher scaffolded the lesson by having the students write just one word.

Monster Trouble by Lane Fredrickson

Illustrations by Michael Robertson

There are lots of reasons why I love the book Monster Trouble by Lane Fredrickson.  This book is filled with action and humor. Winfred Schnitzel is not afraid of monsters that keep her up all night, but she is TIRED!  Can Winifred Schnitzel overcome her monster troubles?  Winifred Schnitzel shows high resolve using trickery and smarts to overcome the problem in the story.

This clever book is an adventurous read with rich vocabulary, bold illustrations, and a surprise ending. The use of rhythm and rhyme add greatly to the charm of this engaging book.

Mind Your Monsters by Catherine Bailey
Illustrations by Oriol Vidal 

When reading the first page of this book, we learn that

Wally enjoyed a quiet, normal life…

…until one day monsters invaded his small town and made a mess of everything.

The illustrations are captivating,  easily drawing young children into the invasion taking place in this small town. The pictures are very detailed and give the reader helpful information about the text.

There are many opportunities that encourage students to try and predict if Wally will be able to save the town. He first tries to ignore the monsters, but that doesn't work! Eventually, the town is saved because Wally uses good manners.

This story has a great message for kids!

To be honest, when I first read this book I liked it but I didn’t love it.  When I read it to a few first-grade classrooms, the response was strong: students loved it.

The children’s response was so strong that after a few reading, I began to fall in love with this book too!

Happy Halloween!!!

Fall Songs

Here are some songs and poems I am teaching my class this week! 

I Like Leaves  

This comes poem is inspired from Nellie Edge's poem I like Hearts! 

Falling Down 

Click Here for Poems

Shared Reading~ Halloween

Here are some favorite poems we are learning this week! 

Happy Halloween!!

 This can be read like a chant

 I plan on having my students make 

an illustration to go with this poem

I LOVE this poem by Jack Prelutsky

 sung to jingle bells 
click here for poems

September Songs and Poems

Here are some familiar poems and songs I plan to use the first few weeks of school. I plan to make them into charts to use during Shared Reading. 

click here to download 

Sunflowers and Summer

Shared Reading~September
Sunflower Children

Poem for Pocket Chart 

 

Click here for Pocket chart and Poem  

Students can investigate sunflowers.

Draw sunflowers in their science notebooks.

After reading and exploring sunflowers draw facts they learned.
.

The class could take photographs like Kate does in her book Sunflower. Have

students glue the photographs in their science notebooks and label the parts. 

I made this on Skitch. I plan to do a lot of labeling with this app. 

Students can create a Bubble Thinking Map describing a sunflower.

Students can paint sunflowers.
Make sunflowers out of clay.

My friend Amy created a sunflower poster with all of her students' hands.  She had it hanging in the center of her classroom. 
{Thanks for sharing Amy.}

 Summer Books For Writing Time

Jangles is the perfect book to kick off storytelling.  

It is a little scary but full of suspense. (My son Owen was scared because of Jangle's fishhooks). I love David Shannon books...this is my FAVORITE!

I came across this book and quickly added it to my Amazon wish list. There are many things I love about this book. Beachcombing by Jim Arnosky is an informational picture book about the beach.  When I read this book to my two boys, it quickly brought us back to our memories this summer on the beach. You can see the beautiful layout below.

~Where writers get their ideas~

 I love that Jim has a wonderful author's note about how he visited twenty-six different beaches along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. He and his wife Deanna walked the shorelines looking for things that made each beach special. He tells how he made lots of little sketches in his notebook and took pictures of everything. He used his drawings and photographs to make Beachcombing.  

This book is a treasure!

September Poem

This is my favorite poem to teach my students in September. You will find a copy of the poem and a template for it for your pocket chart!                             

Happy September!

Next month I plan to create a poem with my students called It's October!

pocket chart words

click here to download

Halloween Song Charts

Halloween Songs  We Are Learning