Three Blind Mice

I changed the words to "Three Blind Mice" for our Halloween costume, since the original lyrics are rather disturbing. :) Thanks to my aide, Mrs. Reimer, and our AM/PM K teacher, Ms. Antonelli, for dressing up!


Mine...
Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
Who stepped on their tails, which wasn't nice,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?
Original...
Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?

Halloween Parade

In lieu of a Halloween party, we took the last 15 minutes of each AM and PM session to trick-or-treat in the office. The office ladies were so cute and excited to have my babies stop in. Each time we came around the hallway, they would yell, "They're coming! They're coming!" Then they would run to their spots. This was the first time I asked that children wear their Halloween costumes to school. It went very well without any "accidents"! I carried the sign below as we marched through the halls. If a teacher had their door open, we would parade through. Then the grand finale was blasting our classroom surround sound as we marched around the kinder playground to show off our costumes to parents. It was a great day and I would like to do it again next year, since I was still able to teach at our regular schedule.

Of course, we had Halloween cupcakes for snack though!

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Halloween Author Reading

On Halloween, the AM class had a very special treat. Jarrod Meistle, author of Victor the Vampire, read his book and handed out stickers and pencils!

I talked about this book here!

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Victor the Vampire

My friend published his first children's book, _Victor_the_Vampire_, in his new series. We will be reading this book for Halloween and the author will also be coming in to read the story to my classes. The students of the week will also receive their very own copy this month, too!

Please check out www.victorthevampire.com. Of course, Victor the Vampire is on Facebook and Twitter, too!

Pumpkins

I have been super busy, but wanted to show you, briefly, what we have been up to.

As always, we decorated cookies at our Halloween party.

We ate orange food.

And did some Halloween crafts, like bat magnets.

My kiddos have been writing up a storm, about everything!

Art instructions for pumpkin bags during centers.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but you can see one here.

October Center

We are decorating small pumpkins as an independent center. I wrote their names on the pumpkins earlier so they can find their pumpkin. Also I will know who is missing one, especially if someone was absent.






Our shape of the week is triangle so the kids cut out two and I pre-cut the mouths with a circle punch.





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November Center

Each month, a center is dedicated to that month. The center changes each week. For example, the pumpkin counting activity in October Center became a Halloween (model) writing activity. Starting next week (it's November already!), the children will be writing in November Center. I put my example inside a plastic stand, otherwise it gets ripped!

Homemade Worksheets

Writing and sequencing the letters of the alphabet and numbers 1-10 have become a priority as the first trimester comes to an end. Therefore, I am sticking the alphabet and numbers on everything! We've done pumpkins, squirrels, (soon) turkeys, stars, ghosts, and the list goes on!

Halloween Festivities

The first thing I did Thursday morning was take away the books and journals off the tables. Icing and reading material don't mix!

Then, we made these bat magnets. The paper was pre-cut by a wonderful mommy helper and the magnets were glued to the clothespins last week by my practicum student.

I put all materials into a bowl the night before, so it would be super easy to pass out to each table. The children enjoyed making these and most were correctly assembled! :)

We also made these Halloween puzzles, simply because they could do it independently and I could prepare the icing for the cookies.

(My example.)

We frosted pumpkin-shaped cookies and the students had a blast putting as much candy as the could on top. The parents donated all of the cookies, frosting, and candy.

We finished the day off with spider hats (here is the link) and Cheetos on the playground. After the Cheetos were eaten, I told them their orange fingers were from pumpkin dust... Boy, what a day!

What did YOU do in your classroom?

Fall Leaves

The shape people have been returned to their owners and these fall leaves are their replacements. In Art Center, I had the children fingerpaint dots. After they dried, I had them glue a black sheet of paper with a leave cut-out over the top. The paint is shown through the cut-out part. One of my MANY, fabulous mommy helpers cut ALL 52 leaves out.

October Center

During the last three weeks of October, I introduce "October Center." I found the idea in an issue of The Mailbox. Students count out pumpkin seeds and put them in the correct cupcake spot.