Where did October go?!

Hi friends!

Oh my goodness, that was the fastest month ever! It seems like just yesterday I was saying, "No guys, today isn't Halloween, it's just the first day of October. We have a long wait until Halloween!"

And now Halloween has passed.

Wow!

I have really slacked on my blogging this month. Sorry about that!

Here is a long detailed post about some of our October happenings!...& a new Currently with Farley!!

This month in math we spent a lot of time composing and decomposing numbers less than 10. In our addition and subtraction practice we used strategies such as counting on, making a ten, using our 120 chart, and using our part part whole chart. We also tried different problem types this month!

Here you see a few different days of addition & subtraction practice. During these lessons, the students were working with different types of problems. Instead of always doing "whole unknown" problems, we also practiced "part unknown" problems. Sometimes they were trying to find the first addend and sometimes the second. We practiced using the 10 frame first, then the 120 chart. In later lessons I let them choose which strategy worked best for them.

We also practiced decomposing numbers with our part part whole chart.

I created the large pumpkin chart. The kids took turns throwing the chip out there to see which number they would need to decompose on their whiteboard. They had the option of using cubes to help them. I first saw this fun idea on instagram.

We also made a fun math art project this month. The kids tore/cut red, orange, and yellow paper to make leaves for their trees. They then had to made  a 3 addend equation to show how many leaves were falling. They turned out pretty cute! :)

We follow the Lucy Calkins Units of Study in writing. So we have continued & finished our personal narratives this month! We had our celebration on Thursday and did some fun Halloween writing on Friday. Here are some of their Halloween writing samples :)

(too sweet, right?)

This month in reading we did 2 non-fiction studies. We started out with learning about pumpkins. Here is what we already knew and what we learned! They made the pumpkin art projects at the conclusion of our pumpkin study.

We also finished up our non-fiction bat study. Again, they made cute little art projects at the conclusion of the study!

WHEW! There was a lot going on in October!

We finished up Friday with our Halloween party. My school decided to do it a little different this year. Our parties are an hour long, the last hour of the day. So we decided to split the parties in half. For the first 30minutes, kindergarten & first grade classes were in their classrooms doing treats and a craft. During the same time, the 2nd & 3rd grade classes were in the gym playing games. Each classroom (8) came up with a game to set up in the gym for the kids to go around and play. Then after 30min was up, we switched! It went really well.

Some of the games we had were:

-bozo buckets using pumpkin buckets (4 games of this set up)

-bowling (2 sets of this game)

-golf putting green

-bean bag toss

-pumpkin seed spitting

-memory match

-jump rope

-dance area

Hope everyone had a great October!

Here's to a wonderful November!

Oh Boy 4th Grade

Yummy: Mac & Cheese Crock Pot Recipe