Five For Friday- November 1

Okay, okay, okay.... I promise this was typed up and ready to go on Thursday night.  And then a caught a cold.  And slept all evening on Friday.  So here I am, posting on Saturday.


It's Friday!  You know what that means.... I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!  It was quite the busy week in Miss Woodward's Class!

1.  Mix-it Up Day

Our school hosted Mix-it Up Day on Tuesday.  Students were encouraged to sit at other tables at lunch to  help to identify, question, and cross social boundaries.  The kids went through the line and got their food, then grabbed a number that told them what table to sit at.  At each table, there were conversation starters.  Many of the teachers joined in for Mix-it Up Day, and it was so fun to hear the conversations that were going on across grade-levels!

2.  This is what it's come down to...

Yep, we still have lice at our school.  Ick.  To try and prevent the lice from coming to school from home, we have resorted to keeping the students' backpacks and coats in plastic bags.  Who knows if it helps, but we can at least try to prevent kids from bringing in lice from home.

3.  New 'Do

I bought a new "bun form" for $5 at Charming Charlie, and tried it out on Tuesday!  I had a little trouble putting it in myself, but others that have used one have said that they are super easy to put in!

4.  Halloween Fun

We had so much fun on Halloween!  Read about it here!  Here's one of the highlights:

Four FAB superheroes!  :)

Yes, those are metallic spandex bodysuits.

5.  End of Quarter

Today marks the end of Quarter 1 for us... which means no kids!  It was nice to have no students today, to recover from a busy day of Halloween fun.  We did have some PD, but also had (much needed) work time to enter grades and wrap up some loose ends.

How was your week?  Link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share!

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward

Halloween Happenings

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Does your school get to celebrate Halloween?  This year, we did, and it was such a fun day!

In this post, I gave you some ideas for things to do on Halloween.  Here's how my day ended up!

Meet four fab superheroes!

Ms. Tarah, Miss Woodward, Ms. Eichhorn, and Ms. Meredith

Our first initials actually spelled out TEAM, so it was perfect!

We spent quite a while (and oodles of hairspray) to get our hair look like it had been blown back from flying to school.

Oh yeah, some of my students dressed up too!

How cute are they?!

We also made these cute paper bag pumpkins.  I got the idea from this post at This Old Art Room.

One of my partners had directions for a monster glyph project, so we did that in the afternoon.

Here were the guidelines for the glyph:

- BODY: favorite shape

- EYES: Boy= 1 eye   Girl= 3 eyes

- HAIR: How old you are

- TEETH: How many people in your family

- LEGS: Your favorite color 

How cute are these little monsters?

We watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".  The kids loved the part where Charlie Brown kept getting rocks in his goodie bag.

We ALSOOOOOO listened to the scary stories that our classes wrote.  Each 3rd grade class has been working on writing a scary story together.  Yesterday, Ms. Meredith recorded us reading them on her iPad, and added in our sound effects.  Take a listen to ours!  I'm so proud of my kiddos!

"The Graveyard Hospital" by Miss Woodward's Class

Just click on the link to listen to our story!  :)

How was your Halloween?  Did you do anything fun in your class?

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward

Halloween Ideas

Does your school celebrate Halloween?  Last year, we were not allowed to celebrate anything.  I'm not usually a Halloween person, but I am happy that this year, students and teachers are allowed to wear costumes!  Halloween is also the last day of the quarter for us, so I'm okay with breaking our usual routine a little bit, to have a little fun.  Here are some of my ideas for Halloween this year!

• Paper Bag Pumpkins

I just LOVE these little bag pumpkins from This Old Art Room.  Kristin made these with her kindergarten students, but I want to try them with my 3rd graders!

• EEK!  Spiders!

I found this cool book on Reading A-Z.  It's a Level M, which is a 2nd grade level according to their system.  Remember, I teach 3rd grade, but actually, this book will be too hard for the majority of my students.  Most of my students are at a 1st grade or early 2nd grade level.  But, I know my kids will be really into it.  So... I will fight through the gross pictures and we will read it together.  And hopefully, learn something new about our friendly arachnids!

• Halloween Treat

Seriously, Pinterest is just loaded with ideas for cute little treats for Halloween!   I'm looking for something simple to make and share with my students.  Last year, I did little treat bags of popcorn, M&M's, and candy corn.  They loved it!  I think this year, I will do something similar.  It was easy to pull together and share.

• Should I play dress-up?

Since we are allowed to wear costumes this year, I should really dress up.  I have cat ears and a tail, so I could wear all black and be a cat.  I also have a witch hat.  The 3rd grade team (four of us), had talked about doing a group thing, but we couldn't decide on what to do.

In the past, I've been...

 A Lumberjack

 A Cat (with Mrs. Elbert, a Ladybug!)

So, serious question-  Do you have any simple (and cheap) ideas of what I could be for Halloween?  Let me know in the comments below!

• Scary Stories...........

Last week, 3rd grade started a project that the kids are just begging to work on all. the. time.  Each 3rd grade class is working with their teacher to write a scary story.  We talked about figurative language (and made a bubble map of how "scary" sounds, looks, feels, smells, and tastes).  Then we voted on a character and setting and started writing!  I occasionally give them ideas, but usually we just listen to everyone's ideas and then choose which one we like best.  Sometimes we are able to combine ideas, too.  Seriously, some of the stuff they have come up with is creepy.

But here's the best part:  This coming week, we are making an audio recording of our scary stories, complete with sound effects by the students and an app on Ms. Meredith's iPad.  On Halloween, we will listen to each class' story and be scared together.  The kids are pumped!

What kinds of activities will you do for Halloween this year?  I would love to hear about it!

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward