Frankenstein Freebies

Ah Halloween week......... the week when you need a few extra tricks up your sleeve just to survive all the excitement those sweet kiddos are trying to contain because Halloween is almost here. Well, here are a few "tricks" I put together to keep your kiddos learning while you hopefully get a moment to breathe and preserve your sanity.  The following Freebies were created with Freebie from the Fabulous Krista Wallden over at The Creative Chalkboard.  

Happy Halloween!  

Alison 

   

Verb, Verb, Verb....Verb is the WORD! FREEBIE

OH MY WORD learning about Verbs can be so much fun!  Last week we started a lesson on verbs by playing a little game of Simon Says. This is the kind of  activity that bring about comments like, "You are the best teacher ever" and "This is the best day of my life".  Awww what it would be like to be 7 and so easily excited again.  Ok, so after our game of  Simon Says we made a list of verbs.  Next each student picked a verb they wanted to illustrate using a pipe cleaner and a few pieces of scrap paper.  I had each student  tell me what they were illustrating before we got started because otherwise everyone would have illustrated "jump", true story it happened to me. I have been making these with my class for years and they always turn out so stinkin cute, I love art that shows such individuality.  Grab your copy of the Verb page here. 

Graphics from Teaching in a Small Town

You can find the Verb Write the Room page and 53 other write the room activities in my teacher store just click the picture.



 

 

Later in the week students became word detectives as they looked for verbs in the room during Write the Room.  My write the room activities are simple, a copy of the type of word to look for, a clipboard and a pencil.  The students look around the room for words on the word wall, book titles, charts, posters, etc.  I DO NOT prepost words I want the students to find, if I did I would have never  heard this OH SO ADORABLE conversation. 

....As two students scoured the Calendar area for words I overheard two of my kiddos arguing over whether the word March was a verb.  I wish I could have recorded their argument because as one was saying March is not a verb,  the other one was stomping his little feet in the angriest march I have ever seen and saying, "yes you can march , LOOK! I"M MARCHING!  If you can do it , it's a verb!!!!!!!! " LESSON OVER! 
 
~Alison

 

A Smelling Test, a Confession and a Freebie

 We kicked off our week with a little SMELLING TEST !  I posted a little while back that several of my students were still struggling with the idea that there is a th at the end of "with" and not a F. So I came up with this little lesson: 

(Confession Thank God for Clip Art-I Can't Draw a Straight Line) 

First we talked about the meaning of "Whiff" seriously when I was younger we said things like "Did you get a whiff of that?"  all the time.   Huh, my little kiddos had never heard of such a word!  So these little guys could understand the meaning of  "whiff" a little better we had a smelling test.  I prepared eight bags with eight different "smells" in them.  Ex:  lemon, chocolate, onion, etc.  I cut the bags to about 2/3 their original size, put the item in, and stapled the bag once in the middle so that the air would flow when students squeezed the bag.  Then it was off to Whiffing and Sniffing to see if  these kiddos could pass their smelling test. 

Results of Spelling Test A+!  Well maybe not an A+ but they did do a great job!!!! 

Once our test were graded it was off to write the room!  Students used their clip boards, magnifying glasses, and write the room activity sheets to find all the words in the room that had wh or th.  If you would like a copy of  my write the room activites that are on sale you can find them  here.

Alright if you made it all the way to the end you deserve a special Cyber Monday Treat!  I will send a copy of  the  50 Write the Room activities to the first two people who leave a comment with their e-mail address and start following our blog.   

 

Happy Monday!

~Alison