A Visit from The Pumpkin Snatchers

On Tuesday, my kiddos were beyond excited before they even got to our classroom. All around the school, children were seeing candy corns EVERYWHERE! As soon as my kiddos got to our classroom, they found a letter from the Pumpkin Snatchers.

The Pumpkin Snatchers told us that they love to eat certain letters. We needed to go and hunt for them around the school by following the candy corn trail they always leave behind. Before the hunt, we sang the song the Pumpkin Snatchers left us...my kiddos love to sing even though their teacher cannot carry a tune AT ALL!!! :)

When we got back to the classroom, we saw that the Pumpkin Snatchers had come by and left us some goodies. We had the Pumpkin Snatchers game, several little pumpkins, and the recipe to make Pumpkin Slime.

We read the letter from the Pumpkin Snatchers again to help us remember that they only love to eat the letters in the word PUMPKINS. We sorted the letters they like and the ones that they dislike. After sorting the letter cards, we used the letters in the word PUMPKINS to spell different words. I am always amazed and the things my kiddos notice when we do different word study activities.

(sorry for the glare)

We practiced playing the game and investigating the letters the Pumpkin Snatchers ate. In the pumpkin container are the cards and the magnetic letters needed to spell the words. This game is great practice for isolating beginning, medial, and final ending sounds. My kiddos are dying to play this during Daily 5! :)

Finally, we made Pumpkin Slime using the recipe the Pumpkin Snatchers left us. Add some food coloring and some pumpkin pie spice and your kiddos will go crazy for this! :) 

We made several batches and they all turned out a little different but still oodles of fun! I didn't get a picture of the slime actually dripping from their hands but here is just a peek at what we did.

I think the Pumpkin Snatchers may be one of our favorite visitors this year! Hop over to my store to check it out!

Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy. I'll choose a winner tomorrow morning. :)

From My Heart to Yours,

Stamina Critters

WOW-zers...How in the world is it already October???!!!??? I am not sure where the end of August and the whole month of September went! We have been very busy in 1st grade...all 22 of us. Our class sizes are usually around 17 so 5 extra kiddos make a HUGE difference in EVERYTHING we do! I know many, many of you have larger class sizes than this...all I can say to that is Bless Your Hearts- You amaze me! :)

We are doing Daily 5 for the first time this year so we are really working on our STAMINA in all we do! Because there are so many of us, we started by working on our stamina on the Learning Rug. I have a very verbal groups this year who are experts in sharing...we are just needing to work on sharing about learning at the appropriate time! :)

After talking and writing about Our Learning Rug promises, we learned a song about stamina!

Later that day, we had a visit from the Stamina Critters.

Here is the poem they sent us. :)

When the Stamina Critters arrived, they quietly started talking to me. I would hold one up to my ear and they would tell me about how they would be watching for children keeping their stamina. They would really be watching for kiddos working quietly. As I noticed kiddos staying on task and working quietly, they would get to go and add a Stamina Critter to the jar. Sometimes I hear Stamina Critters calling out student names that they spy keeping their stamina. The kiddos swear they hear the Stamina Critters talking too....This is when I pray that I am not warping my kiddos too severely! :)

They are so stinkin' cute when they carefully take a Stamina Critter out of the basket and place them in the jar. They are always sure to place them in there so their eyes are watching us.

This has really helped my kiddos. They love to see how many of them can keep their stamina at different times during the day. I have even carried a Stamina Critter when we go down the hallway. Of course, it talks to me while we walk. We have been able to add 22 Critters before when everyone did Read to Self for 20 minutes with no call backs! :)

I hope to build my stamina back so I can blog more, I have really missed my sweet bloggy friends. :)

From My Heart to Yours,