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Halloween Parties in the Classroom


Happy Halloween everyone!  Aren't you just lovin' that Halloween is on a Saturday this year?  I know I am!

We had a great day at school yesterday.  I wish I took more photos, but we were having too much fun!

First thing Friday mornings we have gym.  We played some fun Halloween themed tag games.  It was hilarious watching my kids turn into Zombies and wander about dragging a leg, moaning.

Afterward, students did a journal write with this picture a prompt:





I love hearing all the different perspectives about who this girl might be, where she is, and what big decisions she is making.

After recess, I carved pumpkins with my math crew.  We've been investigating the pumpkins for a few days now and it was fun to finally cut into them.  My mom asked me what pumpkins had to do with math.  Here is the list I sent her.  

We:
- weighed them
- found height, circumference, radius, diameter
- measured thickness of shell and the distance between the ribs
- investigated why pumpkins float
- estimated seeds, debated the best way to count them, counted them
- weighed an individual seed
- figured out the percentage of one seed compared to entire pumpkin weight

That's a lot of math!


The best part of counting seeds is that I can take them home and roast them!  The kids will love that little snack on Monday.

Here's the pumpkins on my front steps.  I told the class that if they found me, I'd give them extra candy!  I've had 3 come by so far.  Don't you just love the freckles on the one pumpkin?

 At my school, we don't dress up until the afternoon.  I loved this costume!  He had the perfect old man walk too!  I dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood, but don't have any photos.  I need to get some from friends.


I was blown away by the snacks at the class party!  They were seriously amazing!


 How did your class celebrate Halloween?


Check out my Pinterest board for more ideas!



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Dia de los Muertos Sugar Skulls


Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is a holiday celebrated on November 1 in Mexico.  The holiday honours the dead with lively festivals and celebrations.  Though I didn't have any Mexican or Latin students in my class last year, I felt it was important to share other cultures with my class.  Widen their horizons a bit.

After doing a small presentation on the holiday, we discussed one element in particular: Sugar Skulls.  Sugar Skulls are made of sugar as the name suggests.  They are highly decorated candy skulls that children buy and give to friends.  

I found several examples online of sugar skulls.

I printed one of each page and displayed them along the whiteboard.  Students came and took a close look at each.  When they returned to their seats, there was a blank piece of paper at each desk.

We folded the paper into 12 spaces.  I directed my students through drawing and labeling 15 line types (3 had to go on the back of the paper).  These included the basics (horizontal, vertical, diagonal) and some fancier line types (starburst, spiral, curled).

Once we had done all 15 types they had another close look at the sugar skull examples.  I asked them to tell me where they saw examples of each line type in the skulls.  We had quite a lengthy discussion and I was really impressed with how many they found!

Everyone got a blank skull template to create their own Sugar Skull.  They had to show me as many line types as they possibly could.  They fine lined their pencil lines and then coloured in with markers so they were really bold.

Here are three of my favourites:

This photo of my hallway bulletin board didn't turn out so great.  I didn't realize until it was too late....


This is a great project for teaching line type anywhere from grades 3-6.

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