What's Happening in October

Look who's blogging! Crazy, right? October always seems like a super longggg month with no school holidays to get excited about. Sometimes it feels like five day weeks ends up being 50. I've been trying my best to use the weekends to shake the exhausted feeling I have running through my mind, body, and soul.

I thought I'd stop in today and give some quick updates with what's happening at home and in the classroom this month.

What's happening at home: I'm having a great time decorating the house for Halloween and enjoying the fall season for all it has to offer- cooler days, yummy recipes, and pumpkin everything!

What's happening at school: We're working on punctuation and its role in fluent reading and writing. I found a great resource provided by Erin at Once Upon a Classroom- she has Meet the Puncs anchor charts in her TPT store for free! The Puncs are characters that each represent a different type of punctuation- including Emily Exclamation Point, Peggy Period, and more! My students are eating it up, you must check it out.

We're also using these Glow-in-the-dark witch fingers from Target for our latest pointers when reading in small groups. The kids are loving them! 

If you have other fun ideas relating to punctuation or fluency, please share in the comments below! 

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Glitter Text @ Glitterfy.com

Contraction Surgery

Last week my students went to med school and within a half an hour they had graduated, were scrubbing in, and doing surgeries on patients. What can I say, they have a brilliant teacher! I kid, I kid. We were doing the infamous contraction surgery lesson and they ate.it.up.

I started off by picking up a contraction packet from First Grade Fever's TPT Store. 

The packet has a contraction surgery mini book complete with bandaid apostrophes! We didn't want the patient to "bleed out" so we made sure to glue those bandaids on really well. The packet also has a contraction match game and World's Greatest Doctor stickers that we made into necklaces once they had "graduated." 

I stopped off at Wal-Mart and picked up some masks and gloves from the pharmacy department. The students were floored and they looked so darn cute as they worked on their patients. They were commenting on how sweaty their hands were getting in the gloves, and wondered how real surgeons did it. One student accidentally cut off a letter when he didn't need to, and quickly whispered to his partner, "Don't tell the family, I'll just put it back on and they won't notice." Had it been a real hospital, we would've had lawsuits happening all over the place. 

I'm pretty sure these kiddos will never forget contractions. I had fun listening to the students and the kids had fun learning. Goal achieved.