It's Wednesday of Halloween Week...

How's it going?  Be honest.  Are things a little crazy? Ha-Ha

I know this week can be a little tiring and the closer you get to actual Halloween, and maybe a Halloween event at school, the more your littles seem to chat and squirm.  Am I right?  During weeks like this it is so important to keep your kiddos busy, busy and one way to do this is to have early finisher activities ready to go.  So today I'd thought I'd share a quick FREEBIE with you that is Halloween themed and can easily be copied off and set out for those early finishers.

This Halloween crown is a 1 page printable that your kids can color and fill in the beginning sound for the pictures on the back band.
Click the image below to grab it FREE.

Clip art by Krista Wallden of Creative Clips & Fonts by KG Fonts

And if you are still not sure what you will be doing on Friday for Halloween, I have a set of Halloween Stations that just might be perfect for you and your little ones.  Included in this set are 5 stations that you can have your kiddos rotate through for some organized fun!  They are great to use for what might be termed your "class party" to help keep the kids engaged but not have the typical HUGE party mess.  I have included direction sheets for each station which makes it easy for volunteers to run and station signs so students know where to go next.  Check it out.

Halloween Moves Activity

Spookley the Square Pumpkin Craft

Hope you all are surviving the week!  Happy Hump Day!

Little Boo! Book Activity

BOO!  I am always excited to come across a new story that I know will be just perfect for the season and last weekend I stumbled upon the book Little Boo by Stephen Wunderli.  Have you read it?  Heard of it?

Click to see it on Amazon

If not, it is a definite "add to your October collection now" book!  Little Boo is about a pumpkin seed who wants more than anything to be scary but this little guy just can't seem to scare anyone!   The wind tells him to "be patient" and what do you know, over time Little Boo grows and grows.  Finally, he is a big pumpkin and if you haven't guessed,  he is carved into a SCARY jack-o'-lantern.  At last Little Boo is scary.

I kind of fell in love with this story because it hits so many themes.  It's perfect for Halloween, great for a discussion about patience and growing up, plus it is a picture book that includes the lifecycle of a pumpkin.  Seriously, so many things can be done with this easy read.

After reading the story one thing I'd follow up with is a simple text-to-self connection activity and ask students to think of a time when they wanted to do something but couldn't because they aren't big enough yet.  Some examples of things they might say...drive a car, eat ice-cream whenever I want, ride roller coasters, be a doctor etc.  I'd then chart their responses and then have them do some writing.  My writing prompt would be a play on words and say "When I am a jack-o'-lantern ...." and I'd have students fill in their response.  Then I'd add a jack-o'-lantern craft for fun.   It'd make for  an easy display.  Here's an example of what it might look like...
You an grab the writing sheet for FREE by clicking the image below.

Have you read the story?  What follow up activities would you do?

XOXOXO

Five for Friday: Halloween

Happy Halloween!

It's days like today that make me miss being in the classroom even more!  Teaching on Halloween can be so much fun.  The costumes, themed activities, goodies, junk food in the staff room, and excitement make me so happy.  Fellow bloggers please keep posting about your fun filled week and day because I just can't get enough of all your Halloween classroom cuteness.  Oh and the bulletin boards - I die!  I kind of want to make a fake bulletin board wall in my house so I can try out ideas.  Hmmm... that might be weird but then again maybe cool?

So for Five for Friday I'm sharing a few things that I'd love to be doing in the classroom today and some at home Halloween happenings too!

I would love to be in the classroom today playing this movement freeze game with my kiddos.  I can just see them all dressed up "walking like frankenstein" around the room as Monster Mash plays in the background.  Or I'd use these movement cards the entire day as we moved about the room.  For example when moving to centers we'd pull a card and all "move" that way to our spots.  HaHa It'd be so much fun!

 Ummmm.... can you say score?  This little healthy spooky treat is not only yummy, but to make it, the littles would have to listen to directions, order the steps, and then follow their steps to create this cutie. They wouldn't even know they were workin' on listening and following direction skills!  Plus I think the parents would be happy to see this healthy treat alternative. :)

I'd enjoy finishing the school day off with this book!  This is another one of my favorites by Lucille Colandro and this time around it's Halloween themed.  The old lady eats a bat, an owl, a cat, a ghost, a goblin, and a wizard.  The end of this story would be the perfect way to end a Halloween day at school and I know that the rhythm and bright illustrations would keep the kiddos engaged for the last part of this spooky day.

See that bowl of candy?  It was much fuller last weekend.  I told my husband I didn't want to buy candy early because I know I have little self control when it comes to sweets, but did he listen? No. And so now I'm off to the gym before the trick-or-treaters arrive in hopes of burning off these sweets.

As for the hubs and I?  This Halloween will be filled with passing out candy, a pizza, and this Halloween favorite movie.

Don't forget to link up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday :) 

 Wishing you all a fantastic, fun filled day with your littles!  And a safe, Happy Halloween!

Halloween Dirt Cups

Yum!  Dirt Cups!  I know I'm 28 but I still love these chocolatey, creamy, crunchy desserts.  

The other day my husband came home from work and asked me if I could whip up a batch for his Halloween work party.  My first thought was those are kind of for kids, but then I remembered that 1. They are super easy to make and that's a plus and 2. Who doesn't love dirt cups?!  So needless to say he left for work this morning with 24 dirt cups in hand. :)

Here's the oh so simple recipe:

Ingredients:

1 3.9oz Package of Chocolate Instant Pudding Mix

2 Cups Cold Milk

1 8oz Tub of Whipped Topping (Cool - Whip)

1 15oz Package of Oreos 

1 Package of Gummy Worms for topping

1. Beat the pudding mix and milk with a wire whisk for 2 minutes.  Set aside for 5 minutes.

2. While waiting, take about 15-20 Oreos and crush them up.  I find it easiest to place them in a large ziplock bag and then crush them with a rolling pin. Set aside.

3. Once the pudding mix has thickened stir in the cool whip.  Then add about half the bag of cookie crumbs and stir until well mixed.

4. Evenly spoon the pudding mixture into 8 cups.  Tap the cups on the counter to level the pudding.

5. Now you're ready to decorate.  Top the pudding mixture with the rest of the cookie crumbs.  Then add gummy worms to decorate.  

Eat and Enjoy!  These dirt cups are the perfect addition to any Halloween bash - Little or Big!

*I also added an Oreo cookie that I wrote "RIP" on to make it more of a Halloween theme and I covered the spoons with a napkin, added eyes, and tied a knot for a "ghostly" touch.

Five for Friday!

Another Friday is here and that means it's time to link up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching.  Be sure to check her blog for more fun Five-for Friday posts!

Well, this week was jam packed with creating, updating, and fixing!

 I started the week off finishing up some editable sight word activities and I'm in love!  I included student direction pages for each of the 10 activities so that they could easily be placed in center tubs.  For the activities, I basically created templates so that it'd be easy to edit and change up the sight words, or any words really, whenever you wanted.  The reason I did this is because sometimes I find great sight word activities but I haven't yet taught those exact sight words, or maybe I'm using the Fry word list and the activity is for Dolch, or the activity might be themed but my class is working past these words or... the list goes on.  Anyway these activities can easily be edited over and over again and can even be used to help differentiate activities for students!  Change the words to meet individual student or group needs.

This week we had a little power dilemma!  A handyman came to replace a broken light switch in our kitchen on Tuesday and he did, but then a few hours after he left all our sockets stopped working.  Yes, all of them!  It turns out he ran some type of electrical test that may have tripped a fuse and long story short our power was out for about 18 hours.  This was no fun because our fridge got pretty warm and I no longer trusted the milk, eggs, and meat so I had to throw them out.  Thankfully it's fixed now but we did have to do an additional shop this week.  Blah!  I'm not the biggest fan of grocery shopping.

Look what my mom sent me in the post!  Aren't they adorable?  They make me smile.  They remind me of scarecrows and I love scarecrows.

  

Speaking of scarecrows, I started to put together my scarecrow unit and I am already thinking that it might just be my favorite unit yet!  Do you have any favorite units?  This unit will include crafts, no prep printables, centers, story follow up activities,anchor chart pieces, and more!

 Here's a a small peek at what it's looking like:

Halloween is just around the corner.  I mean literally it's next Friday.  Do you give your kiddos any special halloween treats?  I'm not a huge fan of adding to the sugar on this particular day so I like to give out something "non candy."  Here's a quick idea I whipped up!  Pick up some inexpensive glow bracelets or necklaces and attach a cute tag that reads"Stay bright this Halloween Night."  Simple, cute, and fun.  Click on the picture to download my tags for FREE.  Happy almost Halloween!

And lastly I just have to post this again in case you didn't know.  I am having a sale!  Yes, right now.  I was so excited that I finally set up my Lattes and Lunchrooms FB page that I decided to have a 15% off sale for the next 2 days.  Be sure to check it out and save :) 

Have a Fantastic Weekend.

Five for Friday!

I can't believe October is half way over!  This month is just flying by and before you know it, it'll be Christmas!  That. is. Unreal.  I guess that means I can start thinking about holiday shopping.... Hmmmmmm :)

Anyway back to October.  This week was filled with greatness and I'm here to share my...

Be sure to click above to link up yourself.

Last weekend my husband I traveled to Stockholm and Copenhagen!  Both are fantastic cities with delicious food, great people, interesting museums, fun tours, and fantastic sights to see.  Although a few of the days were cold and rainy, we still had a lot of fun.  Adding these two countries to our total count we can now say we have been to 16 countries!  So crazy and I still feel so blessed to have this opportunity.

I just finished up my Halloween Fun Stations!  I've never planned for a full week of Halloween themed activities but at all the schools I've worked at students have been allowed to wear costumes to school on one day, so I do some fun activities on just that day. (Don't worry the rest of my weeks are filled with fun themes like bats, spiders, and pumpkins just not so Halloween)  This costume day can be great fun (sometimes chaotic -ha-ha) so instead of throwing a sugar filled party I like to do Halloween Stations.  This set includes 5 stations.  Each include a station sign, activity directions, materials list, and any printable you may need. 

Basically I set up a "Halloween Celebration Afternoon" but you could do the activities throughout the day whole class style if you'd rather.   For afternoon stations I put out the 5 stations, break students up into 5 groups, and then rotate them from station to station.  They stay at each station for about 20 minutes and I provide Halloween books at the stations for early finishers.  We wrap up the day by having a "Halloween Walk the Runway" to show off our costumes one last time.  In the past I've asked for parent volunteers to run the stations as it is a lot of fun for both them and the kiddos.  The station direction sheets I made would make this easy for parents too!

New pots and pans!!!!!!  I was so excited when I checked the mail Wednesday to find that my Amazon order had arrived.  I have needed new pots and pans for awhile now and this set is beautiful! Ha-Ha  I've already used them twice and the non-stick surface is amazing.  Plus the handles actually stay cool so I can pick the pans up.  Do you get this excited over pots and pans?

That there is a new product cover!  Ok, so I just started selling on TpT about 2 months ago but already I started noticing how some of my covers for my first products weren't up to par with my newer ones.  So today I decided to update a few and re-upload them.  In just these few months I feel like I've learned a lot and want to make sure that I keep up with updates on older products as I go.  Here's another re-do!

Look at those Fall colors!  I just love that you can actually see signs of fall here. :)

Happy Friday!

*Click on any of the product pictures above to check them out!