Highland Heritage Homeschool: October 2013

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Kindergarten Halloween, Autumn, & Farm Activities

From now until Thanksgiving, Colban will have Autumn and Farm themed activities in addition to his regular work, and also Halloween activities until the end of this month. Here are some of the highlights from the past week:

I love this pumpkin freebie from Kay Sommer! There are lots of options for differentiating this activity, but we just stuck with the simplest option - counting to 10. Colby traced the numbers on the strips, then we cut them apart, fastened them at each end with brads, added the leaf and a bit of curly green ribbon, and . . .

. . . ta-da! A beautiful little 3-d counting pumpkin!

Colby is quite pleased with it, and I love how it looks in the classroom. Here's where you can grab a copy of this fabulous freebie: Let's Count on a Pumpkin! {FREE}

We also had a lot of fun with this Ten Little Ghosts Number Order Freebie by Crayons and Curls.

We cut out the ghosts, and Colby glued them in the correct order on a sentence strip.

There was one blank ghost, so Colby wrote his name on it and stuck it on the bottom :-).

He did more cut-and-paste addition problems from this activity packet (more about this in the previous post - check it out!)

This FREE farm animal graphing activity is from Teaching With Nancy. There are 3 different farm animal data maps and corresponding recording sheets included! (The data sheets are actually 8.5" x 11" - I printed them out half size to save ink, which I never seem to have enough of!)

Here's a closer look at the recording sheet . . .

. . . and the data mat. Colby will be completing the other two in the coming weeks.

This super-cute Spooky Ten Frame Write the Room activity is by Marsha McGuire. There are two sets of cards and two recording sheets - one for numbers 1-10, and the other for numbers 11-20. We did them both, on different days. Colby loves it when I hide the cards around our classroom like Easter eggs.

He finds them all and brings them back to his seat to complete the activity.

Another great freebie from Teaching With Nancy! You can get a set of these farm themed count-and-clip cards here: Farm: 0-10 Counting Clip Circles. (I took lots of pictures of Colby using these, but for some reason they all came out blurry.)

Here's our craftivity for the Letter I! To make the icicles, Colby squeezed a lot of Elmer's glue onto the paper, and then we tipped the paper upright just enough for the glue to start running down. When Colby was satisfied that the drips looked like icicles, he added silver glitter. When it dried, he finished off the wintry look with sparkly snowflake stickers.

This batty rhyming activity is a freebie from Can Do Kinders! Colby sorted the bats with rhyming pictures on their wings onto one mat, and the ones that didn't rhyme onto another. This was actually a little trickier for him than I expected! We'll just have to keep practicing.

You can download a copy of this free activity HERE.

I wish I'd printed off these free alphabet pattern block cards sooner! Colban just doesn't get sick of them, and they're an excellent way to practice letter formation.

You can download these HERE, from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

How cute is this interactive song book from Sprinkles to Kindergarten?!

As we read the poem "5 Little Pumpkins" and as Colby turns the pages, he gets to see the pumpkins disappear one by one!

He loves to lay on the carpet and flip through it again and again. You can get a copy here:

5 Little Pumpkins: An Interactive Song Book

For this Beginning Sounds Matching activity from Fall Fun: Math and Literacy Activities by KinderKids, Colban matched the pictures on the bales of hay to the appropriate letter scarecrows.

He completed the recording sheets, and of course, he had to color them! This packet has 5 different autumn themed activities, and like everything in the KinderKids TpT store, it costs only $1!

Colby used these beautiful harvest themed alphabet cards from Rakin' in the Learning (more about this in the previous post) to match upper- and lowercase letters.

We read ABCs of Halloween by Patricia Reeder Eubank. Aren't the illustrations just beautiful?

For more ideas and links to great freebies, try these Pinterest boards:

FREE Autumn Printables {Educational}

FREE Halloween Printables {Educational}

Halloween Crafts & Activities For Kids

Autumn Crafts & Activities For Kids

Blogs and TpT Stores mentioned in this post:

Confessions of a Homeschooler

Kay Sommer

The Constant Kindergartener

KinderKids

Sprinkles to Kindergarten

The Printable Princess

Friday, October 18, 2013

Kicking Off Halloween!

Here's a quick look at what Colby's been up to this week!

These super cute spider themed number matching cards are from a great activity packet that we'll be using a lot this month.

There was also a third set of cards with twenty frames that we haven't worked in yet. Colby is still getting used to ten frames, and I figured recognizing numbers up to 20 would be enough of a challenge for right now.

These awesome spider counting worksheets are from the same packet: Spiders! Interactive Playdoh Mats, Counting Centers and Games, and Printables by Differentiation Station.

Another amazing packet we'll be using this month is Halloween Math Art Activities in Printable Worksheets, from the Constant Kindergartener.

I love these cut-and-paste addition problems. Colby does too! He puts so much effort into it.

Here he is, working hard!

He especially likes to color them when he's done pasting.

We'll be doing one activity from this packet every day until Halloween. There are 90 pages of activities (lots of different kinds!) and it covers subtraction as well as addition. I'm sure we'll be able to use it next year as well!

Here's my proud little man with his "S is for Seeds" project!

We found this idea on Pinterest - you can check it out here. It was a great way to use up some of our leftover garden seeds.

Both of the boys love this spooky Halloween number train from Sister Prints by the Prince Sisters! Colby uses the pointer (found at the Dollar Tree) as he counts to twenty. At the end of the month I'll take it off the wall and he can practice putting the cars in order!

I printed the cars out half-sized because I didn't have enough wall space for the full-sized train. I wish I did!

Here's a closer look at some of the train cars. Cool, right? You can buy a copy here: Halloween Train Number Set.

Colban worked really hard on this autumn themed Write the Room. Instead of sending him around the room with a clipboard, I hide the word cards throughout the classroom. He likes hunting for and collecting them! Then he brings them back to the table and completes the recording sheets.

Here's a look at the word cards and recording sheets. This activity is from Rakin' in the Learning {Fall Themed Kindergarten Literacy & Math Centers} by The Printable Princess. It is 174 pages of AWESOME! We'll be using activities from this packet every week until Thanksgiving break!

Colby put these great harvest themed alphabet cards (also from Rakin' in the Learning) in order. He was so proud of himself!

He's also going to be practicing this with the matching lower case cards.

After writing out the alphabet on the practice sheet, he insisted on coloring in all the details. It took a while, but it came out great!

Colban really likes measuring, and he really, really likes candy corn. This FREE activity from K. Kindergarten was perfect for him!

He was able to measure the Halloween objects with candy corn and record the results on the worksheet without any help!

Click here to grab your own free copy: Candy Corn Measuring

Luckily we had some candy corn left over the next day! Colby counted the correct number of candy corn "fangs" onto these Halloween characters! The card numbers go all the way up to 20.

Make sure to get a copy of this fun activity from Teaching Preschoolers while it's still FREE!

Halloween Fun Counting Teeth

This activity wasn't on the schedule for this week, but Colby was so pumped about it we went ahead anyway. Each parking lot is numbered. Colby loved counting out his matchbox cars and parking them.

When he was done, he continued to play with them for a long time. Such a great freebie, that can be used in so many ways! We found it here.

And finally, here's a really fun file folder game for practicing the five senses!

Here are the playing pieces. Just slip them into the pockets! For example, Colby put a nose (for smell) and a mouth (for taste) into the "pizza" pocket.