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monster books

Here are some of the monster books that we read this month:


Spider Facts

We have been busy researching spiders. Here is a list of facts that we learned about spiders and a movie of our spider project:
  • spiders have 2 body parts
  • all spiders make silk
  • spiders spin webs
  • baby spiders are called spiderlings
  • some spiders are poisonous
  • spiders like to climb
  • spiders eat insects
  • spiders don't stick to their webs because they are covered in oil
  • spiders have blue blood
  • spiders have fangs
  • some spiders carry their babies on their back
  • most spiders have 8 eyes
  • spiders have 8 legs
  • spiders like to build webs at night
  • spiders turn their food into soup and suck it up
  • the biggest spider is as big as a dinner plate
  • spiders have spinnerets
  • spiders are arachnids
  • spiders smell with their legs
  • spiders are different sizes
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Ask your child to tell you what they learned about spiders this month.

Kindergarten Tree Project

As part of our year long study of trees we are collecting pennies to buy a tree to plant at our school. We are going to use this map of our school to choose and vote on where we should plant our tree.
We are going to vote on what kind of tree we should plant. A sugar maple, white oak or a Japanese Zelkova.
Here are the pennies we have collected so far. We are going to be collecting pennies until November 4th. It has been very exciting for the children to dump their pennies into the jar. Stay tuned as we make some very important decisions about our tree and find out how much money we have collected. A special thanks to Denny McKeown for working with us on this project!

Our Trip to the Fire Station

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10 Black Dots


We have been doing an author study on Donald Crews during writing workshop. We talked about how Donald calls himself an idea collector and we have been using his books to write list books. During math we read Donald Crew's book 10 Black Dots and created our own "black dot" pictures.

3 black dots can make a smiley face

4 black dots can make a leopard

4 black dots can make an alien

2 black dots can make a cat

10 black dots can make soldiers
3 black dots can make a boat
8 black dots can make an alien


Gigi's Window



One of the sweetest people I know wrote the sweetest story about a little girl's visit to New York City to see her grandmother. Gigi's Window is a great story to use as a mentor text for writing workshop. So many children will be writing stories about visiting their grandparents after reading this book. Thank you Missy for writing this book and for inviting me to its premier and your first book signing! I hope it is your first of many because I am already looking forward to your next book:) If you would like to learn more about Missy and her book visit gigiswindow.com.

Missy reading us her book in front of Gigi's window.



If You're a Monster and You Know It


We have been reading lots of books about monsters and doing lots of monster activities. We read Ed Emberly's new book If You're a Monster and You know It and made monsters out of Model Magic.

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Wow!!!!

I am soooo excited....my blog just won an award!!!
Thank you to whoever out there found my little blog and decided that it was award worthy!!
Check out all the winners at Teacher Salary.

Happy October!!

We started off October with reading Go Away Big Green Monster and creating our own monsters.
We also read Pumpkin Heads and made our own pumpkin heads.
(Click on the pictures to make them bigger and have your child find their big monster and pumpkin head.)

Yummy Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Trees

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Our Ann Marie Corgill Inspired Portraits

I met this amazing person this summer...Ann Marie Corgill. She is the author of the book Of Primary Importance: What's Essential in Teaching Young Writers. As you can see on the cover of her book, she has her students make self portraits to hang in her room. I knew from the second I finished reading this book that I wanted to have my students make these portraits.

So here they are...the Ann Marie Corgill inspired portraits my students created. They are on the wall for the duration of the rest of the year as a reminder of how amazing my students are and how they are the focus of what happens every day within the four walls of our classroom.
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