The Razzle Dazzle Classroom: It's Fall Y'all {Bats}

It's Fall Y'all!!! I seriously love the fall season! I love EVERYTHING about it... the crisp air, apple pumpkin scented candles, sweaters, dresses with boots, pumpkin spice lattes... I could go on and on!!! And, I REALLY love the fall season in my classroom! With the changing of the seasons comes bats, spiders, pumpkins, owls, and Christopher Columbus. I'm all about teaching with a theme and October is the perfect month for theme teaching!!

This year, I decided to begin the month of October learning about bats. So... this week we have been gettin' batty!! There are a TON of great bat books out there!! I love the book Stellaluna! I also love all of the "Bats at the...." books by Brian Lies!!!

We began the week reading Stellaluna.

Then.... we made these super cute bat hats. I always have to join in on the fun!!!! I usually just don't take pictures of myself!

While reading this story, we focused on the plot and character traits of Stellaluna. On their hats I had them summarize the beginning, middle, and end of the story in one sentence. They had to give another sentence to explain how Stellaluna felt at that point in the story.

Stellaluna was the PERFECT book to discuss fact and fiction. Although the book was fiction and written for our entertainment, we learned a lot of facts about bats. I had my kiddos record fact and fiction examples from the story in their reading journals.

We also read Bats at the Library. This was a super cute book! And, PERFECT to... {Ask and answer questions about key details in the text...}

Of course, we had to read BATS by Gail Gibbons! Is there a teacher out there who doesn't seriously love Gail Gibbons?!? When reading this story we focused on finding the main idea and supporting details. We completed this main idea/details page in our journals. Tomorrow, we are going to be writing bat paragraphs that include a main idea and details.

One of my guided reading groups completed some bat research. This was our first research project of the year and they did AMAZING! Some of my kiddos researched a specific kind of bat. I let others research bats in general.

This week we are continuing to work on building and expanding sentences.

On this printable my kiddos had to circle the naming part and underline the telling part.

One day for morning work, I had them use this printable to expand the sentences.

Throughout the rest of the week we will be reviewing statements and questions & facts and opinions. Facts and opinions might be the death of me this year! My kiddos are doing a great job writing facts and opinions, but identifying them is a whole different story!

We will be doing this sort in our journals tomorrow...

In math this week we have been learning about patterns.

We have explored even and odd number patterns....

We have also been exploring patterns on the number grid. My kiddos are learning that when adding 10 to a given number they simply have to go down one on the number grid {changing the number in the tens place}.

We completed this fun hidden graph from my bat unit.

We also had fun sorting true and false equations!! The equal symbol really confuses my students when it is moved around, so this activity was a big challenge! It was a perfect activity for working together in groups. I just love listening to my students think and reason with each other! Their little brains sure were working! {This activity came from my pumpkin unit!}