Bats and Monsters

Today's theme was Bats and Monsters.  We reviewed the letters B and M.  During our morning Language Arts block the kids are split into two groups.  One group works with me at the reading table, and the other group works independently.  We've been working on "reading" independently during this time. 

 J really likes all the Halloween books in our reading box this month.

 At the reading table R and T were practicing cutting on the lines.  Part way through I figured out they weren't holding the scissors correctly, then I realized that they didn't know how to turn the paper so they didn't have to look at it upside down (like R is doing in the picture).  Cutting is a schooled skill.  This H sort comes from the Halloween Theme from 2 Teaching Mommies.

 We also worked on pre writing pages.  They had to get the monsters to the door.  R was so focused on drawing right on the line.  The pre write pages are from the Monsters theme by 2 Teaching Mommies.

 I pulled out the dot art for the boys (all boys today!) for the first time today.  They did a great job with the M is for Monster page from the Monster Theme by, yep you guessed it, 2 Teaching Mommies.  They have such great units that worked very well with our theme for the day.  Happy dance for me because I didn't have to create it.

 We also did "Thumbprint Bats" today.  J, also known as spider-man, loved using his spider-man hands to make the prints.

 T was the first to try adding to his thumbprints with a crayon.  He's starting to get the idea of intentional drawing instead of scribbling.

 I found this idea from another blog, I'm not sure which and as I tried to find it again I failed.  I adapted it to make it work for the supplies I had on hand.  We had a great time rolling the dice and putting the correct number of counting sticks into our monsters.

 We also measured bats today. This bat idea is from Chalk Talk.

 The boys had a great time putting all the money back into the jar, and what a great fine motor activity it turned out to be.