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I have been very busy over the past two weeks, so this has been the first chance I've been able to sit down and blog! Two weeks ago, we read
The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano. I bought the iPad app when it was on sale for $.99, and it was well worth it! You can choose to have it read to you, read it yourself, or even record your voice reading it for the kiddos. I chose to have it read to us, and the kids LOVED touching the pumpkins, scarecrow, farmer, and all of the other interactive pictures. As we read, we learned new vocabulary words, shapes, and how being different is so special!
Spookley is a square pumpkin that gets teased by all of the round pumpkins in the beginning, but goes on to save them all during a terrible storm. After this, the round pumpkins learn that being square might not be so bad after all. At the end of the story, the farmer plants "special" seeds like Spookley's and grows a variety of pumpkins on his farm. This has to be my favorite Halloween story because of its amazing message! It is all about being different, tolerance, and acceptance.
This gave me a wonderful idea for our Spookley craft! I cut out different colors and shapes for our pumpkins. I let each child choose their color and shape to decorate. I then attached a craft stick with the child's name on it to put in our pumpkin patch! The kids were engaged through this entire activity (from reading the book to making their own Spookleys)! This craft also gives you a wonderful opportunity to ask wh- questions and use descriptions.
Spookley was such a hit, the kids were asking to read it again last week! Instead, we read Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley.
Before we started the story, we went over shapes, colors, descriptive words (squiggly, scraggly, etc.), and body parts. The first time I read the story, I didn't let the kids see the pictures. While I read, I had them draw the BGM's face just by listening to the color, size, and body part. Then, I read the story again. This time I let them see the pictures, but they didn't draw anything. Finally, I read it a third time, and again didn't let them see the pictures. All of my students who did this used the right colors each time! I was very impressed :)
During our second session, we made our own BGMs. I cut out each body part (which took forever!) from a template I found
here! I asked the kids to build their monsters as we read the story. Then, we glued our monsters on a sheet of black construction paper with this
freebie I found at Dream Big Kinders!
The kiddos were very excited when they walked in my room and saw this guy on the board!
This is one of our completed projects!
In speech, we were busy making spooky speech webs! I made a sheet with Halloween graphics from MyCuteGraphics.com for the students to find their speech words in. Then they cut them out and glued them onto their web. The students worked on these while I went around with the iPad to do some drills. It worked perfectly, and the students stayed engaged throughout the sessions!
