Johnny Appleseed week and a few Halloween things..

I must confess...I'm more than ready for Halloween. And so are my kids. I'm trying really hard to wait until this weekend to start decorating the classroom for my favorite holiday, so I decided this week we would learn all about apples and Johnny Appleseed. We're having fun with this, but I may have started sneaking in a couple of witches and black cats :) Here's some apple learning that we've been doing...and a few Halloween things :)

Aren't these caramel apples fun?? We made these and then had real caramel apples for a treat at snack.

Since we were talking a lot about Johnny Appleseed, I used this as an opportunity to introduce the genre of Tall Tales. We used this chart to help remember what tall tales are and what they must have in them. 

We also measured how tall we were in apples and graphed it, but I forgot to take a pic of it!

Switching gears...we started the comprehension skill Cause and Effect this week. This has always been a hard skill for my kids, but this group seems to understand it pretty well. Here's our helper chart we've been using:

Is anyone else having trouble teaching comparing number values?? My kids can order numbers great, but are really struggling with telling me which is greater or less. I made this center game to help. I'm working on a packet of Halloween themed math centers so hopefully it will be ready soon. This will be included in it :)

Oh my goodness gracious! These clip art fry phrases are a HUGE hit in my classroom. So far, we've worked on Aliens and Forest Friends. We've learned around 40 already. Today I introduced Trick or Treaters. They are loving them! We go over each one everyday at small group. Then at the end of the day if we have time, we play "Boys v. Girls" The kids form two lines (boys and girls) and I show a phrase on the Elmo. The first boy and girl compete against each other to see who can say the phrase first. They get so excited playing this and they have no idea they're practicing Fry Phrases. We had to stop the game today because they called for car riders and my kids actually asked to stay and keep the game going instead of leaving. Isn't that nice to hear?? :) :) I love when my kids are loving school! :)