Growing Vines and Having Good Times: A Freebie

My teaching buddy loves growing pumpkin vines and did this right after Halloween when pumpkins were easy to find. She scooped out all the gooey stuff while the kids watched and helped and left all the pumpkin seeds in the bottom. Then she added soil. After a few days of sunshine and water this pumpkin sprouted and the children exploded with enthusiasm. This is so easy and your students will love this simple science. I swear it grows bigger each day and the children look forward to coming to school to watch their pumpkin grow! I hope you try this with your class. It is the perfect activity to use with the sequencing cards I provide as a freebie in the previous post. Grab them if you haven't had a chance.
We always continue to talk about pumpkins through the month of November since young children love measuring them, predicting if they will sink or float, etc. Don't forget to do a guided drawing of the life cycle if your students are ready for this. If not, just teach them how to draw a pumpkin. 

Kindergarten students are learning many sight words that are needed for them to build fluency with their guided readers but many continue to need additional practice learning those crucial works. This is one of my favorite games and it takes no time to put it together. I hide a slice of pumpkin pie behind a word and the game is over when the winner can read the word, removes the card and finds this card! I have a little chant that the children do before a child picks a card! Most children figure out that I place the special card behind a more challenging word and it motivates them to learn these quickly. I have been playing this game for years and it is a classroom favorite. If you want to have a copy you can find it here. If you take a copy please leave a comment telling me a favorite fall game you like to play with your class. We all love getting new ideas!

In my room turkeys are beginning to appear ...

This is just a fun game veteran teachers have been using for years to build sight word knowledge. If you have ELL's change it out a bit and have them come up to the pocket chart and use a sentence such as, "The word is here." This is a quick and easy routine you can do daily and keep it fresh by changing out the graphic! I repeat sight words that I want them to practice with greater frequency.

What Fish Did You Catch?

Click here for this recording sheet

When playing with a partner students can "fish" for a sight word, identify it and color it in on their recording sheet. They can read all these words to their partner when the game is over.

Catch Anything?

                                                                                                                                                               

Click here for the fish cards

Here is an oldie but goodie:



My kids love using a fishing pole  that has a magnet on it to "fish" for sight words. Sometimes I do this whole group and we put the words up on the board to keep count of them and use tally marks. When a child fishes for a word and pulls it out of the ocean, he says the word and spells it. I want as much "bang for my buck" as possible! This can also be used as a literacy center with a partner. I made a recording sheet for them to color. You can download the fish as a freebie from me! These sight words are from our Open Court Reading Program.

I laminated each page with my home laminator (thicker lamination)

and put self adhesive magnetic strips on the back. The strips were from Walmart and are very inexpensive. Lakeshore has the fishing poles. The kids love this! Try it.