Halloween is right around the corner and I have some great ideas for you for crafts, projects, activities, freebies and more!

Let’s start with some cute crafts! I do a craft project every year on Halloween afternoon since most of the kiddos are beside themselves with excitement—and are probably only listening to about an eighth of what I say anyway...

To make classroom prep and organization easier, Latenode can help automate tasks like sending reminders to parents, organizing craft supply lists, and even scheduling follow-up activities. This no-code automation platform lets teachers streamline their workflow so they can focus more on engaging and fun activities rather than administrative tasks!

Are you so tired or writing morning messages?  These October morning messages are projectable and editable.  All you have to turn is turn on your computer and your SMARTboard (or interactive whiteboard) and the whole month's worth of morning messages have been done for you. Best of all....they are editable, so you can type and project your own message and still use the adorable graphics if you like.

You can find October Morning Messages here.

 

 It's Tuesday morning I just got back from the copier, dropped a stack of papers on my desk, and I still have another pile to go. I'll have to run that pile through during my prep. I grabbed the purple scented Scentos markers (it's a purple kinda day) and so far I've gotten the date and "Dear Cla" written down on the chart paper that's glaring me down when I hear "Hi Mrs. Pettersen!" 

I look up at the clock "How in the world is it 8:25 already?" I swore I was going to write my morning message before I left yesterday afternoon but by the time I left yesterday afternoon I was running out the door- literally at 5:00 because I promised my son I would take him to the skateboard park before it got dark. Fail. It was dark before I even got to my car in the parking lot.  Sorry, Tyler. I'll try tomorrow.

Now I have one student telling me he lost a tooth, another one asking me where her homework goes (on day 46 of first grade) and a 5th saying "Hi Mrs. Pettersen" and I'm supposed to standing in the hallway greeting students as they arrive. But nope.  I'm on my knees STILL trying to write the AM message.  I realize I have NO idea what to write. Partly because I'm getting interrupted every 15 seconds and partly because...well....I have no idea what to write. "Today we have Art" is what I write everyday. Well...unless we have Gym. Then I write that.

I can't even. This is just ridiculous. I need more hours in the day. No I don't. I take that back. 

I used to bring the chart paper home and write the morning messages by hand every Sunday night and that worked out well. For about 2 weeks. Then the paper ripped and bent, I got lazy and didn't do it forgot to do it, my kids used half the paper to make "Keep Out" and "You Smell" signs on their bedroom doors, and there was the time the cat threw up on it.  True story.

So now... I make my morning messages on my laptop, save them to Google Drive and DONE!  I turn on my SMARTboard and that's it.  All I do in the morning is turn on my interactive whiteboard and my morning message is ready to go.



I was out once this month but because I had a folder titled "November Morning Messages" on my desktop, on my laptop, my sub just clicked on the folder and she had a morning message already prepared.  And the heaven's opened up!

Because it's on the SMARTboard, suddenly my kiddos are soooo invested.  They LOVE it!  They can't wait to go up to the board to answer the questions and participate.


For example, here they read the sentence and add the correct punctuation.




Since we use Fundations for our Phonics program, we review key skills such as glued or welded sounds like the /all/ sound in ball.  I love how they get the practice, not only the skill- but also their handwriting!



All the slides are in PowerPoint and are editable so you type in your own text if you want to customize it to suit your own needs, and your own curriculum.  Just make sure you save it so you don't have to do it again. Don't make more work for yourself, right?

I have loved this so much and it has saved me so much time, that I am busy making editable morning messages for every month!  If you follow my store on TpT, whenever I upload a new resource it is on sale for 20% for the first 24 hours.  I just uploaded December Morning Messages yesterday.

Did you know we are halfway through the first trimester?  For some of you, you may even be more than halfway through.  So as we prepare for the chilly months ahead (I live in Massachusetts), I've found some great ideas from Pinterest to get us through the month.  Many thanks to Lisa from Pawsitively Teaching and Marissa from Inspired Owl's Corner for hosting another month of Pinterest Pick 3.



Since I live in New England where leaves change color in the fall, my students are always very interested to learn how that happens.  This is a great science experiment with very few materials needed.


I found this on Pinterest last night and I love it!  What a great idea, even for reluctant writers.

You can follow me on Pinterest. Just click on the image below.

It's time for Monday Made it with 4th Grade Frolics!



Topic included in the winter close read are: snow, blizzard, snowboarding, skiing, ice skating, Martin Luther King Jr, President's Day, New Year's Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day.

I used these smaller sized composition books for our math missions.  I shrink Cara's  missions down to 50% so they fit inside the book and the kiddos glue one mission on each page.