Happy New Year and Snowman Nonsense Words!

Hi all!!  I didn't actually drop off the face of the earth, I just acted like it! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year's Day.  I'm in the midst of cleaning up Christmas but the new semester is looming and I felt the need to work on school stuff.  So....I just put together a very simple nonsense word activity. Not enough brain power to come up with an amazing game but this will be a good "Go-To" Activity during literacy center rotations.  The kids can practice reading the words with a partner and then record them on the half sheet.

***On a very exciting note....we are on day 170 of my husband's deployment to Afghanistan!!  Two weeks from today, I will be on a plane to meet him in London for a few days!!  This CAN'T be my life!  Pinch me, I have to be dreaming.  Now, just to whip out a week's worth of lesson plans and I'm off...

Thank you so very much for your thoughts and prayers, they have meant a great deal. :)

Snowman Nonsense Words

Our Pumpkin Book!

You would not believe how late I am in even STARTING this pumpkin book!!  Seriously...it will be November next week and we aren't  finished with the FIRST page! We'll make it but the ground is a little shaky right now...

So, of course, we had to have a poem for the month for our Poetry Journals.  I had originally planned to have several poems a month for the journals but reality has reared it's not-so-fun head and I think we will be doing good to get in one poem a month.  Such is life...

Anyway, I pulled out the poem board I made for Five Little Pumpkins last year and lo and behold, it held up pretty well.  I wasn't certain how it would last since it is an interactive board for the kids to use during reading rotations. I bought all the cute little wooden pumpkins, fence pieces, moon and stars at the Hob Lob last year but they still carry them, I checked. :)  I glued it all down on a foam board and velcroed the poem cards to the board.  We have practiced and practiced reading it and will add it to our Poetry Journals next week.

Next we will make our Five Little Pumpkins artwork for our Pumpkin Book.

I staple 4-5 pages together and cut the edges in the shape of a pumpkin.  I did not come up with all this cleverness... the fabulous ladies on my team were doing this before I arrived on the scene, I am just good at copying.

Here is the Five Little Pumpkins page.  You can use Popsicle sticks for the fence or strips of brown construction paper.  It varies from year to year depending on my mood ....and my supplies.

Below is the page to use with the Poetry Journals. I tried to leave enough room for the kids to illustrate a picture next to each line.  Remember, Jessica Meacham has all kinds of poems ready to print for Poetry Journals,  I got this amazing activity from Jessica and have loved watching the kids get a handle on rhyming, punctuation and sight word recognition through this process.  Check her out  here!

Five Little Pumpkins


This is the pumpkin pattern page that I will copy onto orange construction paper for the kids to make their artwork for the book.  The script I will use on this page follows.  Have fun! 
Five Little Pumpkins Pattern Page 001

Five Little Pumpkins Script