Fall Party Games!

Looking for some last-minute ideas to play at your fall party? Well, look no more!  Here are some ideas for fall party games to play:

 

1. Last Man Standing (four pictures placed around the room- examples: witch, frankenstein, skeleton, pumpkin)

Everyone starts standing near whatever picture they want. Teacher draws a card and let's say it's the Frankenstein....whomever is standing by frankenstein is out and goes to their seats.

The people who are left can stay where they are or move to one of the other pictures in the room...when everyone is settled in their new spots, pick another card (the Frankenstein card gets put back in)

The object of the game is to be the last man standing. You can move around as much as you want just don't get caught!!!!

2. Pin the face on the pumpkin

Use a real pumpkin and have sticky vinyl shapes ready to be pinned on the pumpkin. (Shapes include triangles for eyes, oval for nose, smiley mouth, mustache, etc..). Blindfold students and have them place one of the stickers on the pumpkin. This will make a funny pumpkin face when all stickers are used!

3. Witch Hat Toss

Use a pointy witch-like hat, stuff it with newspaper to hold the shape and place hat on the floor. Use a couple of pipecleaners (intertwined) and make a circle with them (make 2 or 3). Students toss the pipecleaners toward the hat and try to get a ringer!

 

Thanks to Kim  for these great ideas!

Traveling Across Time Zones!

In Social Studies yesterday, my students got to go on a little field trip...across time zones! Many of my students had never heard of time zones or had ever given them much thought, so this was a fun lesson to do. :) I started by showing my kiddos this map and discussing the color changes in it. I had them make observations and we discussed the times shown at the top of the map. Then I wrote on the board: TIME _ _ _ _ _ . It didn't take long for one student to guess what we were talking about (my other students immediately said, "Wow!! Good Job!!") We then talked about how the time zones exist because the sun moves over each part of the country at a different time of the day,and that's why each time zone is an hour different than the one next to it. This made sense to my students, and after a little more discussion about the topic, we began the fun! We listed a few places that we would like to visit and marked them on the map (Disney World, Disney Land, NYC, etc..). We discussed what time it was now (in Kansas) and what time it would be if we traveled to a specific destination. It was fun for my students to "hop" across time zones. After several times of practicing this, I had my students start on the east coast and tell me what time it was in Oregon. They did great! I highly recommend this lesson! Click here to visit the map shown on this page! TIME ZONES and CONTAINED REGIONS/AREAS
-12	-11	-10	-9	-8	-7	-6	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	0	+1	+2	+3	+4	+5	+6	+7	+8	+9	+10	+11	+12

M|Y	X	W	V	U	Ter	S	R	Q	P	O	N	Z	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	K	L	M|Y

USA Time Zone Map- 12 HOUR FORMAT Time mode:24 hours or 12 hours (AM/PM) See Time map for State of Indiana Time map for Canada Time map for Mexico Time map for Caribbean / Central America

Monster Mania!

 

My students loved the mini-monster unit we did last week. We read monster poems in spooky voices, read a humorous story about a nasty little monster, and created some pretty awesome monsters for art projects. One of my kiddos' favorites for the week was Multiplication Monster! Students rolled a die to determine which numbers would be used for the monsters eyes, horns, arms, legs, etc... For example a student rolled a 3 (wrote it on the line) and then rolled a 5 (wrote that on the next line). Then he had to multiply 3 times 5 (or 3 groups of 5) by drawing an array. This is one of the first practices we have done with multiplication, and it was definitely a hit! Students of all levels were able to complete this activity and then once it was checked by me, students could draw a picture of their interesting-looking monster on the back!

We're Having a ROCKing Good Time!

 

My students had a great time getting their hands dirty during our science stations last week! We've been busy learning about rocks, and these stations helped the young scientists in my class to further  investigate and observe rocks and how they can change. Here are the stations we completed:

 

1.) Making Dirt! Students used items from nature (pine cones, rocks, clumps of dirt, sticks, etc...) and broke it down to make dirt (hence the name of the station!) They LOVED this station!

 

2.) Shake, Rattle, and Roll! Cinnamon sticks, chalk, and sugar cubes (or bouillon cubes) were placed into baby food jars (separated out individually). Then one jar combined all three items. Students recorded their observations for each jar, and then they shook them up to discover what changes these items went through. This helped students to investigate how some rocks can easily break down (chalk, cubes) like soft rocks. The cinnamon sticks are much more difficult to break down and have material fall off of them (like harder rocks).

 

3.) Read a Rock Book Various types of books discussing erosion, soil, and rocks were available. Students then discussed new things that they learned about one of those subjects and added to our bulletin board.

 

4.) Comparing Rocks- Students brought in a rock from home and compared it with one of their friends' rocks. They recorded these observations on a Venn Diagram.

 

5.) Soil Station-Students also brought in a sample of soil from their homes and were able to investigate living and nonliving things from their samples. They took a few spoonfuls of soil and spread it out on a paper plate so they could sift through the dirt/soil. Many students found grass, rollie pollies, and one student even found a tiny tomato in his soil!

Shake, Rattle, and Roll!

Read a Rock Book

Comparing Rocks

Living or Nonliving- Soil Samples

As a reward, my students also got to be excavators using toothpicks and cookies! Their task was to dig out as many chocolate chips as they could in a certain amount of time. They absolutely loved doing this, and of course, they enjoyed eating it at the end as well!