• Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Shop
  • Contact
    • Email
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest

The Write Stuff Teaching

Helping Teachers Inspire Learners

Fall Writing and Science Activities

Spread the love

I am just loving all of the blog posts and photo sharing of all things FALL.  It’s a special time of year because it’s like you can see time moving as the colors of the leaves change and start to fall off. The colors are red and orange and yellow and oh so vibrant yet it signals that things are going to slow down a bit.

It’s funny how the season of Fall is like that, yet things in the classroom zoom up!  October is always a fun month with all kinds of Fall activities and Halloween excitement.   Yet, as teachers we still manage to engage our students by making learning fun and informative.

I love to talk to students about  harvest time.  We live in the suburbs but you don’t have to drive far to see farms and fields.  It’s important for children to know the hard work that is involved at the harvest time so that we can enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables all season long.

I find that the best way to do this is to involve the students in observations of apples and pumpkins.

The first thing I do is provide a 5 sense for Fall activity where students use their senses to identify sounds, smells, things they touch and taste as well as hear in the Fall. Some items I provide and some we find on a walk outside. (Not only is this great for Science, it’s also great for building a great Fall vocabulary for writing and it is teaching students mindfulness!)

Next, I provide apples for the kids to observe and use printables from my Write About Science unit for students to record their observations. I provide different kinds and colors of apples. Some I leave whole and some I cut so that they can see the insides as well. The discussions are so much fun to listen to!
After we have observed some apples we discuss the lifecycle of the apple.  I do this after we observe them so that they are more inquisitive and know what I am talking about. We then go back and do a few more observations.

Like a lot of teachers, I enjoy teaching about Bats in October.  I got to thinking that there are animals that seem to be representative of certain months or seasons.  Kids LOVE animals and are always engaged when we read about them, talk about them, or learn about them. For that reason, I created Animal of the Week. The first month – October – is done! It is becoming quite a popular little set!  You can use it as a supplement to your full units or as a center activity.

The 4 animals for October are spiders, bats, cats and squirrels. There are literacy activities that are differentiated for a few different levels (from printing the word spiders to completing sentences and reading passages) Students also get to learn and label the body parts of the animals. When students are done they have a nice little booklet.

Update!  Find the whole year long bundle of Animal of the Week here.
Towards the end of the month, students get so excited about Halloween that I love to use my Halloween Writing Centers. I have used it right on Halloween day and students had so much fun writing while in costume. I was amazed at the focus!

Happy Fall my friends!

  • Shelley The Write Stuff Teaching
  • « Small Group Writing Instruction That Works (A Blog Series)
    Small Group Writing Instruction That Works (Part 2) »

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Favorite Resources

    Search

    Categories

    subscribe via email

    Copyright © 2023 · Market Theme on The Write Stuff Teaching | Terms and Conditions | Cookie Policy