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!)
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.
Happy Fall my friends!
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