Awesome October

October has flown by like a witch on a broom!  I can't believe its already the end of the month!  Here are some fun things we have done this month.

We learn about different character traits with Character Counts at our school.  October is the first month and we learned about Trustworthiness.  The color for Trustworthiness is blue so we all wore blue one day.  The firsties learned that being a trustworthy person means being honest, keeping your promises, and always being able to be counted on.

Amanda brought her stuffed cat for show and tell.  When she took it out of her bag a little part of me thought it was real for a second!

At a workshop this summer, I was introduced to a game called Tile Time to practice vocabulary.  We used the letter tiles that we have in reading centers to practice High Frequency words.  For this first time, I wrote the word down and the kids had to race to copy/spell the word correctly.  They were divided into 2 teams and could only chose one letter at a time.  Once they found a letter and placed it on the paper, it was the next person's turn.  The way the students picked up on this game amazed me!  We are now starting to use it every week to study our spelling words.  I say the word and the teams have to race to spell it correctly.

One of my absolute favorite new things this year is my implementation of Flashlight Friday.  I had seen this on Pinterest or something like that and I always wanted to do it but never actually did.  I bought mini flashlights on Amazon and the kids love using them.  I pull the blinds and turn off the lights but the room isn't as dark as I'd like it to be.  Everyone grabs lots of books, pillows, and stuffed animals from the library area and hunkers down to read for at least 20 minutes.  At first I wasn't sure how this was going to go as I have had silent reading time previous years and it was never truly silent.  I'm not sure if its the fact that the lights are off or just the magic power of the flashlights but these kids are SILENT the whole time and I couldn't be happier!!  I am hoping to instill the love of reading that I have in them by having them do nothing but read.  It is only once a week, Friday, and they really work hard during the day so we have time for it :)  Here they are reading by flashlight.

Georgia found a nice dark spot under the table

I'll be back soon with Halloween fun!
~Ms. Anglin