The Hospital

We are all looking for ways to save time and energy. I got this idea from Choice Literacy and I immediately implemented it in my classroom. During the course of the day when a student finds a book or a toy in need of repair they put it in the hospital. This is instead of interrupting me, or hiding the broken object. I can fix or throw anything at my leisure and the students learn responsibility.

The Mailbox

This mailbox was one of those finds that I knew I would use it when I got it but I didn't quite know how at the time. Well, it soon became apparent that I needed this for my "inbox". When the students need to turn work into me I tell them to put it in the mailbox. The mailbox is enclosed so papers can't fall out and get lost, and it is very easy to find!
You can find these mailboxes at hardware stores and sometimes in thrift stores and garage sales.

Word Walls

If you have an extra pocket chart and some sentence strips you can easily create your own seasonal word wall. For my young learners I make sure that each word has a picture attached. These help my ELL students also with vocabulary. Students can take words out of the pocket chart when they are writing independently.

Tales From the clothesline. Scarecrows and winter clothes.

November is the season of harvest and for some reason inspires scarecrows. The following are 2 scarecrow projects and related stories. Enjoy!






This scarecrow body starts with a double U shape. I precut these and made them by folding a standard piece of construction paper in 4 and creating the shape. When unfolded the full body appears.

Then I like to use raffia, paper and paper scraps to make the patches and hay stuffing. Then add a math element by having students cut circles and triangles for the head and hat.

This scarecrow is all about shapes. A rectangular piece of paper is it's body. Small paper plates make the circle shaped head. Triangles make the hat and rectangles make the arms and legs. Shapes can be precut while students need to decide how to arrange them to make a scarecrow.

Reads and Resources:

The Little Scarecrow Boy by Margaret Wise Brown, Illustrated by David Diaz

The Little Old Lady who was not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams, Illustrated by Megan Lloyd

The Hat by Jan Brett (These two are not specifically about scarecrows but are seasonal. I love how Jan Brett uses the side panels of her illustrations to show what other characters in the story are doing.)

Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Tabak

Going Batty!

This is a fun and easy way to make bats! This activity falls under science, parts of a mammals body. (Did you know that bats are the only mammals that fly?) And of course direction following.
You will need: cardboard tubes, black paint, paint brushes, black or brown tissue paper cut into rectangles, white crayons.
First paint the tubes black. When the paint is dry, cut triangle shaped slits in both sides of the tube.Slide the tissue paper into the slits. Add ears, eyes, faces and claws with a white crayon. Wiggle eyes are a fun option.

Bat Books

Bats by Lily Wood (non-fiction informational text)

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon (fiction)

There was and Old Lady who Swallowed a Bat! By Lucille Colandro, Illustrated by Jared Lee (Rhyming silly story)

Monsterously good reads

The Monster at the end of this Book. Written by Jon Stone, Illustrated by Mike Smollin, Published by Golden Books Publishing Company.
Students laugh out loud as Grover tries to prevent them from reading the book and coming to the end. He is very afraid of monsters you know. No Such Thing By Jackie French Keller, Illustrated by Betsy Lewin Published by Scholastic Inc. This is a side by side telling of a boy who is convinced that a monster is under his bed and a monster who is convinced there is a boy on top of his bed. Both the boy's mother and the monster's mother are frustrated as they insist, There is No Such Thing!

The Night the Scary Beasties Popped Out of My Head By Daniel and David Kamish. This is written and illustrated by a man (David) and his 5 year old son (Daniel). The pictures are fantastic and the story offers a creative way to deal with nightmare beasties.

Go Away,Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberly. Ed Emberly creates a big green monster element by element using see through paper cut outs. Then he makes the monster disappear. This is a great book for students to retell independently.

I also created a big green monster puppet to use as a story prop for this book. I used the fun foam sheets but felt would work just as well, and an odd mitten. I cut all the "monster facial features" out of foam and added Velcro so that they can be attached and taken off during the story.

This will be a great addition to literacy time!

Monster Art

This is a fun and easy project for anytime of year but works nicely into Halloween. I like to think of this as multimedia art sculpture with an element of following directions. Plan 2 sessions for this project.

What you need: cardboard (toilet paper) tubes. I pre glued 2 together. wiggle eyes (optional), construction paper, glue, scissors and tempra paint.



Each child receives a set of cardboard tubes. The child then paints the tubes with his/her choice of paint.

The 2nd day the child adds, eyes, facial features, hair and limbs if desired.


There is no set outcome of how the monster should look so children can feel successful regardless of scissor and glue skill levels and it provides low stress practice using these tools.