Pumpkins! {and a freebie!}

Hello friends! We just finished up our week with pumpkins!! I might have said this before, but I love fall! The thematic units for fall are so much fun! Ok, anyway, here is  my week in pictures. {some are seriously blurry, I really need to bring my real camera instead of using my phone...} 

Here is our fall tree. The week we worked on -at words each student wrote as many as they could on their leaf and we added it to the tree. I meant to do the same with pumpkins this week and our word family. It didn't happen so we will do it and add to the tree Monday. I *think* the plan will be to keep the tree up all year and add seasonal die cuts to it with whatever we are working on. 

Here is our pumpkin exploration. I let each student dive in and grab what they could from our pumpkin. They got to put it in a zippy bag and take home (I know my parents just love that, lol).

 During recess, I brought the pumpkin outside for them to really clean it out and have fun.

Love their hearts, they planted the seeds!

 This is our thematic word wall with all the words we need for writing. The glove is for telling "5 Little Pumpkins"

The word wall cards and everything for the life cycle of a pumpkin can be found in my little store. Just click on the picture.

 

Here we wrote down our pumpkin investigation. Here is the link to the original idea.

Our song to sing about pumpkins. Here is the link to the original idea.

I love 5 Little Pumpkins. I changed the wording around a little to leave out witches (the only thing "Halloweeny" we can't use).

Our KWL chart. I love seeing what they already know and what they are curious about!

Here is some journal writing (and the perfect example of why I need to bring my actual camera). We have a thematic morning message and the students write and draw a response in their journal. 

You can check out the morning messages by clicking on the picture below.

 

We make class books for almost everything. They stay in our library for students to read. At the end of the year we draw names and everyone gets to take one home.

 I have no clue where this writing paper came from, but I love it! If you know, please let me know so I can give that wonderful person credit! 

Now, for the freebie. If  you would like to try out the morning messages you can try the one on bats for free! Just click the picture to download.

Thanks for hanging in on this long post! I hope you are having fun with fall festivities!