Halloween

I love Halloween. Unfortunately, not everyone shares my love, so my advice for this time of year is to proceed with caution. Early in my teaching career, I got into trouble. My first grade class and I made a witch's brew. It contained a lot of spicy good ingredients like cranberry juice and cinnamon sticks, but I went too far with my class.

     For example, I said, "Here is cranberry juice . . . or is it blood?"
     The kids all giggled.
     Then I said, "Here are cinnamon sticks . . . or are they bones?"
     Once again, the room echoed with the giggles of small children.

However, when the kids got home, their parents weren't laughing, and I was called under the carpet! This was over thirty years ago, at a time when few thought to question the fun of Halloween. Today, making a Witch's Brew would only be worse. So before celebrating witches and goblins in your classroom, you must make sure the principal and school supports this. Many Halloween parties have been replaced with Harvest parties, which could also spell a good time.

Halloween has certainly changed in other ways, too. Years ago, our doorbell used to ring nonstop with trick-or-treaters from the wee little ones to the teenagers. We'd make sure to buy lots of candy so that we wouldn't run out. In fact, once my brother ran out of candy, so he gave each trick or treater a can of Coke. This was a big hit because the same kids kept coming back.

Last year, we only had one trick-or-treater, so I didn't buy as much candy, this year. I hope we don't run out. I bought a six pack of small Cokes in case we do.

If you're looking for classroom fun, I have Halloween resources and Fall Resources. Here are a few possible buys for your kid's. They will love these!

Halloween Activities for Primary Students

Halloween Logic Puzzles and Brain Teasers

Autumn Logic Puzzles

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Now, since it's time for Musical Monday Moves Me, here are some fun Halloween tunes.

Here's a fun song from a fun movie! GhostBusters

I love the spooky music that goes with this video. HA! HA! I recently watched Halloween, with a young Jamie Lee Curtis, for the first time. This is a hoot.

For this last song, I figured I needed to post the entire sketch in order for you to appreciate the song. Plus, this was my son's, daughter-in-law's, and grand dog's Halloween costumes. Any questions?

 

And finally, here is my very own Halloween commercial, designed by my son. You'll be sure to get a chuckle.

Red Ribbon Week

Ribbon by, Kate Hadfield Designs
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Kate-Hadfield-Designs

Red Ribbon Week falls during the last full week of October and has been a tradition since 1988 to teach students about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. This annual tradition is marked by school assemblies, 5K races, bracelets, and other trinkets to remind students about the dangers of using drugs. Most importantly is a pledge which students sign to agree to be drug free!

I was once a sponsor of the Pride Team at our K-8 school. Upper grade Pride students were typically the middle school leaders. They were the kind of kids who could step into an elevator, face the back wall, and have all the other kids follow their stance. They would sing and put on skits to remind all to be drug free. Also, several of these kids attended national Pride meetings.

I used to commemorate Red Ribbon Week with a door design. I would post pictures of witches and ghosts at the top and drugs on the bottom, "Witches and ghosts give me a chill, but DRUGS are really scary!" I would also have my kids sign pledges promising to remain drug free and hang these on the wall. Did this work? With some, maybe even most, but not all, for sadly, I do have a few former students who have died from drug overdose.

To help you teach drug awareness, here is a free product from my store that I hope you will download and leave feedback!

Click HERE for FREE Red Ribbon Week Reading Passage.

And now, since it's Monday, here are my Monday Music Moves Me songs.

They are all about anti-drug topics, so have a listen to:

Neil Young, "The Needle and The Damage Done"

Next up, Lynyrd Skynyrd, "That Smell"

And finally, here is Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Under the Bridge," about Heroin addiction.

October Research

When a new month arrived, I'd find a lot of tidbits about the month through research. Why not have your kids research people born in October? They may choose a celebrity or famous person and write a report about him or her.

In searching October birthdays, I found the following people:

• Buster Keaton
• John Lennon
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Molly Pitcher
• Bela Lugosi
• Pablo Picasso
• Mahalia Jackson
• Teddy Roosevelt
• Sylvia Plath
• Emily Post

Perhaps your kids don't want to research these "old" people, even though it might be a great challenge for them. If that's the case how about researching the current celebrities listed below? If you're over 30, you've most likely never heard of most of these kids, but your students probably know them. Most are Gen Z stars through youtube or young pop culture.

• Brie Larson
• Alex Guzman
• PewDiePie
• Cardi B
• SSSniperWolf
• Queen Naija

Famous people born in October are not the only research possibilities. How about looking into famous historical events? Your kids could research the following:

• 1636 - Harvard was founded
• 1793 - Queen Marie Antoinette was beheaded
• 1871 - The Great Fire of Chicago started
• 1881 - shoot-out at the O.K. Corral
• 1884 - Greenwich began universal standard time zones
• 1908 - Henry Ford's Model T first went on sale
• 1927 - First full length "talkie" film, The Jazz Singer, opened
• 1929 - stock market crashed starting the Great Depression
• 1946 - Twelve Nazi leaders sentenced to death in Nuremberg, Germany
• 1957 - Russians launched Sputnik, first Satellite in space
• 1967 - Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first African American on the Supreme Court
• 1973 - Yom Kippur War against Israel started when Egypt & Syria attacked

Find products related to October below:

                                          

Click HERE for Historical Fiction Reading Passage on The Chicago Fire.

Also, find enough Fall Activities to keep your kids engaged and challenged throughout the month of October.

Click HERE to find the Autumn Activities Bundle

I send these posts to my mailing group; however, they get free resources along with the article. You can, too. Just join my group by clicking below!

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October Fire Prevention Week

Fire Prevention Week is here and definitely a good thing to teach in the classroom. I'll never forget when my son came home from a fire assembly worried about being on the second floor of our house. We bought him a flexible ladder to keep by his window, and that helped him to sleep well. That ladder has never been used in over twenty years, but it still sits below his upstairs window. I'm just thankful he never used it to escape out of the house during his teenage years. At least we think he didn't . . .

My best year in teaching fire prevention was when we entered our city's video contest. My kids had a blast making a movie about fire prevention. It won a prize and was shown to the school, so it may be worthwhile for you to search the local fire department to see if any contests are in place. If they aren't, there is nothing wrong with putting on a skit for another class. The kids will love it and learn about staying safe, too.

Click HERE for Historical Fiction Reading Passage on The Chicago Fire.

Also, find enough Fall Activities to keep your kids engaged and challenged throughout the month of October.

Fire Prevention Week Activities

I send these posts to my mailing group; however, they get free resources along with the article. You can, too. Just join my group by clicking below!

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Now, for a song!

Varying Sentence Structure

We've all seen our students write stories that begin with the same subject in each sentence.

                               


                               He went to the store.
                               He bought a candy bar.
                               He ate it on the way home.

         BORING.

Today's focus is varying sentence structure in writing, which can also be called using syntactic variety.

First off, if the subject is the same, students can combine the sentence into one sentence with series commas.

He went to the store, bought a candy bar, and ate it on the way home.

That fixes the feel of being in a car where the driver constantly slams on the breaks. Of course, this sentence has other problems, but if you've been following my writing articles, you know what to do!

Syntactic variety not only means joining sentences for smoother prose but also sprinkling short sentences along with the long ones to make for a better sounding passage.

In Love with Chocolate!

When Malcolm entered the Sweetie Pie candy shop, he spotted his favorite chocolate bar. The dark chocolate Millie bar, complete with marshmallows, almonds, and honey waited for the taking. Yum! Unfortunately, the Millie is the most expensive candy bar in the shop. $3.45 for one delightful taste. It was worth it! He carefully dug a five dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to the waiting clerk. Before he could step out of the store, Malcolm had already ripped the wrapper. The sweet chocolate sloshed around in his mouth providing ecstasy!

Notice the shorter sentences sandwiched between the longer ones. Also, the sentences do not all start with "he" or use the same structure. That is syntactic variety. To teach this skill, have your students play with simple sentences or ideas. Tell them to include an interjection (Wow! Yay! Yikes!) somewhere between their long sentences. This technique will make their passages shine.

If you are interested in teaching students to vary their sentence structure, below is a link to a PowerPoint lesson that does just that.

PowerPoint Lesson Varying Sentence Structure

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I hope you've enjoyed my series on writing skills. Tune in next month where I will provide guidance on things to do in October.

Thanks to Kate Hadfield Designs for the clipart. 

Kate Hadfield Designs

Show Don't Tell

I was upset when the car hit my dog.

Those of us who own dogs certainly understand how someone would feel if they lost their pet. After all, my dogs are my children. But as a reader, simply telling someone that you are upset does not invite them into the story. In order to truly build an understanding, the writer must show the scene as it happens.

First off, I think of what I would do if a car hit my fur baby.

• cry
• scream
• stomp my feet
• bury my face in his fur, the grass, etc.

Sometimes when I am writing, I feel like an actress as I physically go through the motions of what I would do before writing it all down. After living the emotions in my mind, it's time to write a scene as if I were a part of it.

The red Camaro whipped around the curve striking my dog, Zep, and continuing on its murderous path. Darting to the road, I sank to my knees and buried my tear filled eyes in his cold lifeless body. "No. Oh, no," I cried. Next, a blood curdling scream escaped from my throat as I moved his remains to a patch of grass. Fisting the trunk of a tree, I knew things would not be the same.

When writing with description of what happened, the reader becomes more invested in the scene. To teach this skill, I give each kids a note card with a different emotion written on it. They must write out a scene to show this emotion but are not allowed to mention the given word in their writing. Students read writing aloud as classmates have fun trying to guess which emotion the student has written about.

• happy
• sad
• angry
• proud
• mean
• afraid
• confused
• embarrassed
• worried
• surprised

After students practice this skill, you could give them a simple scene and have each child practice writing what you describe. For example, the teacher could say:  "After we hit the nurse with snowballs, she was angry." Instruct the students to describe the scene and show the anger. What did the nurse do?

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Listed are PowerPoints to help teach this concept.

Show Don't Tell in Writing


Show Don't Tell

I hope you've enjoyed my series on writing skills. Tune in next week, where I will provide one final writing tip along with a prompt involving an October scene.

Thanks to Kate Hadfield Designs for the clipart. 

Kate Hadfield Designs

Using Multiple Senses in Writing

When teaching, how many of your students tell all about what they see in a scene? The visual is popular in young writers, but it's certainly not the only way to provide details in a story. We have five senses, so a writer who only includes the visual is short changing his or her readers. At a writers' conference, I was told that every time a character enters a new scene, that scene should be described with at least three senses.

To make students aware of multiple senses, I give them a handful of highlighter pens and ask them to color code their writing as follows:

• sight - green
• hearing - orange
• touch - pink
• smell - yellow
• taste - purple

• emotion - blue

After highlighting the senses used in writing, something is always missing, and it's usually not what the students sees.

Imagine a scene in the forest.

Sure, students can write about the green leafy canopy above, but how about including the sounds of the wind blowing those leaves and the crunch below their feet as they wander through the woods?

Or students could write about how they shiver in the cool breeze that spreads the scent of pine through the forest. Smell is quite powerful in writing because it often connects the reader to a memory. While smell provides the memory, taste means a challenge to the novice writer and is often the hardest sense to incorporate into a scene. When kids write about taste, make sure the taste has meaning in whatever is being written, rather than something thrown into a story for the sake of including the sense of taste. It is better to leave taste out altogether than to add it in a way that doesn't work for the reader.

I've also included emotion because a story with no emotion will come off as flat. After all, we are usually writing stories with main characters, and the more relatable the character, the more we will care about where they go or what they do.

Including multiple senses in writing is like colorizing a black and white movie. For a fun and productive lesson, have your students critique their own writing for senses and then work to add whatever is missing. Be sure to share the results!

If you are interested in teaching students to write using multiple senses, below is a link to a PowerPoint lesson that does just that.

Using Senses in Writing

I send these posts to my mailing group; however, they get free resources along with the article. You can, too. Just join my group by clicking below!

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You will also receive a FREE No Prep Problem Solving Pack!

Thanks to Kate Hadfield Designs for the clipart. 

Kate Hadfield Designs

Using Specific Nouns in Writing

I've often told my students to close their eyes and imagine a dog. Next, I ask them what they see. There are usually as many different answers as students in the room because writing about a dog just doesn't point our readers in any set direction.

However, if I ask them to see a golden retriever puppy, they know what to imagine, if they've been lucky enough to know one. When it comes to writing, the author wants to lead the reader into what it is that they see. That is why my second blog tip is to use specific nouns in writing.

Rather than writing about candy, try saying chocolate. Of course, chocolate is not enough. Maybe Hershey bar would be more specific or Hershey bar with almonds. See the difference?

To teach students how to use specific nouns, I like to throw out vague nouns and see what they can do to make them more specific.

• girl
• chair
• sign
• book

Which is better?

The girl sat in a chair under a sign and read a book.

OR

The two-year-old girl climbed into the wooden rocking chair, under the Furniture Department sign and studied the golden retriever puppy in her cardboard picture book.

Now, it's your turn to teach your writers how to use specific nouns!

I send these posts to my mailing group; however, they get free resources along with the article. You can, too. Just join my group by clicking below!

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If you want help with this skill, I have a resource for you.

Using Strong Nouns & Verbs

New and Free

Just a quick note to let you know what's new and FREE!

New:

Southwest Logic

Making Inferences

Free: 

Just like my blog, I've started a writing series with my mail group. The difference is that my mail group gets FREE products with each mailing. Why not join us?

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In joining, you will also receive a FREE No Prep Problem Solving Pack. 

Using Strong Action Words in Writing

I've always felt that one of my best tricks of the trade is to take away a boring verb and replace it with a strong action verb. For example, no one wants to read that, "The dog was sleepy." However, if you take away "was" and turn sleepy into the adjective before the noun, there is no limit to what you can write.

Writers can be typical:

The sleepy dog curled into itself under the desk.

Or include more action:

The sleepy dog defied slumber by lurching at the unsuspecting human trying to pet it.

Maybe even add some creativity:

The sleepy dog stretched its paws and signaled the spacecraft to retrieve it from earth.

No matter what you decide to do with the sleepy dog, removing the be verb frees you up to create a story behind the image.

Therefore, my first trick along the writer's journey is to find ways to eliminate those boring be verbs and replace them with action verbs. I've even held mock funerals in my class, where we take index cards and bury the words in the school yard.

We give a teary goodbye to our friends who were always there for us in our writing slumps. Does anyone, *sniff* want to say some parting words to *sniff* our friends? Make sure you remember to bring the box of tissues outside with you for this is a truly sad moment.

Students take turns saying a few words, digging small holes with a shovel, and burying the following friends:

• is
• was
• are
• were
• have
• had
• has
• am

Goodbye, friends.

After the funeral, we go inside to answer a prompt without using our friends. Sure. There is a time to use these words, but students must learn how not to use them before they can add a few be verbs back into their writing.

If you want help with teaching kids to eliminate boring verbs, here is a new product for you.

Strong Verbs in Writing

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• Four page Historical Fiction Story
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Wordless Wednesday Russian Immigration 1904

It's been ages since I participated in a Wordless Wednesday. I've decided to post a photo of my newest product, which is now 50% off for 24 hours. This one is special to me because it shares my family history.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/12-OFF-for-24-Hours-Jewish-Studies-of-Russian-Immigration-4825042

I was inspired to write this after seeing Anastacia on stage. The story, like others I've seen or read tends to romanticize the Romanov family, while portraying Nicholas Romanov as an endearing father who was unjustly murdered. Well, I'm here to tell you, this "nice" guy murdered my great grandparents along with several of their children. So I decided to tell the true story of the Tzar.