Monsters Go to School! And a Freebie!

Have you seen these cute books from Creative Teaching Press?  I don't work for them or anything, I just like to use their monster books.  I think I have three or four of their titles and we use them to reinforce the rules at school. They are all very simple and the kids can reread them easily.  I made some felt monster puppets and my kids get to act out the book The Five Little Monsters Went to School.  Of course we get to do it four times so that they all get a turn.

Five Little Monsters: felt, puffy paint and wiggly eyes!

This year I am hoping to let the kids act out the book while we snap pictures with the ipad and then they can narrate the book and we'll save it.  Haven't gotten to that quite yet.  :)


 I made a simple paper book to go with the Where do Monsters Live? book.  The kids color and fill in the color words.  Nice and easy!

Monster Houses

We also read Go Away Big Green Monster and make these cute monsters.  We used green paint with some gold glitter mixed in on the first day.  I have them fold the paper in half and write their names.  Then they glob on the green paint and close the paper on the fold.  They smear it around with their hands and we open it up to see how it looks.  The next day we decorate the faces.  I model it but then try to let them do their own things.  They cut out teeth, eyes, mouth, noses, and ears then use the purple glitter for the hair.  I love how they come out!

Other fun monster activities:

We practiced our subtizing while making a Monster face in math.

We also sing a little song to go with the book.  It goes to "She'll be Coming Round the Mountain" and it is very simple: Go away big green monster, go away.  Go away big green monster, go away. (repeat, repeat, repeat).  Silly and fun!

There is an ipad app, too, that I have used with my own grandchild but not at school yet (we need a dongle!).

Monster Week!

Week three is here!  We made our first bundle of 10 sticks for days in school.  The kids are learning the routines and getting more comfortable.

In Daily Five news, we are working on Read to Self.  They have four books in their book boxes and they are reading for four to five minutes.  They are all trying so hard.  One of the hardest parts of practicing is that they are all pretty close together (even spread all across the room!).  Once we start Daily Five, there will only be five or so kids doing Read to Self at one time, so there is naturally more spaces for them.  On the other hand, it is much quieter now than it will be once we start reading groups and the rest of the Daily Five centers!

We also reviewed our class rules using The Five Little Monsters went to School and the felt puppets I made six years ago.  The kids love to act out the story  (we did it four times so they all got a turn).  We also read Ten Monsters in the Bed, which is a fun way to practice counting backwards.

Aren't these cute little monsters?  I don't own these yet but I am very tempted!!!

 We sang the Months of the Year song by Greg and Steve for the first time, too.  I have the kids stand up when it is their birthday month the first time through and then sit back down when they sing their month the second time.  It is always a little confusing in the beginning of the year.  Several kids had no idea which month their birthday was in.  One little girl didn't know the month but she did know that first it is her birthday, then it is Halloween.  hehehe.  We'll get it eventually.

Pete the Cat Roll and Dot

We started some new centers in the afternoon.  We did a fun math center with big cards.  The kids moved bears onto the cards to match the numbers 1-10.  They completed the Pete the Cat roll and dot game at the next center (click the link for a freebie).  They glued in the numbers from 6-10 in their math journals.  The last center was a September book.

Math Journals: writing numbers 6-10

Big Playing cards: place the correct number of bears on each card.

September book

We made some cute monster faces in art time today.  Only five kids finished them.  To begin, I gave them each a square of construction paper and showed them how to cut off the corners.  They made big mouths (many fun colors!) with pointy teeth, circles for the eyes, some interesting noses, and some frightening hair!  I'll try to take a picture tomorrow when a few more get finished.  The kids were very creative and did a great job (with no templates-my favorite kind of art!)

Monster Faces

We have a few more monster books to read this week, too.  Such a fun way to encourage good behavior.  We are having fun!  How do you teach your class rules?

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Have a great week!!

First week centers

I am still adjusting to our new schedule (we eat lunch an hour and a half after the kids arrive at school). We took four days to do four centers (among other activities) and on Friday we started four more. I let the kids decide which centers they go to (limit of five per group) but they all go to all of the centers. I can already tell that I have 5 or 6 kids who are reading and most of the other kids know all or most of their letters.


 The centers are also meant to introduce the kids to the abc/word work centers that they will be using during Daily Five.


The four new centers we started included some in math and some in reading.

Using the ladybugs to explore numbers 1-10.

Counting bears and exploring new manipulatives

Matching coconuts and numerals to 20

School Day Colors emergent reader

We finished our Chicka Boom Boom trees.  We use dotters for the borders, torn paper for the leaves and trunks, and sticker letters (dollar spot at Target!).

How was your first week back?