Halloween - Math, Language Arts Mini Unit (Kindergarten and Grade 1)

My kiddos have been buzzing about Halloween since October started so I made this product to help motivate their learning. We have been busy working on reading, letter sounds, forming letters, building sight words, and number sense the past couple of weeks so I've incorporated a bit of everything into some Halloween inspired activities. In this product you will get the following worksheets:

Language Arts: 

~beginning sounds

~ending sounds

~syllables 

~read, build, trace, and write Halloween sentences

~Color by sight word picture (sight words: I, can, see, the, like, and)

~Halloween word wall with pictures 

Math: 

~Count the objects (up to 10)

~One more, one less (numbers to 20)

~I can count to 20 pumpkins 

~I can use a number line 

~Counting with Base 10 

~Counting using 10 frames

~Color by number (2 options: less than 10, and teen numbers)

AND a mini book that focuses on counting to 5 and the sight words I, see, plus halloween vocabulary.


My students love making books so this mini booklet was right up their alley. They could read it, independently using picture clues to help with the Halloween vocabulary and it showed off their ability to count and form the numbers to finish the sentences.

I teach special education and fostering independence when completing academic tasks is often a challenge. My kids LOVE to colour, so today we attempted the colour by sight word worksheet. I chose to break this down into 6 mini steps. Here is how I implemented this worksheet into our literacy block: I wrote the 6 sight words onto cue cards. One at a time I showed them the word, asked them to read it, and then find the word on their colouring sheet. Once they could identify what they were looking for they coloured that word. This seemed to work really well because it was broken down into small manageable steps and I was able to do a quick assessment on which words they knew!

I always display the words we are working on in the classroom so making Halloween words to add to my word wall were a MUST! You can also use these in literacy centres. Instead of displaying the words you can cut the picture off of the card and make it a matching game. Students have to match the picture to the word. Or we used them to build Halloween words. Using magnet letters (or Bananagrams) students can spell the Halloween words.

You can get this Halloween mini unit at our Teachers Pay Teachers Store by clicking here.
Want more?! Check out our addition and subtraction colouring Halloween product!

Favourite Products Alert!

This week my Amazon order arrived and who doesn't love mail and teacher supplies more than me?! Here is a sneak peak at some of my favourite products.

I've been wanting a cute way to set up my visual schedule for my special education classroom, but all of the pocket charts I saw in town were plain and boring. I absolutely love this polka dot pocket chart! I love even more that it matches with my bulletin board boarders. =) 

As an IRT, a lot of my resources are hands on and Velcro dots have become my best friend! I found the cheapest place to get a lot of these and avoid multiple trips to the dollar store was Amazon. You can cut a slit in the top of a shoebox for easy storage and organization. 

And last but certainly not least, is the latest addition to my classroom tables; vinyl white board dots. We had a Professional Development day on Friday and all the teachers LOVED these! I love that they are bright and colourful, easy to stick on and remove, and can be used to write students names for seating purposes, motivational messages, quick assessment/observation, or as scrap paper for students to show their work. They can also be incorporated in use for word work, letter work, numeracy centres and so much more! My recommendation is to use a ruler to smooth them out when sticking them on to remove any air bubbles trapped underneath. 

Behind the Scenes

Ever wonder what the the chaos looks like behind the product, or how some people decide on what to create? Well let me tell you, it is a process! This year I am teaching all alternate courses in the core subjects to some pretty amazing kids, however, that means that curriculum resources that are provided to general classroom teachers aren't exactly applicable or accessible to my students. I can spend hours searching Teachers Pay Teachers for a Science or Social Studies unit and the results are usually always the same....spend $5+ for a great product where I would only be able to use a couple of pages because my students cannot write sentences, form all their letters, draw pictures, or verbally express their ideas. So what does one do? Well they create their own product of course! Here is a behind the scenes look at my Day/Night mini Science unit coming to our TPT soon! It includes: a mini reader, read, build, trace, write, task cards, cut and paste sorting activities, and sequencing daily routines!

So Long Summer...Hello September!

This Labor Day weekend marked the end of summer for us teachers here in Newfoundland and Labrador. While many of our teacher friends have been busy preparing and setting up their classrooms in preparation for the new school year, Kendra and I have been soaking up the last sunny days of summer with some rest and relaxation. After completing my Masters of Special Education in May, this was one of my first summers in a while where I didn't have to take courses or work on writing my thesis paper. Needless to say, I enjoyed it to the fullest! Here in Newfoundland, school concludes the end of June, so I spent the rest of the summer taking road trips, enjoying festivals, country concerts, running, yoga on the dock, campfires, spending time with friends and family, and our annual summer tradition berry picking!

Kendra is just beginning her Masters in Literacy Education this month, so she enjoyed having a summer off for an entirely different reason. She is starting to brace herself for the workload ahead and has been working on turning her spare room into an office for both our TPT business and her schooling. Any time that Kendra can spend outside during the summer, she does! So most of her break was spent exploring hiking trails with her husband and dog, as well as working on her backyard vegetable garden. They celebrated their 2nd wedding anniversary, watched a lot of baseball games, and she took a road tip back to her hometown to visit friends and family!

How long do you get off for summer break? We would love to hear what you do to recharge for the upcoming school year.

As the school year begins for our Newfoundland teacher friends, many of you have already started. Don't forget to take some time for yourself throughout the school year to recharge your batteries and avoid burnout. I personally like to work out the tough days at the gym, on the running trails, in the pool, or by practicing yoga. What are some of the things you do to relax throughout the school year?

Don't forget to follow us on instagram for some Freebies! Latest winner is @learning_llama.

Practicing What We Teach

Welcome to "Practicing What We Teach," a blog by JK Teaching Resources!

About a year ago, Kendra came to me with the idea of starting a Teachers Pay Teachers store. She was very eager and passionate about it but wanted a partner to bounce ideas off of. To me joining her in the journey was a no brainer. As a special education teacher, I always found I was modifying or creating my own work anyway, so why not try to share it with other teachers. She began researching how to get started and we started brainstorming names for our store, which proved not to be an easy task. Thankfully for us, we both love to laugh and joke (spending most of our time Just Kidding around) and our initials allowed us to play on that and JK Teaching Resources was born!

Flash forward to the present day when I decided to try this whole blogging thing. So here we are, asking you to join us on our blogging and teaching journey, where we will share activities, classroom setup/decor, products, tips, and other fun and exciting topics as we venture through a new school year. Come learn with us and from us!

My creative writing space! 

Although we both have a love of teaching, we try not to let our careers define who we are. We chose the title of our blog because we are passionate about practicing what we teach our students. We hope to make this blog about more that just teaching the curriculum, because although we are teachers, we are so much more than that! We believe that the learning that occurs outside of the school is just as important as what happens inside the school, for both our students and ourselves. For example, we cannot instill self-regulation and calming strategies to help our students if we do not understand them ourselves. Our belief is that teaching is more than the core subjects and curriculum outcomes. We hope to share with you some of our teaching strategies, favourite products, books, activities, and hobbies. We want to learn with you throughout this upcoming school year!

Feel free to comment below on some of the topics or things you would like us to share! 

About

Welcome to Practicing What We Teach, we are teacher besties who teach primary/elementary and special education. Our names are Jill and Kendra and we live on the east coast of the beautiful province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Some of you may have heard of our province through Come From Away or most recently Jimmy Kimmel Live. We have been teaching for approximately 10 years ranging in grades K-9 for Kendra and special education grades 1-9 for myself (Jill).

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada (view from Signal Hill). 

We recently started our business venture on Teachers Pay Teachers, known as JK Teaching Resources. We develop curriculum for grades K-6 in all subject areas including special education. We try to make our products modifiable for all learning abilities and styles, focusing on a tiered teaching style for diverse learners. We are passionate about creating resources that meet the abilities of all students in an inclusive setting while making them as fun and engaging as possible! 

When we are not busy teaching and creating new products for TPT, Kendra can be found working on her Masters in Education with a focus on Literacy, hanging out with her dog Jeter, or watching sports with her husband Greg! 

Kendra, Greg and Jeter on their wedding day! 

I have been enjoying my down time after just completing my Masters in Special Education and have found my love of reading for pleasure again and enjoy summer morning runs. I have been dabbling into writing for publication in scholarly journals with the research from my thesis and have my first article published on Inclusive Education Canada. 

Jill enjoying the Lantern Festival at Victoria Park in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. 

Don't forget to check out our Teachers Pay Teachers page and follow us on Pinterest and Instagram!