Going Batty for Halloween!

I didn't go all out decorating my classroom for Halloween, but our class mascot and pumpkin both got costumes!  I can't take credit for the little paper witch hat and broom.  One of my students made those for the mascot when they took her home yesterday.  So creative!

Apples, pumpkins, flowers.  .  .  plants, plants, plants!  We had our fill of plants and learned all of their parts and needs, so it was time to move on to animals.  What better animal to study the week of Halloween than BATS!  We have been going batty this week--studying bats, as well as doing some fun activities with them.

We started by making our own bats and attaching labels to the different body parts.  I traced the templates and the kids cut them out and put them together.  We did the labeling together since it was our first day of bats.  You could always do this activity at the end of a bat unit to see if your students know where all of the body parts are.

This was my example up on the board.

I hung all of the bats from the pipes in the ceiling for classroom decoration (sorry this isn't the greatest picture.)  The kiddos loved it!

Reading is a great way to learn, so we read some books about bats this week as well.  After reading and discussing, we worked together to make a chart of bat facts.  Here is what we came up with.

Each student had their own graphic organizer to complete as well.  Head on over here to Alissa's store on TpT for the freebie I used!  Thanks Alissa!  I left the chart of facts on the board for them to use as a resource.

I think the highlight of the week for the kiddos so far has been measuring bats.  Don't worry, not real live bats!  I got this great measurement freebie from Jessica on TpT.  It includes the bats, as well as the handout for the kids to fill in.  I made 2 copies of the bats and laminated them, so the kids could share them, and I could reuse them each year.

They were SUPER excited about getting candy corn, even though I only let them eat 2 pieces and packed the rest up for them to take home (no sugar highs in my classroom!!)  We went over the answers together at the end of the lesson.  I loved how they clapped whenever they got each answer right!

We have a couple more days of bats in store, but I am not expecting to get too much accomplished tomorrow with all of my kids in costume.  I will let you know how it goes!