The Harvest! (J, 7, Star)

Our theme for the second week of November was "The Harvest" and we focused on the letter Jj, the number 7 the star shape.

We read this week: The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons
                              From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer
                              Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper
                              Oliver Finds His Way by Phillis Root
                              Possum's Harvest Moon by Anne Hunter

Our question of the week was "What is one word to describe you?"This was such a TOUGH one! We got through it though and most of the answers are pretty accurate for my class this year.

For our theme of the week, we discussed as a whole group what a harvest is and the kinds of things that get harvested.


I drew pictures of the different stages of a pumpkin vine. After we read "From Seed to Pumpkin", I called small groups to come over and challenged them to put the cards in order from start to end. When the cards were put in the wrong order it was so great to hear them talk through what had to change and why.

I dyed some pumpkin seeds with vinegar and food coloring (my kitchen still faintly smells of vinegar =]) and challenged my kids to sort them onto the pumpkins that said the color. They then had to count how many of each color seed they had and write the number next to the pumpkin. We then tried to glue the seeds on, but they just popped off after the glue dried! So i had to use tape, not as pretty, but just as functional.

We painted with pine cones.

And had a great time outside "harvesting: leaves, sticks and acorns."

We talked a lot this week about the shape star, and we sang "Twinkle Twinkle."

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

how I wonder what you are.

Up above the world so bright,

like a diamond in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

how I wonder what you are."

I drew stars, hearts, triangles and circles and asked the kids to color each shape it's own color. I was so impressed with how well they did!

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 7.

I made these worksheets that reinforces the one to one concept. The kids practice writing the number and have to color a square for each picture that they see. (I forgot to take a picture =[)

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter Jj from this book,  and the sheet that helps work on letter recognition that I got from this book,  The students also wrote in their journals for the letter J.

We turned an J into an Jaguar! This book is great.

The kids jumped like jumping jelly beans to music. Super fun and a great way to get all that energy out.

Speaking of jelly beans, I gave the kids each 7 jellybeans (our number of the week) and they had to color the jelly beans on their paper the colors of the real ones they had. Love that one-to-one correspondence practice. The best part? They got to eat them after they colored them!

 I have a few kids with nut allergies, so i sent their jelly beans home with the nutritional information panel. Better safe than sorry!

The kids practiced their coloring and cutting skills to make this awesome booklet that tells all the different places that a jet flies. This is from this Mailbox book.

For our alphabet wall we made jets!

Here are the words we came up with this week!

Here's an update from our "planted" pumpkins! We planted them the week of Halloween, and we got a sprout!!

Up next week: Number review week and "Native Americans, Pilgrims and Turkeys".