Friday, October 25, 2013

Editing Fun With Halloween Goodies

I just love all that this time of year brings...the fall colors, the decorated pumpkins, the trick-or-treating, and-of course-all of the Halloween-themed goodies everywhere!!

If you're looking for a way to spice up your editing this upcoming week, here's just the thing for you...editing jingles to go along with witch fingers and eyeball rings (both found at Party City).



Here's just a peek at some of the things inside this little freebie:

EYEBALL RING - EDITING
(to the tune of the SpongeBob theme song, teacher leads, students reply with italic parts)
Are you ready editors?  “Eye, Eye Captain!”
Oh, who’s looking for errors in their writing piece?       Super Eye-Guy!
Who’s correcting for punctuation and grammar, at least?   Super Eye-Guy!
Who can use what they’ve learned to make mistakes right?  Super Eye-Guy!
Who can add details and “wow” words to give it some bite?
Super Eye-Guy!
Super Eye-Guy!...Super Eye-Guy!...SuperEyeGuy!!!!!


Here's one to use with those icky green witch fingers:

WITCH FINGER - Word choice
Witch finger, witch finger with a nail that’s red
Point to a word I could use instead.
Lead me to this word, tap it twice
Let my brain think and then add some spice!
A dash more description, a sprinkle of “WOW”,
Help me change it in ways I didn’t know how!

There are jingles for editing punctuation, grammar, word choice, and organization.  There's also ones for general editing and for tracking while reading.  To top it all off, there are 2 conference forms to use with your students.  

-Click here to download this 6-page file-
Happy Editing!!

Monday, October 21, 2013

Halloween Party Hats

Hello, Everyone!

I have taken on the "decoration" duties for my sweet little boy's Halloween class party.  Could I just stop at buying some fake webbing, some cute pumpkin cut-outs, and a few plastic spiders?  No way!  Why be simple, right?  So, quite a few years ago I did a baking theme in my classroom and made chef hats for my students by gluing a piece of tissue paper into a construction paper headband.  This is what sparked this jack-o-lantern spin-off.

First, cut 3 inch strips of 12x18 inch orange construction paper.  You will need 1.5 strips for each child.

Then, staple the half strips to the full strips and measure each child's head.

Staple to close it up and throw away any excess construction paper.

Next, lie the headband on its side and glue the bottom, middle section of a piece of orange tissue paper to the inside of the headband.

Stand the headband up on a table with the glued side facing away from you. 
Bring the top of the tissue paper over to the side facing you and glue the bottom, middle of it to the front inside of the headband.
Then, using your glue bottle and some handy pinching, find some ends that need to be glued into the inside of the headband to give it a rounded effect (I left the left and right sides free and just puffed them out and pinched them in to make it look rounded).
Finally, add some black construction paper jack-o-lantern decorations and...wah-la!  You have an adorable pumpkin hat!  Now...I just have to make 21 more by the 30th :)!!