Fall Favorites Blog Hop!

Thanks for stopping by our blog today! We hope you are having fun hopping through all the great blogs with wonderful ideas and you've found some freebies along the way. :)

This week we have been "Going Batty" in kindergarten. We like to learn about bats during the month of October to accompany our learning of Fall, Spiders, and Halloween.

The first day we start by making a KWL chart to see what background knowledge the children have about bats.

We like to display theme words in our classrooms for the duration of the theme. Here you see bats and spiders theme words together. We will be learning about spiders next week.

We then read a few non-fiction books about bats to help enhance what they already know and also to dispel myths they might have about bats. Children always seem to think that bats are harmful and want to suck your blood. They are surprised when they learn that some bats eat fruit!

We learned, by reading the books above, that bats use echolocation to find their way as well as to find their prey. The children took turns being a bat and using sounds to find the yummy insect they are looking to eat for dinner. Funny! 

After reading, children complete a bat book that contains several facts that we have learned about bats. We have made it interactive so the children have to fill in a missing word in the sentence on each page. Then, we practice reading their facts together so they can show off their skills at home!

Here a child is making a cover for his bat book. The children are given a bat outline and black construction paper. They tear pieces of the construction paper off and glue them onto the bat, covering the whole thing.

After all the construction paper pieces are glued down, the children put a thin layer of glue over top of them. We then let it sit over night so all of the glue can dry. 

The next day, we add wiggly eyes to the bats and Voila! We have a beautiful bat book cover! This can also be a stand alone art project as well. It is very good for fine motor skills. 

The children then completed a journal that showed something that they learned about bats.

The next day we read Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies. The children loved this book. If you haven't read it yet, you have to go and get yourself a copy!

Here is our favorite illustration from the story. We just loved the little bat's face when he put his toes in the ocean. Haha!

Here, they are acting out the illustration!

After reading, children completed a journal where they stated how they were like the bats in the story.

Look who is hanging out in our classrooms!
These are quite possibly the cutest bats out there!

We also made a yummy bat snack. We used Oreos to make the bat body and chocolate and peanut butter chips for the ears and eyes.

Yummy, yummy in my tummy!

Who Loves a Giveaway?!?

We JUST added a new literacy center for CVC spelling practice: Bat Loves to Spell!
Children can practice spelling twenty different CVC words to match pictures by assembling the bat bodies after segmenting the sounds and spelling the words...recording sheets are included too!

If you'd love a set of these for your classroom, enter our Rafflecopter giveaway here.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The winner will be chosen on October 28th, 2014, when the Fall Favorites Blog Hop is over.
Good luck!

Thanks for stopping by!
We hope you enjoyed hearing all about our batty week!


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