Happy Fall Ya'll!

Hi everyone!

Happy first day of October! :) I hope your first day of October went wonderful!  We are loving fall here in 2nd grade, the nice weather (besides today) brings out the best in my students and they have been doing SO GREAT lately! Fall is truly the best season! :) (Okay, maybe I'm a little bias because I'm a farmer's daughter, but still!) Let's get right into how we are celebrating fall here in 2nd grade!

Last week, we celebrated the first day of fall on September 23, because technically this was the first FULL day of fall :)  The students started off with a writing prompt by writing about their favorite things about fall!  I read different things such as making leaf piles and jumping in them, Halloween, football, tractors, animals, etc! :)  The kids LOVE fall just as much as I do I think. :)

Last week, we also talked about Author's Purpose, which teaches them about why an author writes a story.  We use the acronym PIE to describe this concept.

P: Persuade (means to convince someone to do something)
I: Inform (means to teach you something new...Nonfiction books primarily fall in this category)
E: Entertain (a simple story that tells you something and possibly makes you laugh!) :)

Then, the students got a chance to write their own PIE sentences, by describing candy corn! Because who doesn't have candy corn on the first day of fall?! Each student got some pieces of candy corn to test out, and then they had to write a Persuading sentence about candy corn (why we should buy/try it), Informing sentence about candy corn (teach you something new about candy corn), and an Entertaining story (I told them they could make a silly story up about candy corn!)  Here is how they turned out! Super cute so of course I had to hang them up!

No do not eat my candy corn bed, not yet!

At the end of the day, I provided my students with a little fun craft/writing project.  The students got to make up their own scarecrow and write about its job in the classroom!  These turned out absolutely ADORABLE! If they haven't told you, I decorated my door to look like a scarecrow and that is why I always let them make their own scarecrows!  Perfect creative writing project but done in a very fun way!  Check them out below!

Scarecrow Writing Project!

His scarecrow's job is the class clown! :)

On Friday, September 26, we celebrated Johnny Appleseed's birthday which is just conveniently located in the first week of fall!  How awesome!  As many of you know, Johnny was one of the first people to plant apple seeds to grow apple trees where new pioneers were settling.  So, my students and I celebrated this day doing a couple different activities!

First, we watched a short video on Johnny and also read a book about him.  Then, the students had to write me four facts about Johnny that they had learned through the movie and book.  After, they got to decorate a "Happy Birthday Johnny" apple and hang it up on their desk with their fact sheet! Super cute way to decorate their desk as well as learn new facts and get a chance to write a nonfiction writing!

Johnny Appleseed Project!

We also made Homemade Applesauce in 2nd grade.  Not only did we make applesauce, but I also MADE them write the recipe down so they could do it at home!  It's a super easy recipe and recipe writing is great for kids.  It teaches them about measurement, abbreviations, and how exactly to write a recipe.  I absolutely LOVED this activity because it exposed them to something completely different but they had no idea they were immersed in learning because it was fun for them!  So cool to see this activity take place!

Apples before mixing!

Mushing the apples! Definitely the favorite part! :)

Homemade Applesauce Recipe

Writing out the recipe! :)

Then, of course, we had to enjoy our homemade applesauce during snack time! :)  It was delicious!

YUMMY! :)

Overall, we had a great first week of fall in our 2nd grade classroom.  The students loved all these activities, and I even heard one of them say, "Hey, can we do this EVERY day!?"  Oh, if only there wasn't Common Core Standards to meet! Yes kids, we could...if only education wasn't so complicated! :)

I hope you all enjoyed seeing what is going on in 2nd grade.  Stay tuned for some great events coming up in our 2nd grade classroom...including HALLOWEEN! AHHH :)

Before I leave you...I have to brag...I made my first apple pie last weekend for my dad's birthday and it turned out phenomenal! I may just be a Betty Crocker yet!  Thanks Grandma Manlick for your recipe! :)

Yummy! :)

Thank you all for listening...and until next time, stay safe! <3