Habitats, Spooky Subtraction

Wow. I haven't been able to blog in forever. In between school starting back and keeping up with (an almost) two year old, I haven't had time to blog or finish anything for TPT. I have a couple of things I'm working on, but can never find the time to finish.
I've been buying stuff like crazy on TPT. I figure I've made some money selling my materials, so now I get to spend it, right? I bought 2 different Columbus units (no pics yet) and we've been working on those.
I love to teach science. It's hard to fit it all in with everything else. We've been studying habitats. So far, we've learned about the forest and the desert. I took a little break from the desert because our story week before last was Animal Park. It's about going on safari, so I figured it'd be a good time to learn about the savanna. I got this great savanna unit from Fluttering Through First Grade. It went perfectly. Here is the link-  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Savanna-Grasslands-Habitat-for-the-Common-Core-Classroom-245291

So every day, we talked about 1 or 2 pages from this book. I also found some youtube videos on savanna animals to show them.  Then they did some directed drawings for each page. I think they did a pretty good job! 

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We talked about carnivores so this lion is very realistic! He told me while he was drawing, "Look, Mrs. Addington, he's a meat eater!"

"We go bump in the truck" is a line from our basal   reader. One of my boys wrote this on his drawing. Love when they make text to text connections.

What else have we done since, oh say, August? Subtraction. I like to start subtraction in October so I can be Miss Take Away. Basically I go out in the hall and come back with a witch's hat and start taking stuff away. They scream and holler and go nuts. This year, they all surrounded me. I got a little scared! I know they know it's me, but sometimes they act like it's not. When I come back in, they all exclaim, "Mrs. Addington, there was a witch in here taking all your stuff!!!" 

I have a mask I wear too. 

So after I showed some problems as Ms. Take Away and we talked about the minus sign, they used these Halloween counters (erasers) that I got from Dollar Tree. 

 This is a little worksheet I made that they did the next day. The counters are little beads for making bracelets (also from Dollar Tree). Super cheap. I like them because the cubes take up so much room when they're trying to write and they knock them off their desks.

Last thing- This is something I am working on, but haven't finished. It's a set of addition drill sheets. I put them in plastic sheets so they could practice over and over. Each page reinforces ways to make that number. For example, this page has all the 10 facts plus a few others. Each page is that way.  

There is so much more that we've done, but I'll save that for later. Hopefully, I won't wait 2 months to blog next time.