October Thematic Resources

Welcome to October! Okay, admittedly, we’re already seven days into the month. How is this year going by so quickly!?! It seems to go faster and faster each year!

This is one of the busiest times of the year for teachers. Students are settled into routines.  It’s nearing the end of the first trimester (or quarter). Assessments are approaching and report cards will be due soon. Who has parent conferences in October? Oh, and what about those holidays? They’re sneaking up on us!

With our lack of time this month, I’ve decided to pull together a few October themed resources in one place for you. These are all previous blog posts from my blog, What I Have Learned or blog posts on Who’s Who that will assist you with some thematic teaching in October. Whether it’s bats, owls, Halloween, or Columbus Day, these ideas might help you will some upcoming lesson planning.

Favorite October Books 

This is a post all about my favorite books to use during the month of October. There is a range of fiction and nonfiction and grade levels range from K-3.

Bats: Nonfiction Writing

This one describes a unit I did with my second graders to introduce nonfiction writing, including generating facts from several resources, creating a circle map, and writing.

Pumpkin Exploration

This is all about how we explored pumpkins in second grade.  We focused on measurement, because it was the unit we were doing at the time.

More Measurement with Pumpkins

An extension of the previous blog post, this one is how we explored why certain measurements came out the way they did and how we developed academic language with comparing different measurements.  Talking about how something is larger than or smaller than something else is so difficult for students!

Halloween Center Activities

This post focuses on some free math and language stations for the month of October as well as how we spend October 31 doing some engaging Halloween Centers.

October ideas from Who’s Who and Who's New

These are previous thematic posts from October that focus on the spirit of the season.  You may get a few additional ideas for your classroom from these posts, too.

Going Batty for Bats

This post is all about bats!  It provides some good resources and ideas for K-1 classrooms.

Happy Hallo-Wiener! 

Another fun post with a twist.  I'm sure you can guess the topic - wiener dogs!

Spiders and Bats . . . Imagine that! 

Another post for K-1 classrooms that has songs and fun activities.

---

And, if you need some ways to Destress this month, because October is one of those high stress months, this September Destress post might help out


I hope have found some of these references useful for your October planning.  October is one of this months that is filled with fun, but also so many assessments, parent conferences for some, and report cards.  Enjoy the spirt of the month, the fall weather, and try to not stress out too much about the all the "to dos".