Fun Days to Celebrate in October at Home and in School

We all know a few days in October that are fun to celebrate in our classrooms. Obviously, if you are a primary teacher, you can find lots of days to celebrate in many ways. With Common Core coming our way, it is a bit more difficult to bring fun activities in to our classrooms. BUT...I think and I am sure you will agree that there are a plethora of ways to have fun with Common Core and there are definitely some Special Days to celebrate in October besides Halloween...BUT we have to include Halloween for October or our kiddos will be sooooooo upset!

Sooooooo what days can be celebrated in school or at home during October? 

Here are some ideas and activities for Special days to celebrate in October and still have a bit of fun learning in your classroom:

🎃 World Smile Day is October 2nd!

What a great way to start the month of October. Tell children to bring their smiles to school or virtually to class that day and try a few of these activities to brighten their DAY!

Partner children 6 feet a part of course and see who can get the other to smile...but if in person, you can only tell by their eyes.

Have a joke telling chat.  With this kids simply tell jokes to make each other laugh!

If virtual these can be done in break out rooms.

🎃 Name your Car Day, Too...Say What?  

Now this is also another fun day to write about and have some fun with at home or at school.

At home, you might want to give your car a name...my granddaughter named my car "Vanilla Caramel Brownie" because it is white with tan interior and my perfume smells like vanilla sugar. and Brownie because it is not always the cleanest car on the road! You can have a lot of fun with this one and also get a few laughs or smiles since they are both celebrated on october 2nd!

🎃 Did you know that October 4th is Taco Day?  

Here is a cute book to celebrate tasty taco treats.

• Before reading the story, you can access prior knowledge to find out what your students know about tacos, what their favorite taco is and maybe where they like to buy or eat their tacos.

• During reading stop every so often to have your students think, pair, share as you ask questions, have students make predictions or inferences as well as answer some questions about the text. Here is a fun interactive Reading Resource with ideas for use that you might want to use for shared reading for this text or any text!

🎃How about Cake Decorating DAY? 

You can give each child a writing frame, which I have links to at the bottom of this post and have them decorate a cake and then write about it.

If they have a picture of a favorite birthday cake, have them share it during sharing time or reserve a few minutes to have children share or tell about their favorite birthday cake of all time!

🎃 We all know That Columbus Day has led to some controversy surrounding it and about celebrating this day, but this craft can simply focus on Exploration and if you were an explorer what would you want to explore

Here are a few Ideas to Celebrate Exploration:

Here is a way to bring out the Explorer in your students.

What would you explore and why?  Then...turn them into explorers.  

Be an Explorer

Explorer Telescope to Explore like Christopher Columbus

🎃 Another Fun Day to celebrate is PUMPKIN DAY.

Did you know that National Pumpkin Day is October 26th? 

Let's take a look at a few ideas for Pumpkin Day which is celebrated right before Halloween...perfect Timing!

This pumpkin resource includes everything you need to celebrate pumpkins from facts to opinions, measuring, graphing and more.  check it out Right here

Need some Great Books to go along with Pumpkins? 

here are 4 of my faves:  

1.  How Many Seeds in a Pumpkins works fabulous with Pumpkin "Fun"tivities. Read it before you do the measuring activities. it is super for making predictions and works great with the interavtive props and ideas!

2.  Seed, Sprout, Pumpkin Pie is great text to use to learn about how pumpkins grow and for facts and opinions about pumpkins.

 

3.  The Biggest Pumpkin Ever is another great story that is fun to use as a shared reading and the kiddos LOVE it!

4. My all time favorite book is the The Little Woman who wasn't Afraid of Anything.

I used this as an interactive shared reading with props and you could hear a pin drop as we shared the story and acted out the parts with  real items! 

Here is a link for Ideas to go along with this book!
Let's Get Interactive!

🎃 If you Don't Like Pumpkins, you Can Always Celebrate Cupcake Day on the 26th or Both Days and Make Pumpkin Cupcakes!

YES! You read that right...CUPCAKE DAY!  Kids can draw cupcakes or make them out of construction paper and share about their favorite cupcake of all time!

Click on the picture to get this Dollar Deal to help you celebrate and use these 5 fun writing prompts! 

🎃 And Let's Not Forget Halloween    

Here are some tried and true Halloween Resources

Take a look and see if these might be something you want to try out this year!

Well...there you have it! Some Special Days to Celebrate in October...NEXT UP Some fun days to celebrate in November!

Have a great October!

Make this October the BEST EVER!

Keep Smiling...the BEST is yet to Come!