"Easy Peasy, Trick or Cheesy" Freebie

Have you seen these adorable Kraft Macaroni and Cheese's "Trick or Cheesy" Halloween shapes?  Ghosts and pumpkins and bats, oh my!

   I stumbled across them last year at Target when there was only one box left on the shelf - bummer.  I grabbed the box, but it wasn't really enough to do anything with.  So, this year, I've been stalking the pasta aisle waiting for them to appear.  Last week I hit the jackpot!  I did a little happy dance, threw a few boxes in my cart and continued shopping. After a few minutes, I went back to the pasta aisle and grabbed a few boxes for each of my 4 grade level teammates. Then, just as I was ready to leave Target. I went back a third time and grabbed myself a few more boxes to put away for next year, just in case.  The checkout girl looked at me a little strangely as she rang up my 14 boxes.  She must have been thinking, "Carb addict? Cheese Head? Shopaholic?" I just smiled and began to wonder if this is how hoarders get started?  (I think that we teachers are the original hoarders - I'm surprised we don't have our own TLC show!?!)
   I raced home and made a few games to put in my math stations that focus on graphing, making tally marks and using tens frames.  If you have the chance to pick up a few boxes, you can grab the freebie down below and have a little Trick or Cheesy fun of your own.

    Another way I'm sneaking a little Halloween fun into our curriculum (don't worry, I won't go on about how sad it is that we need to "sneak" fun into kindergarten...) is with a cute little emergent reader and math craftivity.

     The emergent reader is a cute little story about Frankie having a Halloween birthday party.  All of the spooky guests bring Frankie birthday presents that turn out to be the same gift - a brightly striped tie.  Frankie will be stylin' for sure.  We used the large book for shared reading and then the kids all got a small version to put in their books boxes.  The predictable, repetitive text allowed for even my most emergent readers to be successful at reading it independently.  After reading the book, the kids made their own Frankie and used colored strips of paper to make him a patterned tie.  It was a great way to do an informal assessment of the kids' patterning skills (although not in the CCSS, we still cover patterns and assess how well the kids generate and complete them for our first report card) and the kids loved it!  It was very telling to see which kids made a simple ABAB pattern and which kids created more complicated patterns.
     I'll send a free packet to the first three comments or you can pick up a copy in my TPT store.  You can also grab a free copy of the Trick or Cheesy math stations here.

Have a great night!