In first grade, children continue to develop their sight word, or high frequency word, vocabulary. Building such a vocabulary leads to greater fluency and comprehension in reading. During the month of October, engage your students in activities that help them learn sight words that relate to the month; fall, Halloween, apples, pumpkins and hay, for example. Engage children in a game of sight word scavenger hunt. Write down October-related sight words on index cards and hide them around the classroom. Once students have found a card, they must return to a meeting area and read the word on the card they have found. Another idea is to write sight words on poster board and tape them to the floor. Have children jump from word to word and read each one aloud.
Incorporate October-related items when teaching math. To teach estimation, have children estimate the amount of pumpkin seeds inside a pumpkin. You could use pumpkins to teach about circumference by having children use measuring tapes to measure around the fruit. Use pumpkin seeds as manipulatives when teaching children addition and subtraction. Use Halloween-themed stickers to create patterns or to practice sorting. Provide children with handfuls of Halloween confetti -- pumpkins, witches and ghosts, for example (which can be purchased at a party supply store) and have kids graph the amounts of each shaped of confetti.
For a social studies activity, study the history of Halloween. Explore the reasons why so many of the traditions that are associated with the holiday came to be. Children can learn about why costumes are worn on the holiday, why pumpkins are carved and why Halloween is actually celebrated. Use books and the Internet as a resource to explore Halloween traditions. Through this activity, you may help those who are afraid of the holiday overcome their fears.
Create crafts that relate to the month. Have children carve actual pumpkins or encourage them to create images of jack-o'-lanterns with construction paper. Invite students to create Halloween scenes with paint, crayons, markers and any other type of craft material you'd like. Make ghosts by balling up tissues and wrapping another tissue over the ball. To create fall trees, kids can dip their hands and forearms into brown finger paint and press them onto paper to create a tree trunk and use their fingertips and red, yellow and orange finger paint to create leaves.