Shatter Student Expectations: Students will LOVE Bat Week
Are you looking for a fun way to engage your first or second grade learners this October? Look no further. My kiddos LOVE Bat Week! Bat week is simply a way of bringing in fun read alouds, reading plans and writing plans in an engaging way that will get your students MOTIVATED to learn! Blend science, reading, writing and math all together with this fun week of activities.
Bat Week: Reading
During reading lessons, I specifically focus on nonfiction texts. Students will practice CCSS RI 2.1 and RI 2.5, which is answering questions about a text and using text features to find information in a text. Specifically, I use all texts about Bats! I love to use Epic! Collection, which is a free online site with plenty of nonfiction texts about bats.
Students read one book a day, then use text features to answer questions that answer who, what, where, when and why about bats. You can grab this activity as part of my October Let’s Get Reading bundle, which is available both digitally and in print.
Bat Week: Writing
Students will research either a specific type of bat or will use their notes from reading to create an informative piece about bats. Either way, students will create a bat report with a topic sentence, 4 facts and details, and a closing sentence. This project is perfect for both in person learning with a fun craft and digital learning via Google Slides.
Bat Week: Math
I think it is really important to keep math sequential all year. This means that my core math never strays from the path of the curriculum. HOWEVER, there are many fun centers that can be used to help add to the joy of bat week. During all of October, my students are doing my Halloween Math Centers, my Halloween Buddy Games and my October Fluency Sheets, which feature all sorts of fun fall creatures and themes, including bats.
Bat Week: Fun Read Alouds
For the joy of Bat Week, during our read aloud time, I love to do different Bat Themed read alouds. Some of my favorites are:
I also have a comprehensive list of my favorite October read alouds that you can check out here.
Fun Friday
We end Bat Week by building bats out of STEM materials and watching the short video of Stellaluna (40 minutes long).
These are just some of the fun activities that I do during the month of October. Check back next week to learn about Pumpkin Week! Drop your favorite bat activities in the comments below.
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