5 Reasons to Love October

1. Cool Days

Literally. After blazing Florida heat, we've been enjoying chilly days in the upper 70s. It's SO nice!



2. Special Days

October is pretty important month:

Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Down's Syndrome Awareness Month
National Cyber Security Awareness Month
Tackling Hunger Month
And the list goes on, and on, and on...



3. Colors

October is a time for bright reds, oranges, browns, and yellows. It's an excellent time for art projects using these colors and also for incorporating actual items from nature into projects.



4. Lots to Learn

It's a super time for science lessons about the change of the seasons, trees and leaves, harvest (where our food comes from), time, nature, preparing for the future, and all kinds of terrific things! Even math, language arts, science, music, reading, art, wellness, and drama can all be linked to the theme of autumn with some pretty excellent results. Here are a few great places for ideas.

Scholastic Autumn Lesson Plans and Ideas

Nick Jr. - Fall Into Autumn Lesson Plan (*Note: This page automatically loads video that starts off with a commercial.)

Education World - Awesome Autumn

5. Beauty!

Autumn is a beautiful time in many places throughout the world. While we don't get to enjoy the incredible silent fireworks of forests with leaves changing colors, we can enjoy photographs and video. Bringing in actual autumn leaves for crunching, pumpkins for exploring, and corn for popping (and perhaps munching) is an excellent experience for kids, no matter their challenges.

October is just a really cool month for working with kids.

I'm so excited!

Mid-Term Fun!

Seems like an oxymoron, but it's true! You can have fun while studying for mid-terms. I'm so thankful for the site, ClassTools.net! Their free templates and tools enable educators and students to create your own Flash games. Here's mine!

Click here for full screen version

While I scaled it down some for prettiness on this site, it's actually a much better viewing size on its native site. Here's a link to my games at the original site.

Into the Book

While mining for resources to help our students to better understand the parts of speech, I happened across what I think is one of the absolute most spectacular reading comprehension sites ever. Into the Book teaches students how to understand what they read. Their Teacher Area is EXCELLENT!!!!! This is a MUST-see site.

Virtual Symphony

The Internet is full of all kinds of interesting tools and simulators. It seems no more than right that musical performance should fall into the category of disciplines represented by the overwhelming existence of digital counterparts. A quick Google search for “virtual musical instruments” will lead a user to a host of sites that are some how associated with digitally simulated instruments.

Wesleyan University offers an entire online museum of virtual instruments of all sorts from across the globe. The Department of Canadian Heritage hosts an online museum with an entire section devoted to a grid of virtual music-makers. Jim Doble maintains a site called Elemental Design that is dedicated to various percussion instruments. The site contains a section devoted to uncommon virtual instruments filled with various virtual, such as the pipe harp, the pentatonic aquarion, and such experimental instruments as a wrenchaphone (a xylophone made with wrenches). David Holmes has compiled an entire Museum of Sound Toys that provides a large collection of links to musical instruments online.