October Theme: My Changing World

We love sharing our favorite resources, books, classroom supplies and teacher stuff with you. When we do, we may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. This does not affect our choices in what to recommend. Rest assured, we only recommend our favorite products to you! You can find our full advertising policy on the Partner With Elizabeth page.

It’s October and this month we do a lot of talking about things that change.  Helping students build an understanding that the world around them, and they themselves change, builds a foundation for the months to come.  Here’s how I bring the concept of change to life in my classroom.

We live in a world of change.  Almost everything around us goes through some sort of change; the weather, plants, animals, our bodies.  I could go on and on.  Understanding the concept of change is important.  It’s actually a foundational understanding that other areas of science and social studies build on, which is why we tackle it early in the school year.

We all have heard that “change is scary” but I’m here to tell you that change can be fun too!  Today I am going to share how I teach about change and a couple of the special events we do during the month of October as we learn about the concept of change.

1.  What is Change?

The first place to start is to get your students thinking about what ‘change’ really is.  I’ve found that the best way to build an understanding of this concept is through examples.  So we start with something we know well – ourselves!  During September, we do a lot of lessons and activities that can fall under the topic ‘All About Me.’  It’s a perfect way to get to know each other and learn about our similarities and differences.  This also makes a great segway into the concept of change.

We start with a fun game where I use the students’ baby pictures (sent in from their parents) to introduce the concept of change.

I begin by showing this baby picture to the class using our projector.  After a few seconds, I ask the question “Who is this?”  The students usually respond one of two ways – they start guessing random people or they sit quietly with a puzzled look on their face.  I will give them hints to help guide them to the correct answer.  “It’s someone at our school.”  “It is someone in this room.”  “It’s someone older than 20.”  Eventually someone guesses right – “It’s You Mrs. Coller!”

This creates the perfect engagement for my most important question: “Why didn’t you guess me at the very beginning?”  And now we have the foundation laid for introducing the concept of change.  And just for some fun and proof of change, we continue the game with students in the class.  I load baby pictures that were sent to me by the parents and we try to guess the person.  After each correct guess, we pause and talk about how that person has changed.

We continue to talk about change in almost everything we do.  As we read stories we talk about how the characters change.  As we build patterns we talk about how they change.  My goal is for the students to see that change is everywhere, change is a part of our world and change can be good.  In addition to weaving the concept of change into our daily classroom lessons, there are also a couple of special visitors that come to our classroom during October that help us learn about change.

2.  A Visit from the Tooth Fairy

October is dental health month and the perfect connection for our changing bodies.  Kindergarten is usually the time when most kids will lose their first tooth and that is a big and exciting change in the life of a 5 year old!

Each year a friend of mine from the dentist’s office will come and visit our classroom.  We begin with a lesson on good dental hygiene from a dental hygienist.  We learn about why it is good to take care of our teeth and how to do it.  I love the engaging ways that the dental hygienist teaches using puppets and student involvement.

After the dental hygienist is finished, she tells that the students that she has a very special visitor for them.  Then she brings in . . . The Tooth Fairy!

The Tooth Fairy talks about how our teeth change.  She helps to prepare the students for losing their first tooth.  The kids are so excited to learn that the reason their teeth will fall out is because their bodies are changing as they grow.  {No tooth fairy in your area?  No problem!  You just might have a friend, a theatre major from a local college, or a staff member that would be willing to be the tooth fairy for you!  I found lots of cute costume ideas on Amazon.}

You can learn more about the Tooth Fairy visit in this blog post! Here’s a free resource you can for dental health month too!

2. A Visit from the Very Hungry Caterpillar

Last year, this was my students most favorite day of the entire school year, and truth be told one of mine too!  There is no better way to talk about change than to talk about caterpillars.  Leading up to the Very Hungry Caterpillar visit, we spend the week using the book as our book study of the week.  We finish off our week with a visit from The Hungry Caterpillar himself!

Our day kicks off with a scavenger hunt as we help the caterpillar find all of the food that he needs for the week.  The students love solving the clues and moving around the school to find the food.  Next we move outside for a fun grocery shopping relay race.

There are lots of fun activities throughout the day that all lead to the big reveal – the beautiful butterfly.   You can learn more about the details of our Hungry Caterpillar Visit in this blog post.  You can also find everything you need for your very own Hungry Caterpillar Classroom Visit right here!

4. Other Ideas

There are so many great ways to connect the concept of change to other areas of study.  Here’s just a few ideas that work perfectly for October!

• The Lifecycle of a Pumpkin
• The Changing Seasons / Weather
• Leaves Changing in the Fall
• Farm Unit – From Farm to Table

This concept of teaching about change is a great one to weave into what you already have planned. It really works perfectly with whatever is on your curriculum plan!

Looking for more ideas from my classroom?  Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram.  This is where I post almost daily about the fun and engaging activities we are doing.  I’d love to see you there!