Let Kids be Kids

Caplin Family Pumpkin

Our school had their "Harvest Party" today and yes our students still dress up in costumes and yes we had a wonderful parade throughout the school and ended up outside on the playground to tons of parents taking pictures (it is similar to the red carpet experience).  Yes we had great food (peanut free of course) and finally yes we played many fun games including Mad Libs!  Oh yea, and YES I am tired, but I have to say sometimes in education we just need to allow students to be students or better yet: kids to be kids!

Today was a GREAT example. We had a normal Monday morning and my class did wonderful with prime and composite numbers in math, shortened library with Mr. Prosser where they are playing the Amazing Race with QR Codes and right before lunch we talked about Letters to the Editors.

On to the "Harvest Party" the students loved it! Almost all of my students dressed up in costumes and some of them got together to make their costumes.  A group of four girls were different colors of nail polish and a group of boys were the Blue Men Group including Poppa Smurf!  They had a wonderful time, laughed, enjoyed being kids and most of all just had fun!  Our staff dressed up as farmers and I of course was very excited about that choice and was ready to go with jeans, flannel shirt and pigtails.  It was a wonderful day!!

Random Thoughts:  I was not excited for the party and in fact I don't like Halloween and never have.  Ask my own kids, thank goodness for my mom because she made their costumes every year when they were young!  However, in this world of high stakes testing, pushing learning from all angles, and taking the fluff out of learning I have to say today was awesome!  Kids were kids and that is what school should be about.  PS:  I didn't assign any homework so I hope all of them are outside right now Trick or Treating and going to remember to bring me a Take 5 or Almond Joy tomorrow-then all will be perfect.

BFF having a wonderful day!

Blue Men Group on their own terms!

Amazing Halloween Books

This week in class I started sharing some of my favorite Halloween books. My class suggested that I write a blog about the books, so I decided to do a quick book preview.  If you have not seen these books they are lots of fun for Poetry Friday, word study and figurative lanuage all rolled up into some amazing books.

 This is a great series of books that my students love on Poetry Friday.  The poems are written so two students can read the separate parts. I use these poems even to assess fluency with my readers who need additional practice. One of the favorite poems is "The Witch and the  Broomstick"  This year the students are even acting out the poem.



How can you go wrong with a title like this? First of all the curiousty of the title gets the students hooked on the book. Second the illustrations are really spooky and also support the text because there are some new words in in the poems. The next part that makes this book special is all of the poems are sing alongs.  My class loves to sing so this is perfect. Our  class favorite is "Blow, Blow, Blow Your Nose" to the tune of
"Row, Row, Row Your Boat."  Can you imagine the acting out of this song-watch out! 

I have to admit I bought this book for it's cover. I definatley judged this book for it's cover!  But when I opened it up I fell in love with the riddles and the beautiful illustrations that are similar to the cover.  I love using this book for context clues, illustrations that support the text as well as having fun with words.  The students love the first riddle:  What do you call two spiders that just got married?  (Newly webs)  Enjoy these new books in the month of October.