Five for Friday

We don't have school today so it appears that I will get my 5.4.Friday post done on Friday! Big accomplishment for me! So hop on over to Doodlebugs to read about everyone's five random things from their day or their week. This is my favorite way to post about our week!

 1. We spend a lot of time at school this year. So when my Punky wanted to know when we could carve a Jack-O-Lantern at home, well, we just squeezed it in on Monday night. She still loves pulling all the guts and goo out of the inside and scolded when I tried to "help." Next thing I knew, she was carving that bad boy.... by herself! And no appendages were severed or injured, so all is right in the world.

She says he looks funny. I say he looks amazing. 

 2. This little guy was not reading or writing at the start of the school year. Our para said she helped him with the word "could" and the "others." He sounded out the rest. (I wonder if maybe he got help with "things" also). But this is a huge victory and celebration for this first grade reader/writer! Yay!

I can't figure out how to turn this. I got it turned in iPhoto, but it loads onto here sideways still. 

 3. Kicking off the election project. Students are talking about what makes a good leader in the first photo.

 We "assigned" parties by having them draw counters out of a bag and we had an equal amount of two colors = two major parties and a lesser amount of another color = independent party. Then parties had to decided what they were all about, what their names were, what their slogan was and what their symbol was. We had many, many candidates running for primary elections. Students of all grade levels got into the campaigning as shown below. This little Kinder did a great job designing and creating buttons and also wearing his support on his shirt!

 4. I attempted to dress up this year. I have not been this excited for Halloween for a very long time! I am El Skippito Friskito, the great sword fighter (aka... Skippyjon Jones). We played learning games and practiced math facts and did some silly sentence writing to practice those grammar/sentence structure skills.

My assistant/life-line/para/couldn't-do-it-without-you, Ronni, and I ready for day of fun and frolic.

5.

A whole class photo. One little learner is absent today.

Abe Lincoln showed up today. I love this creative use of the mustache
given out at the party.

Howdy pardners, this little guy was very much from the old West today! 

Pink mustaches.... who knew?! A flapper and a zombie

Even Fourth graders were getting into the spirit

Look at that sweet face. :)

I'm curious to hear about everyone's rules and regulations regarding Halloween. I know some schools don't do anything to acknowledge the day, some have short parties at the end, some encourage dressing up as book characters, and some go all out. I would say that my class went all out this year. I do, however, sense something different in the future. I think there is a point when you decide to "roll with it" and realize that kids are excited and not so focused on school. We did do some revising and corrections this day, but mostly we reinforced skills that have already been taught.  Learning happened but not in ways that would add to student or teacher frustration, realizing there could (would?) be a high level of distraction this day.

I don't want to forget about the fantastic parent volunteers that made for a nice and fun party in the cafeteria! Thanks for much for causing this to run smoothly and creating those fun activities for our class! Hats off to you! We had pumpkin bowling, a craft, musical chairs and snacks/goodies! What a lot of fun!!

We ended our big day by going to the nursing home and the assisted/independent living home. We visited with the folks that live there and showed off our costumes. Students young and old got into the spirit. I feel more character training coming on here. I will do more pre-class-trip preparing next year and encourage students more to interact with the people we go to see.

The windows made it hard for me to get a good picture, but this is
the whole school at the end of our costume parade. 

After this we walked back to the school, stopping in at the city office. We got back to school just in time to pack and up and talk about what we learned that day!

Happy Halloween. Be safe and be responsible. And happy long weekend to Mount Hope Elementary students!