Wednesday, 31 October 2012

The Pumpkin Patch.

Just another quick picture post :)
 
I was incredibly surprised by what a big deal Halloween was at my school. It's not something that I've ever really celebrated and it's been a while since I was in a school that did anything for Halloween but this particular school goes all out! I think my favorite part of this Halloween season was when our entire school took a field trip to the pumpkin patch.
 
It wasn't actually so much of a pumpkin patch as just a family-fall-fun-farm. It is owned by one of the families that attends our school and they invited all of us out for a visit the week before Halloween.
 

Such a pretty horse! And a beautiful farm too. The fall colors were in full force and while this was bar far the coldest day I had experienced since last winter, I was just thankful we didn't get rained on.


The poor barn cats spent the entire day running away from all of our crazy students.


Cute little train that they drive around the farm.


Best part of my day! I was wearing rainboots but it didn't rain and it wasn't muddy so they really didn't serve much purpose and they did absolutley nothing to help keep my toes warm. They were completely numb after an hour of walking around the farm and I very much enjoyed this opportunity to thaw them out.

Another one of my favorite things about Halloween has been decorating the classroom. here is some of the student work we had up on the "Treasured Work" board. Gotta love the acrostic poem. Always the easiest writing assignment.




 
And a few photos of my bulletin boards all decked out.







The kids did such a great job coloring these scarecrows that I'm planning to leave them up for my November boards as well. It's one of those fall decorations that can last through Thanksgiving.


I've discovered that one of the easiest ways to decorate is with books! I've already put loads of Thanksgiving picture books on hold at the library and plan to put them up all over my classroom next week.


"Get Caught In A Good Book" Classic glitter spider webs. I remember making them in elementary school and loving them and figured my kids would too. They did love making them and I'm enjoying the sparkles that will forever be in my carpet because of them. The students also wrote paragraphs about why they love reading and what their favorite books are and I printed out photos of each student and a little spider picture to go on each one.


I worked hard to make that spider web! Took ages for me to get all of the staples out today... My team teacher and I switch off who is responsible for the hallway bulletin board each month and since November is her month I had to take all of my stuff down after school today so that she could get her November bulletin board up. I was proud of that board but honestly, I was also ready for a change. I already have a plan for my December bulletin board --- get excited.

Okay, now here's the scary part. The parents at our school love Halloween and they get really into it. They're in charge of decorating our classrooms and my classroom was a little spookier than I care for. I wanted the kindergarten classroom with all of the cute little pumpkins but instead, I got this:


YIKES!!! They were great about cleaning up though and had everything taken down by the time we came back from recess in the afternoon.

Next stop, Halloween Carnival. The parents set this up in the auditorium and they are all responsible for different booths. My favorite was the doughnut on a string. I had never seen that before and it was so cute watching the little kids try to eat doughnuts that were swinging from strings above their heads. Loved it.


This is Heather. She's my new bestie at work. She teaches Math/Science for the kindergarteners and 1st graders. We zumba together a couple of times a week, and go shopping together, and eat Mexican food together, and I'm taking her on her first trip to Leavenworth over our three day weekend next month.


And here's the whole team of teachers (minus our Pre-K teacher). Hope they don't mind that they're on my blog :) We had to vote on a theme for costumes. I REALLY wanted "Fair Tale Characters" so that I could be Captain Hook but somehow 50's was voted most popular. I didn't like the idea of all of us wearing the exact same thing so I went with the Pink Ladies jacket instead of the poodle skirt. Didn't matter. The kids had no idea who we were and the funny thing is, since most of our school families are international, most of the parents didn't know either! We spent the whole day hearing "So... what are you anyway?" Mostly everyone was just shocked that I was wearing make-up and had done my hair, since that certainly doesn't happen on a regular basis.

My favorite parent costume (other than a super cool pirate one) was one of the moms who dressed as Flo -- you know, the insurance lady from those commercials? So funny! I thought it was really clever.

Steven and I are just having a chill evening at home tonight and as our street is still under construction and super dark, it looks like we'll have to wait another year for trick-or-treaters. SO glad that tomorrow is the start of the holiday season. I love love LOVE Thanksgiving and can't wait to make my students do all kinds of "thankful" activities!

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