Halloween

On Halloween, the Kindergarten had a storybook character parade throughout the school.  Kevin's  costume was a cobra ninja.  He decided it was Spitta from the Lego Ninjago cartoon.  This doesn't sound like a storybook character, you say.  Well, we have a Lego Ninjago book from the same cartoon that has a single picture of Spitta in it, so storybook character - Check!

Caroline also had Pirate Day.  This would be the culmination of their pirate month at school.  They read a pirate themed book in literature class; made treasure maps in social studies, using a compass, latitude, and longitude; created pirate ships from recycled materials; wrote a biography of a pirate; and created their wanted poster.  On Halloween, they all dressed up as pirates and did a bunch of pirate themed activities.  I refused to buy her 2 separate costumes (and I don't have the creativity or ability to sew my own), so we found stuff from around the house to make her costume.  I think she looked great!

Here are some of the crafts the kids made - a catapult with a plastic spoon, 2 clothespins, and some popsicle sticks.  They also made a hook hand with a plastic cup and some aluminum foil.  Very cool.  The kids also played some games (I was in charge of the blindfolded walking the plank (some parent built a plank that sat a couple inches off the ground), toss the gold coins into the treasure chest, and pin the eyepatch on the pirate game) and raced their pirate ships they had made.  Caroline won all of her races! 

One thing that I learned this day, was that with overachieving students, you often have overachieving parents.  Pirate Day was awesome.  They had a special lunch.  A parent brought in blue jello in clear cups (water) with an orange slice on top (ship) that had a toothpick with a Jolly Roger on it.  Cupcakes were decorated with pirate faces.  A watermelon was carved to look like a pirate ship and filled with fruit salad.  Other parents from the other classes came over and were amazed by how awesome our pirate party was compared to theirs.

The week before, Caroline had her pumpkin lesson.  They applied what they've learned in other subjects with their pumpkins.  They had a booklet with a page titled "Pumpkin Longitude"  they had to estimate and then count the number of ribs on the pumpkin, and find the difference.  A question asked, why is this an appropriate title for this lesson.  Answer - because the lines go north to south like the longitude lines on a globe.  Here are Caroline and her partner Jonathan pulling out the guts from their pumpkin - and when I say Caroline and her partner, I mean her partner.  Caroline pulled out one scoop, gagged, and her partner offered to do the rest.  Caroline swore she helped, but that meant holding the bag while Jonathan did everything else.  The kids had to estimate the weight of the guts, then use a balance scale to determine the actual weight.  They then had to separate out the seeds, estimate and determine actual weight of seeds.  Estimate and count actual number of seeds.  I am so impressed with Caroline's new school.  There is a lot of work, but I love all that she is learning and how they apply what they are learning with hands-on projects.

After school on Halloween, Caroline had no homework, so we headed outside to ride bikes until dinner.

Kevin is "doing tricks" like riding one handed - really that's his only trick.

Finally, it was time for trick or treating.  Back comes Spitta and enter the witch.  The kids and Tom went out for some trick or treating fun.  I was surprised with how quickly they returned, but pumpkins were full, so everyone was happy.