Halloween!

Today was the funnest day at school! I forgot how much fun Halloween can be in elementary school. All the children and teachers were dressed up and had tons of fun through activities and games. Today wasn't a hard day to discover strategies that the teacher uses to help the children be actively engaged. Everything was themed around Halloween, which children loved. When I came into the room the teacher started with a game called "Don't Eat Pete." The children were to get into small groups and place pieces of candy on spooky faces on their playing board. One child left from the group and the others as team would decide which spooky face would be "Pete." Once Pete was decided, the child could come back and try to avoid choosing Pete, picking up candy along the way. If they picked up the candy on Pete's face, everyone would shout DON'T EAT PETE! At that point the child would stop taking candy and start over with someone else leaving the group and the rest would choose the new Pete. The game allowed the children to have fun, count candy, and work as a team developing strategies for choosing Pete. It was fun to see the children work together in this game. After the game, I helped pass out the fruit of the day. It was the craziest fruit I have ever seen. It almost looks like an evil fuzz ball! It's called a Rambutan which comes from Indonesia. After the Early Birds left, the teacher used a Halloween book for reading time to help engage the children. Afterwords they had the options of reading or working on a Halloween packet full of spooky pictures to color and Halloween themed word and math activities. I read to the children one at a time in the hall, and talked with them for a few minutes about their costume and fun plans for the evening. 

Here is a picture of the fruit that we passed out today. It was certainly a fun day!