Halloween/Reformation Day

Ufda! You can tell the kids are excited about something!  All day they were hard to settle... from 3rd and 4th all the way up to the 7th and 8th graders.  Everyone is excited about trick or treating tonight, although the weather is kind of gross and misty.  I have some candy to pass out if any trick or treaters stop by, but since I'm still not home from school yet, I'm not sure how many will be out by the time I get there!

This morning one of my students surprised me with an orange and black bouquet of flowers.  I only had tall, narrow vases, so the flowers are kind of stuffed into one.  They look nice on my desk though!  She also brought candy for the whole class.  Last week she said she was bringing cupcakes (she likes to bake), but I guess candy was faster.

At recess today, the boys bottle flipped.  It's a craze that's sweeping the nation, started by a youtuber who videoed himself flipping a bottle 1/4th full of water, trying to get it to land straight up.  Since then, more and more flipping challenges have been issued: get the bottle to land on its cap, on a fence, on a wall, on a table, out a window... the list goes on and on.  There were some pretty amazing flips happening at recess! One boy got the bottle to land on a tiny ledge all the way up on the back of the basketball backboard!!! Another got it to land on the ledge where the metal gym wall and the carpeted gym wall meet (waaay above his head).  It was pretty sweet.

The 7th and 8th graders registered the school to vote today.  They split up to the different classrooms and had each student show them "ID" aka a homework assignment with their name on it to "prove" they were "residents" of our school/their classroom.  Then the registers initialed the line.  Even the teachers registered!  Our school cook can't be there the day of the election, so we're working on an absentee ballot for her.  Mrs. E has a student teacher who leaves before we'll have our election, so she'll need one too.

Tomorrow is the first day of NaNo; everyone is excited.  A bunch of my kiddos want to bring laptops from home to work on their stories.  Sure! Why not?  I made the word count charts after school today and hung them on the back of the door.  It's in a very prominent place so they'll be sure to write lots and lots!