ROOTS Halloween!! 36 kids this year!

We had GIANT pumpkins, with great thanks to Disneyland, who decided to use plastic this year instead of the ones the farmer grew for them. They were a bit of a challenge, as the 'meat' was thicker than the knives were long, and took some creative efforts to get the pieces out (especially the very first piece to open the top!). The two groups with older kids wielded their own knives, and moms and dads helped with the 3 groups of younger kids. It took us an hour this year, much longer than usual!


Next up was a word game. I'm always impressed with how the kids dig into this! Simple find & write exercise, but the big kids had to recognize the initial letter of each word in order to find the correct word card and spell it all right. The little kids had to trace the word, then either read it or find it on a card to match the pictures to the words. Taiga did really well at this (mom grinning ear to ear) and was able to read the words back to me later without any picture prompts! The moms are always impressed by this, so its a real crowd pleaser.

Snack time is always a big hit - and a break for me to set up the next activities!


Since we couldn't go outside for trick-or-treating (major storm happening), we did activity stations, with a treat prize at each one. We had a ball toss (knock the cups off the table), ring toss(catch the rings on the spider's legs), apple bobbing (sure is hard to find apples here small enough to bob for!), the mystery box (containing the eyes, ears, brain, and tongue of a monster I cut up), and the slime pit (if you want a rubber ball, you have to reach in and pull it out!!).


So everyone survived, and once I admitted to one young admirer that I hadn't really killed a monster, all was good. (I thought I had tarnished my image to him, by becoming a monster murderer - but actually, he was worried that other monsters might retaliate and attack me to avenge their friend! Little sweetie was worried about me!)

I love my students!!