Halloween Reading Fun

Dear Parents,

Yesterday was our first Pizza Day and our Halloween celebration. Ms. Lock's class did a great drama presentation at yesterday's assembly, and we had a lovely afternoon in what I hope will become a Pizza Day tradition.

We had a number of parents in to read books with students: Thank you to Adam, Jenny, Liz, Maggie!

Each parent picked a Halloween themed book and took turns reading with students, along with me and Mr. Eloi, our new student teacher. We also had out stamping, marble run, lego, and peg boards with elastics for those waiting their turns.

Students had prepared haunted houses, and when they read with an adult, they got a spooky character sticker to put in their haunted house. Kind of a reading passport idea spookified for the occasion. Be sure to check Mr. Zippy to see how many books your child read yesterday afternoon!

I loved overhearing one student, Zack, tell one of the parent volunteers: "The Grade Ones are all really good at reading, aren't they?" I just love how proud they are of their accomplishments (and they should be! Learning to read is a big job).

The book I chose was a pop-up by Jan Pienkowski called Haunted House. I love his books because they are full of little easter eggs--there's all these little details happening in the background that are fun to discover. Reading one on one was a good opportunity to let the kids explore and play with this book's hidden treasures.

Here's some before shots of students haunted house drawings. As a side benefit, you get to see some pretty cute costumes:

 And here are some after shots, taken in a hurry as we rushed out the door: