Halloween Learning

Students entered a dark classroom on Halloween.  The "Undertaker" music played in the background and candles flickered under three headstones at the front of the room.  Sadly, we had three words come to an untimely end in our writing.  The three words have died from extreme over use.  Said is dead, fun is done, and big....well, we had to dig.  We said our good-byes and tried to think of what to do next.  The students were able to brainstorm tons of words to use instead!

Our writing is really going to be filled with great word choice in the future.  After we brainstormed as a class, the students added the dead word synonyms to their writing journals.  Finally at the end, students rewrote the sentence: "I got a big candy bar. Halloween is so fun!" said Frankenstein.  Here are a couple student samples: "I got a mammoth candy bar. Halloween is so thrilling!" replied Frankenstein. "I got a large candy bar. Halloween is so spectacular!" shouted Frankenstein.

 Later in the day, we had some witches brew. First, we passed around the ingredients.  The ingredients were in paper bags so the students could not see them, only feel.  There were things like chicken toenails, cat eyes, bat bones, etc.  When the students were sufficiently "grossed out" we added the ingredients to a cauldron.  They found things like candy corn, skittles, and pretzels.  The children had fun guessing what food item the ingredient might be.  We mixed it altogether and each child got to take a cup full to munch as they wrote.  The writing assignment was to write a paragraph with excellent word choice, such spectacular word choice that someone would want to eat chicken toenails mixed with bat bones!  Oh my goodness the writing was terrific!  "Today only, get a scoop of delicious witch's brew.  Try our fresh cat eyes mixed with crunchy bat bones.  Our brew is straight from the kitchen with no artificial flavors or colors."

It just wouldn't be Halloween without ending our day with a good STEM challenge.  The students were given the challenge to create a catapult for a candy pumpkin.  We talked about potential energy and kinetic energy, as well as, push and pull.  Three of the seven groups were able to successfully make a catapult out of rubber bands, tape, and craft sticks.  However, all the groups really had a growth mindset.  They learned from what didn't work and kept revising their blueprint until the end. This is a STEM challenge we will have to come back to.