Here come the pumpkins

The first nine weeks is over and sure signs of the holiday season have been spotted during the couple of weeks. Did you know that a teacher can tell how close Halloween is without looking at a calendar? They can feel the excitement build everyday until it is nearly a frenzy. It's true. The whole school hums. My first year, I panicked. I could feel a gradual loss of control to the candy induced mania. I racked my brain trying find a way to survive it. I think it came to me in a vision while I was eating my way through the first pumpkin pie of the season. I have a serious problem with pumpkin pie but that is another story. Here is how it all began... My husband and I have rules we try to stick to while raising our boys. The children don't know it but we base alot of our discipline decisions on these rules. I will tell you but you have to promise not tell my children. Rule # 1. Win. Rule # 2. If you can't win, then stack the deck to make it look like you win. Why? Well, truthfully....we are outnumbered and kids don't play fair in the growing up game. Soooo, we have no choice but to cheat. I am a law abiding, christian woman and it pains me to say that I have resorted to using these rules in the classroom. Why? I am outnumbered there too! All joking aside. I cannot fight the excitement of Halloween all day long in a room full of costumed second graders. I can't beat them...sooo I am putting on my Tinkerbell costume and joining them. I am throwing the third annual Pumpkin Patch Invaders of the Math Kind. We spend the day learning math through all things fallish. We eat pumpkin pie, popcorn, and candy all in the name of math. Every lesson is aligned to common core and parents get to teach them!!!!! It is a blast for all but the coolest part is that they don't know they are learning!!!! I win...I win...I winI mean...you know...I had a plan all along