Week of October 27

Here is some information on Halloween...are you dressing up this year? What has been your favortie costume?

Halloween, or Hallowe’en, is an international holiday celebrated on October 31. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting haunted attractions, carving jack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries of the Western world, most commonly in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Japan, New Zealand, United Kingdom and occasionally in parts of Australia. In Sweden the All Saints' official holiday takes place on the first Saturday of November.


The carved pumpkin, lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols in America, and is commonly called a jack-o'-lantern. Originating in Europe, these lanterns were first carved from a turnip or rutabaga. Believing that the head was the most powerful part of the body containing the spirit and the knowledge, the Celts used the "head" of the vegetable to frighten off any superstitions.[7] The name jack-o'-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, [8] a greedy old farmer. He tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into the tree trunk. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to forever wander the earth at night with the only light he had: a candle inside of a hollowed turnip. The carving of pumpkins is associated with Halloween in North America,[9] where pumpkins were readily available and much larger, making them easier to carve than turnips. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their home's doorstep after dark. In America the tradition of carving pumpkins is known to have preceded the Great Famine period of Irish immigration. The carved pumpkin was originally associated with harvest time in general in America and did not become specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.

Week of October 20

On Monday, there will be an assembly to kick off Red Ribbon Week. Do you know the significance of Red Ribbon Week?

On Friday, the seventh grade will head to Chicago for a field trip to the Sears Tower and the Freedom Museum. Here are some interesting facts about the Sears Tower:

Sears Tower is strategically located on Wacker Drive in the heart of the West Loop, Chicago’s premier submarket and home to its largest corporations and commuter rail stations. Completed in early 1973, Sears Tower is an attractive and contemporary 110-story trophy office tower consisting of steel columns and beams in a “mega-module” system. The building contains approximately 3.8 million rentable square feet (“RSF”) including approximately 159,000 RSF of retail space. The Property also features a 160-car executive parking garage accessible from Franklin Street. Other amenities include a world-class broadcast platform, tallest skydeck, full-service conference center, fitness facility, and exceptional technology features. Sears Tower, completed May 3, 1973, rises to a height of 1,450 feet and is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the Chicago skyline and in the world. Sears Tower held the record for the world’s tallest building for 25 years until the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia were built in 1998. Then in the Fall of 2004 Taipei 101 took all but one title -- tallest to the tips of the antennas, which Sears Tower still owns. Including the Sears Tower antennas, the total height of Sears Tower increases to 1,725 feet. Designed by the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for Sears, Roebuck & Company, the world’s largest retailer at the time, the 3.8 million RSF building is the preeminent office address in Chicago and one of the premier properties in the world.

Week of October 13

Do you know the meaning of Columbus Day?


Many countries in the New World and elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492.
Columbus Day celebrations commemorate the Genoese explorer's first expedition across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492. Columbus, on commission by the Spanish monarchy, was hoping to find a new naval route to India and the other nations of the East, but instead found the American continent which was virtually unknown to Europeans at the time. Columbus's sailor Rodrigo de Triana was the first on the voyage to spot land in the New World; he found the island the natives called Guanahani at approximately 2:00 AM on October 12, 1492. The exact location of this island is unknown, though it was somewhere in the Bahamas. Columbus's expedition launched the first large-scale European colonization of the Americas.

Have a great day off!