Long Time No See

So I finally finished up jury duty on Friday at about 5:30 pm. I've never been so glad to see a weekend come in my life. I knew I was going to be out on Wednesday and I guess in the back of my head I knew there was a possibility I'd be out on Thursday. But I didn't really believe it. I didn't think I would get picked for this jury for a variety of reasons. One being I just didn't think it would happen. The other reasons having to do with the fact that the incident that the case was about happened in my small town in the county and I personally know one of the police officers that was a witness in the case. Like he's our resource officer at school and I've worked with him for going on 6 years now. I told all these things to the lawyers. I even told the defense attorney I trusted the police officer to take care of me and my students and was still placed on this jury. So I missed Thursday too. This case was so slow. I don't know if all cases are like this because my only experience with legal proceedings is all the crime shows I watch on tv and they are all wrapped up in an hour. So by Thursday afternoon it looked like I was going to miss Friday too. I was so upset. We were going on a hayride on our first field trip of the year and I really didn't want to miss it. But too bad for me, I had to miss it. I've heard through my assistant and other teachers that my kids were really good the three days I was out but they missed me a lot. Well Friday afternoon, I got an email from one of my sweet girls' dad asking if I was ok because she missed me so much. I informed them I missed her too and would be back at school on Monday. I had the possibility of being out 3 more days this coming week with jury duty but the clerk said she would excuse me since I had already served on a jury and my kiddos were getting behind.
Now I'm really behind on school work, blogging and creating. I am sitting at our local library now blogging and trying to figure out what I need to do today. My husband is still working on getting us internet at the house at least he better be. Later today we're suppose to have an avengers movie marathon with some friends. We're watching Captain America, Thor and the Avengers. I think they watched Ironman 1 and 2 last night, but we have date night on Fridays. I plan to take my work with me. I think it might embarrass my husband a little that I'm taking my laptop to work on things and he had to ask our friend if he had wireless. But oh well. He's getting use to it.
Anyway, on to something of some kind of usefulness. I've been wanting to link up with the Halloween Picture book party all week. So today is the day.

I love fall. I'm so excited that the leaves are starting to change and that there is a little chill in the air in the mornings and evenings. I've always loved Halloween as well. Up until last year, my school always had a big celebration for Halloween. The kids would wear their costumes and we'd parade through part of downtown Gatlinburg. I'm not exactly sure what changed as to why we don't do this anymore but we don't. It's pretty sad and a lot of the people who work in our downtown are sad about it too. But we still have some Halloween fun at school. Here are some of my favorite books to read:

This is my all time favorite book to read at Halloween. The kids love it and it teaches a great lesson on being different.

This book has great photographs. My kids love seeing the life cycle of a pumpkin through the real pictures. We're huge fans of nonfiction in my room this year. I think this is going to be a class favorite.

We read this one last year and wrote "reports" on bats. It's good one when you can't really celebrate Halloween but want to get in the spirit.
The last book I want to share I can't find a picture of. It is one of my books from when I was a kid so I guess Amazon doesn't have a picture of it. It's Halloween by Jack Prelutsky has great poems that are funny and spooky. It's one of my favorites.
Be sure to check out what other people are reading for Halloween by going to First Grade Found Me and joining the party.


There's a chance I'm going to post again later today about the First Grade Common Core workbook. I can't really decide yet. But I know I'll be back on Monday with a big giveaway to celebrate 500 followers. I've gotten some great things from some fantastic bloggers.