The Petals Class Adventures Book 1: The Case of the Haunted House

           Once upon a time (There’s no perfect way to start our story than with this phrase), there was a big group of friends called the Petals Class. It was Halloween night, and they were going trick– or– treating.

             “Trick– or– treat is when you get dressed up in your Halloween costume, and you go from house to house saying, ‘Trick– or– treat!’ and then people give you lots of candies,” the teachers explained. “But this year, we’re not sure if you can go trick– or– treating….”

“Because of the coronavirus,” Z said. She’s right. The teachers said that maybe we can say “Trick– or– Treat!” to our mommies and daddies, and maybe they can give us candies instead!

“I’ve tried that already, but Mommy still said ‘no’,” S said, which made us chuckle. The teachers told him that maybe he can try again on Halloween…..?

So, the Petals Class friends were going on a trick– or– treat, and suddenly they came upon a big, scary haunted house (By this time, Pauline had dropped her voice into a whisper, and she was speaking with the flashlight shining under her face, and the lights were turned off— so we gasped in nervous excitement).

“But it’s just a pretend house….. Right?” H said.

“Yes, of course, it’s just a story,” Pauline replied with a grin, breaking off from her storyteller character.

“Let’s go inside the house!” K said. “Maybe we’ll see some vampires!” he suggested.

“Oh, yes, I said that,” Kenji said. “I said, ‘I want to see some vampires.”

“Maybe we can see witches, too,” H said.

L also said, “Maybe we’ll get to see some monsters!” So, the Petals friends opened the door (The door opens with a creak), and they went inside.

N said, “Hello? Anybody there? Trick– or– treat!” and his voice echoed through the big house. Suddenly, they heard a witch’s cackle. Then the door closed with a……. BANG! (Pauline made a banging sound and we all jumped).

Z, A, and A said, “Help! We need to get out! We still want to go trick– or– treat!”

Suddenly there was a growl.

“What are you doing in my house?” Said the terrible voice. All the Petals Class friends were scared.

“I told you, we should have asked nicely before we went inside!” D said.

“We’re so sorry, Mr. Monster!” the Petals Class friends cried.

“The only way you can get out of my house is for you to look for the shapes and count them!” the monster growled. First, he asked for us to look for the heart shapes and count them. The monster rolled a flashlight towards them, and K bravely volunteered.

“1… 2...3… I see three heart shapes,” K said. Next, the monster asked us to count the circle shapes. Z counted and said, “There’s just two circles.”

Next, the monster asked to count all the squares, (“2” A said.), then the triangles (“I find 4,” K reported), the stars ( “I found just 2,” H said.), and the diamonds ( “I can see 3,” N said).

“Okay, you all did a good job,” The monster said. “You may leave my house. But, next time, you can ask nicely before you go inside!” The monster growled. The door opened, and out ran the scared Petals Class! The end.

“Whsshh!” H said.

“What’s that sound?” the teachers asked.

“That’s the sound of us running so fast out of the house,” H replied. It’s a good thing we passed the monster’s test, as we just talked about shapes earlier! Pauline first showed us a picture which we identified as a circle.

“The sun is a circle,” K said.

The cake is a circle,’ H said. Next, we had a rectangle.

“The door is a rectangle,” K pointed out. Then, we identified the square, and S said, “The classroom jobs are squares,” as he pointed to our classroom jobs chart. We also identified other shapes like heart, star, and diamond. We also tried to make the shapes using our hands.

Our free play time was spent finishing our beautiful, autumn– themed Halloween bats. At the back of the room, we played with our Lego blocks while Sayaka made some beautiful Halloween drawings on our white board. When we were walking to the park, we asked Pauline, “So… where’s the real haunted house?”

That’s all for our Wednesday– how about you? How was your day?

Love,

All the Halloween– ready children in Petals Class