On October 31st, students came to school in something other than their uniforms. Instead, they came to school looking as if they had climbed out of books and movies.

Across the school, one could spot a wide variety of characters. There were china dolls and referees, puritans and vampires. There was even a squid! One student, Emiko, dressed up as “the guy from Brawny”. She explained “I just bought a flannel, and I guess I wanted to be ironic and cool.” To go along with the shirt, she carried around a paper towel roll with  a picture of the Brawny guy attached to it.

Even teachers participated in Character Day. In art class, Ms. Krom was dressed as Bob Ross, a famous television artist. It was impossible to make it through that class without hearing jokes about painting “happy little trees” and “happy little clouds”. As it was Halloween, Ms. Krom decided to show us an episode of a show called “Face/Off”. “Face/Off” is a show about cosmetic artists competing against each other to make the best character of a theme. In the episode Ms. Krom chose, the theme was, of course, Halloween. The competitors chose iconic Halloween figures, such as the scarecrow, skeleton, and vampire, to remake into “creatures of the night”. It was amazing to see the unique ideas the artists brought to life, and it a wonderful way to celebrate Halloween in the classroom.

The teachers also had fun with a pumpkin decorating contest. Students were invited to vote for their favorite pumpkin during lunch. The pumpkins waited patiently for votes to be cast on top of the stage in the cafeteria. One pumpkin was decorated as Princess Leia, from Star Wars, and even had mini pumpkins for hair buns. There was an Elmo pumpkin and a Cookie Monster pumpkin with a mouth carved out, keeping cookies captive. The winner of the competition was a pumpkin with an intricately detailed paintjob of a zombified Bob Ross. It came as no surprise when it was announced that Ms. Krom painted it.

In case you were wondering, there was a bit of trick-or-treating involved in Character Day. Mr. Bickes and Mrs. Osborne travelled from class to class with a bucket of tempting sweets. In order to get a piece of candy, a student would simply have to say “trick or treat”. A few students were looked upon with slight annoyance if they said “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Birthday”, despite how hilarious they were.