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Elizabeth and Aaron
October 27, 2006
The Halloween Howl

Jaffe’s Journal keeps the students informed about what is happening at Mill Creek. One event that is happening on October 27th, 2006 at Mill Creek is the 6th Grade Halloween Howl. We asked one of the committee leaders, Kathleen Burke, about this activity. We asked her how she got involved in this production. She answered, “I volunteered last year along with 10 other parents. They also wanted to join the 6th grade committee. We started meeting last year, in May. We got some help from the 6th grade teachers, who told us what had happened in prior years.”

Another question we asked her was how she and the other 10 parents will prepare for this occasion. Her response was, “We all divided into five sub-committees. 3 parents were put on the decoration duty, while 2 others did food. One mom handled RSVP’s from the 6th graders, and another parent was in charge for clean up. I was in charge for rounding volunteers, including teachers such as, Mr. Jaffe, Mr. Molenari, Miss Gibbs, Miss Jansen, Miss O’Neil, Mrs. Wodyka, Mr. Roe, Mr. Chapman, Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Funseth, and many others. I also was in charge of the pumpkin carving contest, where kids got to spark their creativity by carving/making their choice of a pumpkin. Some others that were involved were chaperones. That left three other others to be in charge of the ever-popular haunted house.”

The Haunted House was a walkway of fear. Teachers were dressed up in their scariest costume frightening the 6th graders walking dreadfully past them. What the kids saw were black figures darting every which way and lights flickering nearby. Everyone just wanted to get out. Even though it was only a few minutes long, it felt like an eternity. When you were waiting in line, all you heard were the screams of scared kids rushing through the path of horror.

We were very anxious to ask her what activities there will be. She replied, “There would obviously be a Haunted House. There would be costume judging where teachers judge the kids’ costumes based on how pretty, the best homemade, the best school/team spirit, most patriotic, etc, etc. Kids would be able to get their picture taken with their group or friends. Some other activities that there will be are a dance with the DJ and spooky snacks.

Another question that we kindly asked Mrs. Burke was how long it took her to prepare this. She thoughtfully replied, “It has taken us five months so far. We started back in May, of the last school year, discussing all of the events that the 6th grade students would be apart of. But we mainly started working on the Halloween Howl in the beginning of this school year.”

The next question we asked her about this affair was what teachers and other parents were involved in making this event happen. She replied, “The whole committee had to gather together many, many teachers and volunteers. Tons of parent helpers offered to help set-up, clean-up, or chaperone. Mr. Chapman was in charge of collecting teachers who would lend a hand. Most of the volunteering teachers were in the haunted house. With the help of all of our parent and teacher helpers, we created a successful and entertaining Halloween Howl.”

Our last and final question we asked her was why she wanted to be apart of not only the Halloween Howl, but the 6th grade committee. She retorted, “I wanted to be apart of all of the fun 6th grade events, especially the Howl. It makes me feel great when I see all of the students having a blast at an event that the committee and I created for them.” That’s all from Jaffe’s Journal for this week. We hope you have learned a lot and will be more knowledgeable about the Halloween Howl.

Special Thanks To: ~Mrs. Burke- Thank you for making the first edition of Jaffe’s Journal for the 2006-07 year great!