Celebrating a “children’s literacy”-themed Halloween on Oct. 31, the students and staff at Hampton Bays Middle School really got into the spirit of the holiday.         

Expressing themselves according to the "Harry Potter" book series, fifth-graders decorated the hallways in their pod as the fabled Hogwarts School, complete with a Quidditch pitch and photos of the main characters, including Harry, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.

In the sixth-grade pod, where the theme was “Alice in Wonderland,” students created a mini-Wonderland with a tea party motif. The sixth-grade teachers also donned costumes from the major characters in the classic story.

While the seventh-grade class decorated its pod in a "Wizard of Oz" theme, the eighth-graders dressed up individually with no set theme. There were, however, a multitude of "Where's Waldo" characters in special areas of their pod.
    
Even the staffers in the main office joined the fun, choosing "Peter Pan" as their central theme. They created a Jolly Roger ship out of cardboard, adding images of Principal Dennis Schug, Vice Principal Anthony DeBlasio and school counselor Laurie O'Halloran as pirates.
    
At noon, the official ballots for the annual Faculty and Staff Halloween Costume Competition were completed and turned in. In the end, the fifth-grade class came in first, followed by the sixth-graders in second and the seventh-graders in third.