Is there a way to take attendance in Google Classroom? Or, if not, is there a way to create an

Since there isn't a direct way to take attendance in Google Classroom yet (thought it's not a bad suggestion to send feedback about, with the "?" in the lower left corner), you'd want some repeating assignment, as you described. However, I think what I'd suggest is using the Question option on the Classwork tab. Make the question something like, "are you here today?" with a yes/no answer. As the teacher, you'll be able to see who has completed and who hasn't, which tells you who was absent. But perhaps what you have already set up is something like this. 

To answer your specific question about getting it to repeat, there isn't a way to get it to repeat on it's own. However, you wouldn't have to recreate the assignment each day, you can just use the "Repost" option under the Create menu. This let's you select an assignment from any class and reuse it as many times as you want. You could reuse it 5 times at the beginning of the week, and schedule them to show up each day. See attached links for more details on those things. 

Hope that helps!

Dierdre Shetler