Get Your Halloween/Fall On
The Times had a pretty astounding list of things to do for Halloween/Fall. So take the kids to get a pumpkin, go through a haunted house, go to a carnival (I have a particular affinity for the Whittier Elementary Carnival - they have a cakewalk!); get out there and have fun!
Halloween is my favorite holiday because:
Sadly, I won't be partaking in my recent favorite activity which is dressing like a zombie and doing the Thriller dance. It was big fun.
Conversely, you could stay home and watch a scary movie (although it would be hard to find a scary movie you could show someone under 10 unless you didn't care about their sleeping habits for the next several days afterwards). There's always It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown or Coraline or Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit.
Halloween is my favorite holiday because:
- no presents
- no relatives to visit
- costumes
- CANDY!!!
Sadly, I won't be partaking in my recent favorite activity which is dressing like a zombie and doing the Thriller dance. It was big fun.
Conversely, you could stay home and watch a scary movie (although it would be hard to find a scary movie you could show someone under 10 unless you didn't care about their sleeping habits for the next several days afterwards). There's always It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown or Coraline or Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit.
Comments
They also loved The Little Vampire starring Jonathan Lipnicki. I never saw the appeal. It's suitable for young ones.
Continuing in the category of mysterious appeal and questionable taste, there are also the Halloweentown made-for-TV movies with Debbie Reynolds. There are three of them. I think they're dreadful, but little kids like them. Again, not too scary.
They are showing the film and performing the soundtrack!
Not for the wee ones, but high schoolers might like it.
I don't really want to turn this into a rant about observing holidays or about APP, but I do need to cement my reputation as a cranky old man, so...
I can't help but mention that Lowell is observing Halloween with class parties and costumes on the afternoon of the 30th, pretty much as they did last year, but I'm told that T. Marshal is not acknowledging Halloween. Will either have an impact on learning? Probably not. But it's the cumulative effect of little things like this (not to mention the lack of standardized curriculum) that will create different school cultures and prevent Lowell APP and T. Marshall APP from being perceived as equitable.
I can see not having a party because it is a school day. Back in the day, we had a "costume parade" after lunch around the playground so we could see all the costumes. I really don't remember a party per se. I get that when there is food involved it gets tricky because of allergies, etc. but either have a district policy or not.
Why is this the policy at Marshall? From what we've been told, it's because Marshall didn't have any Halloween celebrations in the past, it's too intense for the kids in the autism classes, and because some religious parents objected.
One of the things that cemented our choice to move from Broadview Thompson to AS#1 when the girls were in Kindergarten was the way AS#1 celebrated Holloween - the kids were allowed to wear their costumes all day and there was a big Halloween parade in the lunch room where all the classes got to walk across the stage - even kids who were not dressed up (although there were hardly any who didn't). At BT, kid#1's class was allowed to bring their costume in a bag and share it as part of show and share and kid#2's class had a 1 hour party where they were allowed to wear their costumes and had treats. Kid #1's class had no parents involved and Kid#2 had 10+ parents around to help with the party. October 31st was the last day to transfer w/o appeal. I filled out the paper work that day (it was our 2nd visit to AS#1).
This experience really highlighted how much individual teachers made the difference at BT where as AS#1 had an all inclusive climate.
I attended Catholic a K-8 in upstate NY in the 1960s. We did not celebrate Halloween, but instead celebrated Nov. 1 as All Saints Day. We got to come in costume dressed as our name (patron) saint or the saint of our choice if we had no official saint. My favorite was going as Joan of Arc, complete with sword and shield!