Getting into the Spirit

October is my favorite month of the year, because not only is it the time when it really starts to feel as if Fall has arrived, but it's also the month with the greatest holiday ever... Halloween!

Americans are crazy for Halloween. We go absolutely nuts the entire month leading up to the 31st with decorating our houses, schools and stores, setting up haunted houses around town, stocking up on a life time supply of candy and preparing our costumes, hoping that ours will be the best, whether it's gory, scary, cute or clever.

Last Halloween I was living in Thailand, a country that hasn't really caught onto celebrating the holiday. We has a costume party at work, but aside from that we didn't teach our students about the history or traditons, and there were no crafts involved.

This year, working in an international school, I have the opportunity to share my culture with my students. Talking about Halloween and the way that Americans celebrate it is a good way to introduce new vocabulary while also talking about a subject that is fun for them and myself.

We started our month of Halloween crafts with Jack-o-lanterns. A Jack-o-lantern is a pumpkin that we cut open at the top, hollow out, carve a face into, and then keep a burning candle inside. We normally carve them a week or so before the 31st, and leave them outside our front doors for display. While many people still choose to carve simple but scary faces, some Americans put much more effort into their Jack-o-lanterns, creating carved works of art on the front.

Since my class of three year olds are too young to carve their own pumpkins, I thought we could make them our of paper instead. On large pieces of orange paper I drew pumpkins for the kids to color and cut. The activity was also a good way to have Aurora practice working with scissors, as I asked them to do all their own cutting.

Before we started the Jack-o-lanterns, I explained to them what Halloween is, and how we celebrate it. I  described how everyone dresses up as their favorite monster or character, and then walks from door to door, knocking and saying, "trick or treat!" I also explained how after you say the magic words, the resident of the house hands you a giant bowl of candy to pick from. I walked around the class with a bowl and each child told me, "trick or treat," as they reached in and grabbed handfuls of imaginary goodies.

We also practiced drawing Jack-o-lanterns on the board, to demonstrate that they have all types of faces and it didn't have to look a certain way. Afterwards we practiced writing the word and sounding out the letters. Aurora did a great job with the activity and I was impressed with how independent they are becoming with crafts.

Here's how it went....