Dear Friends,
October is already here and with it comes L.A.’s subtle shift into the fall season and the reality that the holidays are coming soon. When I say that, I don’t mean to scare you but history proves that once Halloween is over, time just seems to fly by. For me, I always feel like it’s a cruel trick. Just when we think the children are safely “settling in” to their new routines at school, a holiday that identifies itself with spooky things, creepy crawlers, and dark scary surprises enters the scene. It’s not something that we can ignore, either…even if we want too. Right next door there could be a scary witch with a green face that moves when you touch her hand or a skeleton hanging from a tree!
Halloween has become such an adult holiday and people think it’s all about having fun. Unfortunately, not all our children will be laughing. There has been much debate about how to address this holiday in appropriate ways to children who, in these preschool years, are in the preoperational stage of development.* Over the years, we have adjusted our schedules and curriculum to reflect what we see happening with the children during this time and we feel we’ve been pretty successful in supporting them…and still have some fun doing it. The details of our Halloween Parade are posted on the blog for your reference. The parade is just that…a parade. We’ll be walking down May St. and then back up on May St. We won’t be stopping to “trick or treat” but we will wave to friends and neighbors and it has become quite a sweet community event. Please know that if your child does not want to “dress up”, that it’s important to respect that. It’s hard to remember that it’s not about you, anymore, isn’t it? This is about what feels right for your child.
On the blog under the “Articles” heading, there are some articles that I have found helpful when working with young children who are dealing with specific issues. In the “Fantasy and Fear” article, the author speaks about “gradual desensitization” and the importance of exposing children, little by little, to their fears. With this theory in mind, we will be introducing many experiences in which the children can touch and feel and see unfamiliar things at their own pace. It is a NSW tradition that I dress up as a witch to lead the parade and so it’s really important that the children know that I am still Roleen though I am wearing a costume. This is why I’ll be putting my costume on with the children for several days before the Halloween parade. You’ll see, come parade time, they are almost bored with me and you’ll hear, “Yeah, I know, you’re really Roleen.” So much for my glory!
What we’ll also do is create spaces where the children can experience darkness and we’ll have flashlights available for them to feel “in control” of their world. We’ll bring out the face paints, have rubber spiders, snakes, bats, and masks available for them to touch and feel at will and here’s something that you might not have thought of…we’ll be carrying this over until after Halloween. We’ve learned that very often children need to “play out” situations or incidents that might have occurred after actually experiencing certain events first hand. Hearing and talking about an event is one thing. Actually living it is another.
With all the changes around us, we are beginning to feel the signs of the season. Feel free to join in the celebration and bring in pumpkins, gourds, and squashes of all sizes so we can lift, weigh, measure, estimate, carve, smell, taste, cook, roll, count, paint and, well, it’s endless all the things we can do. Don’t forget, too, that we want to “bring our outside world in” and that means we need to see, touch, and feel the changing of the trees in our neighborhood. Start looking down and collect what you find. You’ll be surprised what you can gather in quantities ready for open-ended exploration. We’ll have baskets ready for beautiful leaves, pods, pinecones, and, well…surprise us. Happy Fall to you all. Roleen
*Preoperational thought is Piaget’s term for the second period of cognitive development. Children in this stage of thought are usually between the ages of 2 and 7.