Halloween is only a few weeks away and while six weeks, is six weeks, it’s just about enough time for you and your kids to figure out what to do for Halloween costumes, make trick or treating plans and make arrangements for the room parties at their schools. There are a lot schools that walk a tricky line where Halloween is concerned, especially in public schools and while I’m not going to get into the debate over the pros and cons of the holiday that I personally happen to enjoy for a variety of reasons. That being said, here is a thought that you and your family may want to utilize if your school is having an issue with a Halloween celebration at school.
A Treasury of Literary Characters
Instead of generic costumes or a specific Halloween party, hold a Harvest Festival Salute to the Great Characters of Literature. Dress your children up as their favorite characters from book series both modern and fabled. For example, girls may want to be anyone from Dora to Emily Elizabeth to Little Red Riding Hood or Little Miss Muffet, Hermione, Cinderella, Snow White or the Fairy Godmother. Boys may want to be Prince Caspian, Harry Potter, Tom Swift, Aladdin, Ali Baba, Encyclopedia Brown and many, many more.
Encourage your school to view this as an opportunity to explore a child’s favorite story and let their imaginations explode with the possibilities. You can embrace a theme of Mother Goose or Animal Friends or even Little People with Big Dreams. I think it’s important to celebrate the day – kids enjoy exploring their imagination and any opportunity we can give kids to encourage their reading and exploring literature – let’s take it!
Instead of Candy – Books
Instead of candy treats to give them as a part of their party favors, include small books of a grade appropriate level. It might be a little expensive, but if the parents can all be encouraged to contribute or even do a book swap of gently used or new books. The books themselves can either go home with the kids or remain there in the student’s classrooms especially for the younger kids.
Teachers or parents can dress up like literary characters as well and it could be a fun time to stage live readings where adults trade off voices or even encourage the kids to read along – a hilarious way to engage older children is to have each person take a turn reading a sentence from a different book – you can get some really strange giggles out of this.
What other ways can you think of to use a school party to encourage reading?