Day 8
After returning to a day of class in the Child
Development room, Day 8 was a special day in the classroom—Halloween.
Since the parade is in the afternoon, however, the
morning Kindergarten classes are never able to participate. Thus, the morning
Kindergarten is given a special parade of its own—it goes throughout the school
and parades in every classroom.
This parade was scheduled to start at the beginning
of school—at 8:50 p.m. I came early to participate in the parade, and spent the
entire day in costume—dressed as Abe Lincoln.
Because of the cold temperatures outside, Mrs.
Shapiro and Mrs. Veerman (the other kindergarten
teacher) had lined their students up in the main hallway adjacent the school
office. Mrs. Shapiro was dressed up as a clown, Mrs. Veerman was dressed up as the Cat in the Hat. When I
arrived at the school, parents had come to take pictures of their kids before
they went off to start their parade. Dr. Wilkinson was also there to see the
lineup as well, and to tell the parents when they could come into the school.
When the parents were admitted into the building I
stood with my class in my costume. I had brought a camera as well, as was
taking pictures of the class (for the final exam). The commotion, however,
proved to be too much for one student in Mrs. Shapiro’s class—Roger. Roger had
a temper tantrum and did not want to go with his class as the parade started.
Roger was given permission not to participate in the parade, and Dr. Wilkinson
let him wait with her while his class participated in the parade. (Roger has
been suffering from severe separation anxiety as well as problems with
handwriting. He also frequently has tantrums at the start of kindergarten.)
Five minutes later, the kindergarten was off to the
classrooms of the school. As Abe Lincoln, I stood in front of Mrs. Veerman. We started with the second grade classrooms—and I
picked up an umbrella to carry when I entered Mr. Foster’s classroom, and then proceeded to the first grade classrooms. In every class, I
was recognized by at least one student as Abe Lincoln. I was also recognized as
James Rosenbloom by the first, second, and third
graders who remember me from the JCC.
After passing through the fourth and fifth grade
classrooms, the parade was over and the kindergartners returned to their classrooms.
Roger, having waited with Dr. Wilkinson during the duration of the parade,
joined his class when they got back to the room.
In the classroom, the students were seated down in
their rows, and were introduced to an art project in the classroom. Mrs.
Shapiro showed them a sheet of paper with a picture of a monster on it, drawn
with a black marker, on the blackboard. She then showed them a bottle of what
she called “monster spray,” which would cause the monster to disappear. It was
harmful to monsters, she pointed out, but okay for kids. She sprayed the
“monster spray” onto the monster, and the picture dissolved onto the paper.
After demonstrating the effect to the students, she asked
each student to go to their table and draw a monster, and then she would put
the monster spray on their monsters to cause them to “disappear.” One student
asked if she could take the monster spray home with her; Mrs. Shapiro said no
but would tell her parents the recipe. (The “monster spray” was just plain
water).
Since Mrs. Shapiro did not need any help spraying
the students’ pictures, I began to prepare materials for the Monster Mash game,
a Free Time activity.
On the night of Friday, October 27, I had attended
the Monster Mash, an annual Halloween party held at
The groups were placed into two teams, each
competing against the other. In the first round of the game show, both teams
were given a series of trivia questions in a period of two minutes. The group
to answer the most questions correctly in that two-minute period won the round.
The second round consisted of being given a series of letters, and having to
find them from a pile of paper-size flash cards with letters on them. Example:
The game show hosts would announce the letters DFAS, and then each team would
try to find the D, F, A, and S flash cards and show them to the audience in the
proper order. The first team to show the audience the letters properly would
win the round.
Analyzing how the game was played, I began to create
a miniature version of it that could be played by students in Mrs. Shapiro’s
room, also noticing the similarity between the abilities required to play the
game and the skills being evaluated in each student in the classroom (the
ability to identify letters in the alphabet, for example). I explained the game
to Mrs. Shapiro, who gave me permission to play it in the classroom.
I found a bunch of Post-Its on Mrs. Shapiro’s desk.
Mrs. Shapiro gave me permission to use them, and I promptly made 20 flash
cards, split into two sets of 10 with 10 letters of the alphabet on them. In my
miniature version, there would be at least three players, one on each team, and
the “host.” The “host” would look at the cards and say 3 letters in a specific
order from those cards, and the two teams would have to look at their cards,
locate those letters, and display them. The first team to successfully locate
those letters would get a point, and we would play until one team got to 5
points.
I then announced if anyone wanted to play the game
played during the Monster Mash party. Three girls,
During Clean-Up Time, I cleaned up the mess I had
made by picking up the Post-It cards. Once Clean-Up Time was over, it was time
for the students to go to Art. Mrs. Shapiro lined up the students, and we took
them to Art.
After Mrs. Shapiro and I returned from Art, the two
“room parents”—that is, the two parents who signed up to get involved in the
classroom parties—came to help decorate the classroom for their annual
Halloween party. After introducing myself to the
parents, the four of us went right to work. To prepare the room for the party,
we decorated the room with streamers and putting cookies and other candy on
each table.
Once we had completed decorating the room, it was
time to pick the students up from Art.
Dressed as Abraham Lincoln, I went to one of the
tables and sat down, eating cookies with the students. I asked the students
whether they were trick-or-treating that night. They said yes.
When one student gave me her address in the hope I
would come to her house to trick-or-treat that night, I told her that she was
technically not supposed to give me her address. So I told the students that I
would not be coming to their homes, and we continued the party. I continued by
talking about their Halloween costumes, and whether or not they liked
Halloween.
After the students were done with their snacks, it
was time to line up for Music class.
With the students gone for Music, the room parents,
Mrs. Shapiro, and I went to work cleaning up the room from the party. When the
room was back to normal, the room parents returned home, and it was time to
pick the students from Music.
Once the students returned to class, Mrs. Shapiro
sat them down in their rows for a story. She told the story “The Little Old Lady
Who Was Not Afraid of Anything,” a story about a lady who thinks she is not as
afraid as she really is.
Once Mrs. Shapiro finished reading her story,
Kindergarten was over, and the students were dismissed.