Preschool Week 11: Halloween and Dia de los Muertos

So it's freakishly late.  Who really blogs at 2am?  Me!  It's my current goal to get us into a better routine during the day so that I can blog early and, thus, make it to bed earlier.  I've debated trying to set our days to a schedule - this is the last year we have no one in school and I hate the thought of regretting that I didn't just let the kids do what they wanted more - but I have come to the conclusion that the days when we had a more set bedtime, waking up time, meal times, etc. (i.e. before Timmy) were pretty nice.  It made it much easier to get everyone ready at the same time and the kids knew what to expect from our routine.  Most days now we're lucky to make it out the door before 10:00 and the kids generally look homeless, as I either don't have time to do the girls' hair or they fight me on it until we run out of time.

But I'm digressing.  Also working on getting back on top of my house.  Haven't felt quite ready to dive back into FlyLady (waiting for a better schedule so I can schedule those 15 minutes to declutter that seem to be lacking during normal waking hours) but my kitchen can't wait any longer.  For some reason I'm feeling fairly awake right now so I cleaned out my baking cupboard tonight.  I love pulling open doors on recently cleaned/organized spaces.  Now to think of what to bake tomorrow...er, later on today.  =)

Still digressing.  We have been doing preschool for 11 weeks now and I think I've blogged about it only two or three times.  I have pictures and fun stories from most weeks so I'll try to catch up.  (Meaning prepare yourself for mass preschool bloggage!)

(Continued two days later, and half an hour earlier.  ☺)

HALLOWEEN

This week was Nastia's.  Funny how she has been the perfect person to teach on a few days that have just happened to fall to her in our schedule.  Like Talk Like a Pirate Day.  And Halloween.  And Dia de los Muertos.  As she is also super amazing and has all her lesson plan typed out (and shared!) in advance, I'm linking them to the titles of her lessons.  (Meaning if you click on "Halloween" above, you can see her lesson plan.)

The kids were invited to dress up for Halloween on Monday.  Trevy couldn't wait to put on her red M&M costume.  Landon and Callie, on the other hand, assured me they could wait until we got "to Nik's house."  They never did want to put them on.  Trevy never wanted to take hers off.

Nik was dressed as a ninja and Cairn was Abby Cadabby.

Carrie and I took the little people in the other room so we only caught a little of what Nastia was doing with the kids.  She put together a great Halloween lesson.  Fun stories and rhymes that were Halloween-themed while surreptitiously reviewing letters, numbers and counting simultaneously.  I overheard one of the activities and tried to take a picture, but it didn't turn out so well.

The snack was orange Jell-O Jigglers cut out in pumpkin and bat shapes.  A huge hit with the kids!  Particularly Landon.  He finished off the pumpkins.  My kids weren't particularly fond of the pumpkin seeds, but they probably just get that from their mother.  The other kids enjoyed them.  There was one other thing that I am forgetting at the moment.  Oh well.

During her lesson, Nastia read one of our favorite Halloween books.  We found 10 Trick-or-Treaters at the library one day simply by pulling out the ones that had the color dots corresponding to Halloween on them.

Two other favorites we found at the same times were: Brooms are for Flying and The Halloween Kid.  Landon would ask to read it over and over.  I think he really liked that it is about a little boy and written in cowboy speak.

After snack time, Nastia pulled out Halloween books for the kids to color and paste numbers into and placements for fun.  She really does a great job with the books.  Each one has the child's name on it for them to trace and is a great mixture of things we have already covered with the kids - like the letters A-E and numbers 0-2 - and a few we haven't - like the number 4 and letter G.

I am so grateful to Nastia and Carrie for their patience and all their help.  With three kids, it's hard to help everyone trace all the letters in the books and glue all the numbers in the right spots.  They are both on the constant look out for who needs help, regardless of whether it's their child or not.

 

 Sharing crayons - it's a beautiful thing!

Hard at work.

 (Side note: my attempt at an artistic photo of Trevy with the candle in the foreground.  I like it!)

Nadya was in full-blown clappy/smiley mood.  So cute! 

Cerise and Timmy trying to escape to the back yard.

This is a page-by-page of the kids' Halloween books.  I took pictures from all three.  Obviously no one quite finished.  So glad we're doing preschool so they can have a focused time to work on things!

After the lesson, someone turned on the keyboard and it turned into the cutest dance fest I've ever seen!

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

I'm sorry to admit that after living in Tucson for a number of years, I really couldn't  have told you the first thing about Dia de los Muertos, other than that it means "Day of the Dead".  On the other hand, Nastia has been involved with Mexican culture and even taught lessons about Dia de los Muertos for years.  (As I said, the week fell to her perfectly!)  

Nastia graciously agreed to write about this particular preschool lesson for Carrie and I to use as a guest post on our blogs.

*****

I was very excited about the fact that the Dia de los Muertos [Day of the Dead] lesson fell during my week to teach preschool.  Although I didn’t celebrate Day of the Dead growing up, since moving to Tucson, I have very much enjoyed celebrating this holiday.  Prior to Nik’s birth, I worked for Luz Social Services, Inc., a local Latino non-profit organization for almost 8 years.  As part of its mission to fight the consequences and associated problems of substance abuse, including violence, school dropouts, and teen pregnancy, the agency sponsored alcohol-free cultural events.  One of the holidays commemorated through these cultural events was Dia de los Muertos.  As a result, I learned a lot about the Day of the Dead.  I even ended up teaching a special class on Dia de los Muertos at my older son’s school every year starting when he was in kindergarten and ending when he entered 4^th grade. 

The Day of the Dead, which is celebrated in Mexico and other parts of Central America, as well as in the United States, mixes ancient Aztec and traditional Catholic customs.  The Day of the Dead is a memorial day—a day to remember those who have died.  It is not a time of mourning and sadness, but rather a happy celebration of life and death. According to tradition, the spirits of the dead return home during this time to visit loved ones.  The holiday is usually celebrated on November 2^nd, but in some places the festivities begin on October 31^st and continue for several days.  

The holiday is celebrated in numerous ways, such as building an ofrenda [offering] or altar in the home.  Typically, altars consist of photos of those being remembered, a candle for each person being honored, pan de muertos [bread of the dead], flowers, sugar skulls and other skeletons, papel picado [colorful tissue paper with intricate, festive designs cut out], copal [incense to clear the path for spirits return], salt, a glass of water, fruit, and some favorite foods.  Special gifts for the deceased can also be included.  In some communities, family members gather at the graves of their loved ones and build an altar by their headstone rather than, or in addition to, building one in their home. Other ways to celebrate the holiday include plays and parades. Tucson has a wonderful Day of the Dead parade every year: for more information, see their website at http://www.allsoulsprocession.org/. 

Because I have taught Day of the Dead lessons so many times, I didn’t type out my lesson plan.  This was a first for me since we started preschool!  As Carrie noted in an earlier blog, I can be a wee bit OCD when it comes to teaching!  I already had most of the supplies we needed, including a number of kids’ books about the Day of the Dead, sugar skull molds and meringue powder, papel picado, candles, copal incense, and several calaveras [skulls] and calacas [whimsical skeleton figures that represent Death].  Places like Borderlands Trading Company [http://www.borderlandstrading.com/ ] carry these and other Day of the Dead supplies. 

However, there were still several things we needed to get, including pan de muertos.  We went down to La Estrella Bakery to get some of this sweet bread.  Traditionally, bread of the dead is a sweet, eggy bread.  It is often flavored with anise seed, and occasionally, there’s a hint of lemon, orange, cinnamon or vanilla.  We got two round loaves, covered with brightly colored sugar.  Yum!  We also needed to find cempazuchitl [marigolds].  Marigolds are the traditional flower for Day of the Dead.  Also known as "the flower with 400 lives," marigolds were thought by the Aztecs to symbolize death. It is believed that the scent of the petals forms a welcome path for the spirits to return to their altar or grave. 

At home, we had other preparations to make, including making sugar skulls.  Molded from a mixture of sugar, meringue powder, and water, then decorated, these skulls often are placed on altars. The sugar represents the sweetness of life, and the skull represents the sadness of death.  We also decided to make chocolate skeletons for the altar and snack time.  I had skeleton bride and groom molds, and we simply melted chocolate chips to fill them.  My boys couldn’t wait to try the chocolate skeletons!  J 

We started our preschool session on Wednesday in our usual manner—with our good morning song, our calendar and discussion of the date, and our weather helper song.  Then I read the children a book about the Day of the Dead.  After some consideration (and some helpful advice from Nik!), I decided to read The Spirit of Tío Fernando: A Day of the Dead Story [written by Janice Levy and illustrated by Morella Fuenmayor] instead of our other favorite, A Gift for Abuelita: Celebrating the Day of the Dead. As we read, I brought out examples of the objects that were mentioned in the story, such as bread of the dead, sugar skulls, and the special flowers of the dead. 

For their “homework”, the children were supposed to bring in a picture/drawing of a person or animal that they wanted to remember on the Day of the Dead. We went around in a circle, with each of the children telling about the things they brought. Trevy took the lead in telling about the pictures she, Callie, and Landon had. Cairn very proudly showed us her picture of her great-grandma, as well as the jewelry and “Ellie” doll she’d brought as mementos. Nik had a can of tuna with his photo of “Speefy”, our family cat who died last spring. 

Together, we built an altar using supplies I had gathered, as well as the pictures and objects the children had brought.  After telling the children what each object was and what it was supposed to represent, I had the children take turns placing them by the fireplace, where we were building our ofrenda. The final results—once the candles and incense were lit—were quite nice. Later that night, Nik sat contentedly in the room by himself for quite some time, simply gazing upon the altar by candlelight.  When I asked what he was doing, he said: “Looking. It’s beautiful.” 

After we finished with the altar, it was snack and activity time.  For our snacks, we had slices of bread of the dead, chocolate skeletons, and some little oranges.  The kids—even Timmy and Cerise—really enjoyed the chocolate.  The moms enjoyed the bread of the dead, nicely helping the kids finish up their unwanted portions….  During snack time, I read The Festival of Bones: The Little-Bitty Book for the Day of the Dead, by Luis San Vicente.  Since this book is relatively short and is written in rhyme, I read it in both English and Spanish. 

We had two activities planned for the day:  The first was decorating sugar skulls with frosting. 

I used a new kind of frosting this year (in the past, I’ve used other types of frosting, food coloring, and paint).  I wasn’t very pleased with the results: the gel frosting wasn’t very easy to apply.  It came out in big glops, especially when squeezed by excited young hands.  

Fortunately, the kids were happy with their skulls, so it worked out fine, despite my dissatisfaction.  

(Yes, Landon's current favorite color is blue. WB)

For our second activity, we decorated skeleton masks using markers, glitter glue, sequins, and feathers.  The girls—including Cerise—got quickly and intensely involved in coloring their masks.  The only tension from the girls came from a minor dispute over one particular yellow marker.  Nik quickly scribbled some color on mask, then added some sequins and feathers and was immediately ready to put the mask on to start scaring people.  Landon didn’t initially want to work on the mask, but once Wendy started coloring his mask, he too got involved.

  (Wondering where the frosting came from...Oh yeah. WB)  

More information about the Day of the Dead, including an education packet for teachers and students, can be found at http://www.azcentral.com/ent/dead/articles/dead-education.html.  I got the template for our skeleton masks from this website. 

*****

Nastia asked each of us to send pictures with the kids of deceased persons that they would like to remember, along with an item representing that person.  Well, I did.  Wish I had taken the time to talk to the kids about it.  I wasn't sure how they were going to use the pictures and items so my kids weren't entirely prepared.  I sent them with a folder containing my grandmother's funeral program and pictures of James's grandfather and the kids' cousin, Logan.  I don't think they realized why the pictures were in there so I added them to the altar later, which is why there aren't candles for them.  But they are very much remembered!

After preschool, the kids were itching to go outside.  I got a cute shot of both Callie and Timmy but no luck with Landon and Trevy as they were zooming around on the bikes.  (I'm thinking Callie could really use one of her own.  She didn't quite catch on to using the pedals.)

Timmy "wearing" Trevy's shoes.  He's so funny!

The poor kid was so tired.  He didn't get a really good sleep the night before, had gotten up early with me and hasn't been napping all that well lately.  He was looking ready to fall asleep almost all through preschool and fell asleep on the way home.  For some reason - which is often just the joyful sounds of kids playing in the room next door - he hasn't been staying down even for an hour for the past week or so. Which generally makes bedtime easier, but doesn't necessarily guarantee a good night's sleep for anybody.

But it does guarantee a sleeping baby photo op!





Such cute feet!  How could I pass these up?!