It’s just pretend


Halloween is the best time to talk about real vs pretend. Halloween has its origins but for small children it’s about dressing up and pretending to be something you are not. There are images during this holiday season that might be confusing and scary for our littles. That’s why around this time we always find ourselves provoking similar conversations.  We asked the children  what do you think is spooky? The children had a very long list from monsters to ghosts, zombies to goblins. They pretty much covered them all. It’s hard to protect our children from these images during this season they are literally everywhere. So it’s important to reassure them that all this spooky stuff is pretend...and as kids know best, pretending is fun! 



We asked the children to draw the things they find scary and it was interesting to watch and listen to them as their artwork developed into stories and expressed some real fears. These are a few of some of the things our friends said, “I drew the dark. I’m afraid of the dark and what’s inside the dark. This is a ghost in the dark.” 

“ I’m drawing a family of scary bugs. There are so many of them. Here’s a butterfly with no eyes and this is a door that takes away kids toys when they are sleeping at night.” 

“ This is a Lightning Monster! It has long feet and it’s really really tall. When it gets angry, it blasts out lightning from its tummy. It eats the lightning from the clouds to get more power.” 




This opportunity created an outlet to express themselves and  might  better help them understand that the monsters  they are drawing are just like the pretend monster images that they see parading around this time of year. They are just images that people people made up in their head.




The mask project continues along this same line of thinking...but takes it one step further , giving them a chance to see how a monster on paper can turn into a monster that is walking around. Indeed it is just a costume. 

They  designed their scary mask first on paper to better be able to conceptualize the final mask they would go on to create.






The children were asked to look at their first mask and to figure out using previously painted cardboard, scissors and glue, how to recreate their design for their final mask. The process was pretty amazing to watch. Some of the masks looked very similar while other masks took on a different look. They were encouraged to use the materials as they wanted and the results are stunning.  Please take time to look at our beautiful mask wall hanging in our red room. 

















Popular posts from this blog

Insect Compositions

Image
We often use loose material compositions in our classroom as a way for children to tell us what they know. We set out various materials, stones, gems, paper and sticks. These representations are not permanent.  We take a picture and then the material gets sorted back and the activity is ready for the next child.
Read more

Summer Art Show

Image
This summer has been an incredible journey into the world of art. It started with a family trip to the Harn museum that inspired explorations into color,lines and shapes, which led to the discovery of different mediums and techniques.We read books about famous artists like, Vincent Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe and Jackson Pollack. Somewhere around mid summer we provoked the idea of finding a way to show our art to our families .We talked about our trip to the museum and the children were excited to make an "art show" for their parents and friends. Our art show was a huge success.  We documented the work that the children did with the intention of making our summer visible to our parents. This type of documentation lets those not in our classroom day to day understand our path; where we started and why and how we ended up where we did. Our art show was not only an opportunity to show off our beautiful  works of creativity, it was also a way to sho...
Read more

Painting Storm Clouds

Image
We learned there are different types of clouds, and that not all clouds bring rain. We can tell the weather by the kinds of clouds that are in the sky. Storm clouds are called cumulonimbus. They are tall, puffy and grey. They bring the rain. We invited the children to paint storm clouds. They turned out beautiful! Look for the them in our work room to the left of our back door.
Read more