Preschool Halloween Celebrations 

 as shared on LEA ECENET June 2011

As long as we are talking Christmas, let's talk about Preschool Halloween.  For the past several years, we have made it Christian Character Day.  I am wondering about having a Fall Harvest Celebration instead. 

Instead of Halloween, we have a Harvest Festival with pumpkins, apples, etc.  The children are asked to wear orange on these days.  At the Harvest Festival, we play games, do a craft, and eat special harvest foods.  This is a good alternative.

We have an orange and black day.  We dress in orange and black, and have orange and black snack.

We have a Family Fall Festival run by our PTL with parents manning game areas and food.  Each classroom brings donations ahead of time and our PTL covers all the other costs.  It runs from 5:00 to 8:00 so our PK3 through Grade 5 school families can have time together.  The decorations are all Fall based pumpkins, leaves, apples, etc.  We do not do anthing with costumes or dress-up.

We do a Harvest Party: Visit to the Pumpkin Patch.  Our teachers and parents set up simple carnival type games in our gym.  The parents provide one bag of individually wrapped candies per child.  As the children play the games they are awarded with a piece of candy.  The children do not dress up.  No costumes are allowed.  The parents bring in pumpkins to decorate--no Jack-O-Lanterns allowed.  The local Nursery lets us borrow 10-12 bales of straw for the party.  It's a lot of fun for the children and takes the emphasis off of the pagan holiday.

Our new principal asked that we have a Harvest party with Biblical costumes.  No one dressed up, so we had a great party without costumes.  In Early Oct or late Sept, we visit a farm with a pumpkin patch.  The class pumpkin isn't carved until 10/30 and each child removes one handful of the "insides" (more if they want).  I ask for tiny donuts or donut holes which I string up for which the children bob.  Much more sanitary than apples in water....

The last several years we have had a candy exchange, letting each child bring in a candy treat for each class mate.  Before hand the kids each decorate a bag to put the candy in.  Aside from this we place no emphasis on Halloween by having a party or dress-up.

As a service to the community, one might host a trunk-or-treat, encouraging families to come to the church parking lot for a safe evening of fun.  Church members park along the edge of the parking lot with their trunks up and distribute goodies, including information about the ministries the church as for families with young children.  www.creativecommunications.com has a bulletin insert as well as some cute things for changing the focus to the Reformation.

We celebrate Book-O-Ween around October 31st.  Students and teachers bring their favorite book and can dress up like a character in the story.  We parade around the playground so all can see their favorite books and characters.  We celebrate reading all day with volunteer Mystery Readers.