Prepare for Halloween

We've been preparing for Halloween, with spooky books, skeletons, ghosts, and jack-o-lanterns. 

Our grandsons love Halloween! The build up this month allows us to shift to a darker phase of the year; darkness isn't bad, but it can be frightening, and having fun with fear is part of the process.

Agenda

1. Celebrate the darkness

2. Carve jack-o-lanterns

3. Make flappy paper bats

4. Decorate inside and out

5. Dunk for apples

1. Celebrate the darkness:

Just as my grandsons have fully embraced the spookiness of the season, so must I, by forging a connection to the essence of the change happening in nature; by acknowledging death's reality.

This week I will find small ways to prepare for the darkness of winter, and immerse myself in the transformation going on around me.

• A stoic meditation on my own death.
• Photo collection of death in nature.
• Sit with the ghosts of my dead loved-ones.
• Write about bio-diversity loss.

2. Carve jack-o-lanterns:

The origin of the Jack-o-lantern can be traced back to Ireland and Scotland, where early Celtic people carved the images of spirit-guardians onto turnips and set them outside their doors to keep out the unwelcome visitors from the spirit world.

(It's possible that they used skulls before they used turnips, and turnips resembled the white bone of a real skull.)

When Irish and Scottish folks arrived in North America, they began to carve the native pumpkins instead.

We did pumpkin carving last week, and our jack-o-lanterns are already dead (and smashed by 2-year-old feet.).

3. Make flappy paper bats:

This week we will make some easy origami bats that bob and flap.

Supplies: Black craft paper, gel pen, string, tape or stapler

1. Cut a large triangle from black paper.

2. Fold down the top edge and crease in the middle.

3. Fold each wing down to the tail point...

then accordion fold back out, to form wings.

4. Make a little cut between the wings to form ears, then add eyes with a gel pen.

5. Tape or staple on a piece of string at the balance point.

4. Decorate inside and out:

I do not buy plastic decorations anymore, so we make nearly everything: One year we made these spiders from pipe cleaners and pompoms. Our spider family drove around in toy trucks all week.

This week we will hang our spiders again, some skeletons, and our ghosts (made with sheets and wire).

As we decorated we talked about the images: 

"Spiders are a little creepy, but they are good for the garden"; 

"Bats are like flying rats - they eat insects"; 

"Skeletons are bones, from inside a body."

"Ghosts are spirits - we can't really see them, and they can't hurt us."

 

5. Dunk for apples:

We might give this a try this year!