A "Harvest" Party

At schools, nowadays, one cannot mention any holiday, by name, in the Classroom. So we go about the year having "Harvest" parties, "Winter" parties, and well...."Valentines" parties (Which seems to be the only Holiday left unscathed by the censors, can anybody tell me why that is???).

I am Ansel's class's "room mom" and thereby in charge of all these censored PC parties. When you have a good teacher, they roll their eyes at the taboo, and let a little of the real Holiday celebrated, slide in. Yay, for normal teachers. Ms. Lang is one of them. She is probably the most normal, real, "person- you-could-hang-out-with" teacher I have ever met. Calder had her for 1st grade, and Ansel has her this year. I have been room parent both years, and I love her! The only sad thing is that she is expecting her second boy in February and so that means we won't have her for a few months this year.

I always do rotating stations and separate the kids into groups of 4 or 5. It makes it more manageable and the kids don't get as overwhelmed. We had a pumpkin decorating station, snack station, coloring station, bingo station, and Carmel apple station.

I am also the classroom photographer, so after planning the party and organizing the parents at the stations to help, I spent the rest of the time photographing all the kids at play. It was so fun.

Here are some of the photos (of just my kids) from the day:

Kids at the carmel apple station:

The classroom spread:

Kaelan enjoying a Spider cookie:

Ansel decorating his pumpkin:

Playing Halloween bingo:

(yes she let that slide!)

Kaelan loves going to the school, especially for the parties. He mainly hangs out at the snack station:

Ansel working on a masterpiece:

Food! Finally...

See?! Even PC parties can be fun!

While we were there, Kaelan discovered the "Whisper" phone. It is basically PVC pipe and u-bends. But when you talk in it, you here your self right back. He thought that it was hilarious.

Making carmel apples:

I melted a bunch of carmels and brought them in a crockpot, and then I had apples on sticks and the kids got to dip them in the carmel and then decorate them with candies. Then they were wrapped up in cellophane and tied with a ribbon. Yum!

Kaelan could hardly wait for his turn at the carmel apple station, he kept telling the other kids that they were his apples...

Good Job, KK!

Cute little pumpkin!!