REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
Dee’s Message
4 November 2022
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
It was a week of strange and wonderful characters and creatures in the ELS, as the children made the most of the opportunity to dress up on Wednesday and Thursday for our own little celebration of Halloween. Young children are only too aware of the events taking place in the broader spheres of their families and communities, so events such as Halloween are a definite cause for intrigue and excitement. During the course of the past couple of weeks, the teachers have been exploring this ancient celebration with the children and they have used it as a launchpad for creativity among the children, who made all sorts of fantastical Halloween-inspired artworks. Then there was the dressing up – surely the most exciting aspect of Halloween, especially for the children, who never need a second invitation to imagine themselves as some sort of fantasy creature or personality.
early learning environments, as it opens wonderful open-ended opportunities for children to explore their own interests at that time through the guise of another person. Putting on someone else’s clothes, or adopting the persona of another individual, sets their creativity on fire, which is so evident if we just spend a few moments watching them disappear into the adventures of firefighters, princesses, super-heroes and characters from their favourite TV shows or movies.
The ability to slip into another character’s persona is an important part of a child’s development. It is far more than simply putting on a costume. The costume is merely the conduit to a far larger world of ‘becoming’ another person, often taking on that character’s mannerisms and speech, and even creating imaginary situations for the character.
Dress-up play has long been promoted in REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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