There are many schools around the United States that tend to celebrate the October month in different ways. When I was a kid growing up we spent time getting ourselves changed and putting on our costumes within the classroom and then we paraded around the school. For whatever reason, I was never super keen on the idea. I don't think I ever disliked but I also didn't love dressing up. And then there were the cliques of girls who all decided to be the same thing or matching things like big babies with diapers and binkies. I remember one year in fifth grade every girl happened to be a baby, and I was simply a witch. I thought to myself Sheesh did I miss the memo. But then again, I was never into following the others, and I was just fine wearing my hat and my wig and being just authentically me. 

So I suppose then I landed in a good place because our school holds a "Fall Festival" instead of a dress up day with costumes and look-alikes and cliques of individuals wearing the latest "similar costumes." It's both beautiful and refreshing because when I think of October, I think of the harvest and apples and pumpkins and perhaps corn mazes and golden hay. Costumes don't generally come to mind. The students are allowed to wear "crazy hats" that they can make themselves or they can choose to wear nothing at all. We have a maze outside and other activities such as pumpkin bowling and a blow-up slide. Inside there are crafts students can make such as pumpkin stress balls and there is even a face-painting station. 

For one and a half hours I watched my little friends be just that "little friends." You don't realize just how young third graders are until you watch them for hours complete crafts and play outside and remain fixated on the pumpkin bowling station for a half an hour. The smiles I saw on their faces-simply priceless. Not to mention, it happened to be the most beautiful fall harvest day with a crispness but also a warmness about it. For whatever reason it is just that, a season full of crisp new ideas but also the warmness of the old and the familiar and thankfulness for what one has already. Crisp with the new and warm with the old is what I saw on the faces of my students. A beautiful festival of life indeed when both the crisp and warmness are felt in a single day stretched out amongst a few hours of play.