celebrating holidays at your montessori school?

[terese17]

Do any of your schools have holiday parties? Like for any holiday? The school my son attends does not do this, we have a non-bias curriculum. Recently we had a mother address the board about this, asking us to reinstate holiday parties. She said she understood about christmas and easter, but that we should have holloween, thanksgiving and valentines day. What do other parents think about this? I felt that if the parents really want to have some sort of celebration, (we already have a "tea party" in the spring) that we could celebrate Maria Montessori's B-day. What do other people think?

[kittykat2481]

Our school goes all out for holidays and we love it. They had a big Halloween party complete with a concert, costume contest, games, activities and of course trick or treating. This friday the children will have a Thanksgiving luncheon during their normal lunch time, and each child is bringing a dish, as well as dressing up in their Sunday best for the occaision. This is our first year there, so I don't know exactly what the Christmas party will be like, but I'm sure it will be great. I think there is a concert at that time too.

[SomedayMom]

Our school went full out for Halloween. They had a costume parade and classroom parties. Treats are not a big thing though, due to allergy issues.

I am not sure about our winter holidays yet. It is an extremely multi-cultural school community, so I don't think the focus is on Christmas.

[babymommy2]

Our school does a halloween party, a christmas concert/party, although it is more a winter, or peace theme, or family theme, or something like that, there is no religion involved and no santa, or other traditional secular christmas things, and also thereis a valenintes party. Those are the only "holiday" parties. At other times there is a family party and a year end party

[Drummer's Wife]

For Halloween, they had a celebration in their classroom - but no costumes (public school). But they did have a carnival in the evening where all the kids dressed up, so that was fun. For thanksgiving last week we had a family meal including delicious () cafeteria style turkey, gravy, etc. Tomorrow is a more intimate in the classroom celebration where each family brings a dish from another country, the kids are dressing up related to that country, and sharing a few neat facts they learned about it. Christmas, I am not sure - but imagine there will be atleast a 'holiday' classroom party.

Other M schools we've been to have either had no costume rules for Halloween, or dress up like your favorite book character and parade around the school thing.

again, we are in a public school so they tend to follow the district recs.

ETA: oh, I forgot about the holiday concert! DD is in the choir and is performing for that - from her rehearsals it sounds like the songs are pretty christmas-y/winter-y.