The month of October can be an exciting one for little people. The English and French Early Learning Kindergarten Students at St. Anne School in Hanmer are no exception. Along with their regular classroom activities during the month of October, they celebrated Thanksgiving and will also be celebrating Hallowe’en. Finding a mascot to help tie the two celebrations together wasn’t very hard. Who better than the scarecrow? The farm fields are full of scarecrows in the fall as the farmers prepare to gather in their crops and those same scarecrows watch over the most important Hallowe’en crop of all. Pumpkins!

With the help and guidance of their teachers, the youngest students at the Sudbury Catholic School in Hanmer took advantage of the nice weather and headed outside to build their own fall scarecrows. Armed with a wooden base for the body, a bale of hay, and all the usual clothing one would expect to find on a scarecrow, the students took turns not only talking about the order and appearance of their individual classroom scarecrows, but also took turns grabbing handfuls of the hay and stuffing their scarecrow bodies. In the end, three different classrooms had created three different looking scarecrows. The scarecrows will sit in the flower beds in front of St. Anne School for the entire month of October watching over the school’s own gardens and helping to put students and staff from all grades into a season of celebrating. Never let it be said that the English and French E.L.K.P. students at St. Anne School aren’t “stuffed” with ideas about having fun!

If you sit down with the students in the English Early Learning Kindergarten Program at St. Anne School and ask them why they feel like the very first settlers at Thanksgiving, they can tell you why. They feel they’ve lived it! In part, they actually have!

Through inquiry, these youngest students within the Catholic Board tried to discover all that they could about the season of fall. Fall is a time of rest for Mother Nature and a time of harvest for people and many of the animals. The students took a trip to a local garden where they actually had a chance to see what happens to plants when they are ripe. Even though some of the students were familiar with gardens, many were not. Who knew that cheese didn’t come from the garden or that so many potatoes could come from one plant?

After “harvesting” carrots, potatoes, pumpkins, and celery, the students returned to school where they began talking about the celebration of Thanksgiving. It was no surprise that they started making connections between the first Settlers and Aboriginal Peoples celebrating their harvest with the traditional holiday they were getting ready to celebrate with their families. The students decided to relive the first Thanksgiving. They wrote and sent home their own invitations, peeled and cooked their garden vegetables, dressed in a type of Thanksgiving costume, and sat down with their parents, grandparents, relatives, and friends to enjoy their own Thanksgiving. All week one English E.L.K.P student, Mae Lin Zoldy, spoke of “being so excited for the class celebration”. She and her classmates weren’t disappointed! With good food such as carrots, potatoes, and turkey on the menu and the great company of their families, these children got a realistic experience of Thanksgiving. Can these St. Anne School English students understand the meaning of Thanksgiving? You bet they can! From harvest to feast, this Thanksgiving was a connection they will never forget!