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The most awaited day for our students has arrived: Welcome to the most colorful Halloween ever! Finally our students have been able to enjoy the most awaited holiday of the year. During the whole week, Casvi International American School was preparing for one of the most fun days for the whole educational community. Because, as an American international school, Halloween is not the famous night of witches and vampires, where terror and scares reign. At Casvi International American School it is much more. For our community it is a special day that we have been working on for weeks. In this party our facilities are dyed orange, we cover every corner with pumpkins, and we welcome our students from early in the morning with their peculiar costumes to walk down every hallway dancing to the rhythm of: Trick or treat, give me something good to eat!
At Casvi International American School Halloween is synonymous with joy, color and fun. Thus, through different activities our students have understood the importance of this holiday, while at the same time they have understood the different connotations that this day has in different countries.
Happy Halloween Day!
At Casvi International American School we do not understand Halloween as the party of terror. With the American culture as our flag, we transferred to our students the real theme of Halloween: color, fun and costumes of all kinds. Thus, we could find both vampires and dinosaurs. Others decided to be inspired by famous movies to make their costumes, others even made them with their own hands.
The originality of the costumes is not the only important thing for us on Halloween. Decorations form a fundamental part of this great day. For weeks, both students and the entire educational community made an effort to dye every corner of our facilities orange. Undoubtedly, an activity that has multiple benefits for our students, as they not only live a true cultural immersion, but also encourages their creativity and originality, while sharing a fun time with their teachers and classmates. From spider webs, to carved pumpkins… our students came up with endless possibilities for this great holiday.
Another great Halloween custom is pumpkin carving. Days before celebrating this holiday, our students started their traditional pumpkin carving contest. For this, they usually take a large pumpkin, remove the outer surface and carve a picture. The options are endless, so our students decorated the faces of their own pumpkins. During the day, they placed a lit candle inside to create a luminous effect on each pumpkin.
This contest ended with three winners:
With the celebration of Halloween, at Casvi International American School we seek to immerse each of our students in a true American culture. Our goal is to encourage the development of different skills that will allow them to improve in all areas of their learning. Not only did they live moments of fun, but they also encouraged the use of English, since, thanks to their native teachers, they learned the typical words of this day. In addition, the celebration of this type of festivities increases their creativity, improves their social skills, and they work on psychomotor skills while improving their civic competencies.
In addition, this year, thanks to the truce that the pandemic is giving us by COVID, our CAS students, one of the fundamental principles of the Diploma Program, carried out different activities related to Halloween together with the younger ones. From reading stories, to games related to the theme of the day. In this way, our students showed that they are not only concerned about academic results, but also about emotional, ethical and intellectual development.
Once again betting on internationality in our center, during the most fun day of the year, our students learned about the cultural differences in the celebration of such a famous day.
Believe it or not, Halloween dates back more than 2,000 years, and has its origins in the Celtic culture. It is called “Samhain” and on this day the Celts celebrated the end of the summer harvest and welcomed the ghosts of deceased relatives, who returned to the world of the living to meet their families, received in their homes specially decorated for this great day. This tradition began to spread to different parts of the world, until the United States began to celebrate this holiday in a very particular way, what we know today as Halloween. The origin of this word comes from the variation of “All Hallows Even”, which means the eve of All Saints’ Day.
In China, Halloween is known as “Teng Chieh”. For them, this is the time of the year when they can connect with their deceased loved ones. The Chinese make offerings in the street to celebrate and honor their relatives. They light candles, as they believe this is the way to guide the spirits. They offer them food and some objects such as incense, water or salt.
In Mexico this day is celebrated from October 31 to November 2, since Halloween precedes the famous “Day of the Dead”. In this country, altars are created to honor the dead, like the one our students have made. In addition, they decorate the streets and places of entertainment, and people go out to the streets to have fun. As for the gastronomy during these days, sugar skulls, tamales, and pan de muerto (bread of the dead) are typical.
However, in Austria, traditionally, October 31 belongs to the “Week of All Souls” or “Sleenwoche”, which is celebrated from October 30 to November 8. During that time, believers go to church to honor their deceased. It is a tradition that when people go to sleep, they leave water, bread and a lighted lamp to welcome the spirits and celebrate this day together.
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