What is Fall Festival and Why Do We Do It?

You may think that the Fall Festival is a carnival or unstructured playtime event in the park. Rather, it’s a unique learning experience consisting of centers and hands-on cooperative encounters designed to let children discover things about the chosen theme. This event is planned and coordinated by parents and teachers as they work together to make the theme come alive for the students. At the heart of the event are the children, who are arranged into multi-grade groups which rotate from center to center to experience the hands-on activities. A few weeks before the Fall Festival, the children are put into their groups and rotate every “Fun Friday” morning to a different teacher’s room to being learning about the theme. This year’s theme is “Music” and in one room the students are making drums to participate in a drum circle. In another room they will learn a dance to music. In yet another room they are learning what music notation is and writing their own songs. The Fun Fridays culminate with the full day Fall Festival event.

The day of the event, the students arrive at the park or venue and get into their Fun Friday mixed grade groups. Then, they travel around from center to center in these groups, guided by teachers and parents. This year’s centers consist of a stage tour at the Civic Arts Plaza; a chance to try out real instruments from the New West Symphony; making their own instruments out of recyclable materials; and learning a dance and learning a song. Everyone will get up and perform the dance we learned during Fun Fridays on the stage!

Next, there is always a “potluck feast” which has been coordinated by parents and supplied by each family bringing a certain dish. After the eating comes a “full school circle” in which everyone sits together and each child has an opportunity to express appreciations and concerns—the heart of our whole child Open Classroom Leadership Magnet program. This day is one of the two most important and relevant events at our school—the other is Stepping Up, which occurs at the end of the school year. These two events both draw upon the shared collaboration efforts of teachers, parents and students to make them each a successful and meaningful learning experience for all involved. It is something we are proud of at OCLM—that we do indeed have such a caring and dedicated community of both parents and teacher which allows us to be able to create a magnificent learning day for our children. It’s usually something all the children remember for years to come.