Halloween/Samhain in Ludoteca

It's the 31th of October, or as we all know this day, Halloween. But in Galicia on this day for many generations a different holiday was held, The name is Samhain. This day marked the end of summer and beginning of winter, end of light and beginning of darkness. It is a day when live stock was pulled from the fields and into the barns. The live stock was smothered and preparations for winter began. Also, it was believed that on this day a door from the other world was opened, so the dead were able to cross and visit our world. On the feast, a special place was put in honor of the dead, but also people was trying to protect themselves with spells, potions and other. Shamain is also known as the Day of the dead. Yes, I know, it sounds like a zombie movie..

Today, Samhain in almost completly replaced with halloween, but in Ludoteca Marta and the monitores were equally concetrated on including both Halloween and Samhain in the programme for the children (at least I think so, my spanish is still not that good, I did't really understood everything).

On the last day of october, everything in ludoteca was pretty much classic halloween stuff. We were all wearing costumes, had a station for make up, Mystery box (you put your hand in and touch scary things), and my favourite, The tunel of fear. The tunnel was small so the kids needed to crawl in it and it was covered with  black plastic, so it was pretty dark. As the kids went trough, we suprised them with masks and loun noises, grab them with hands. Some of them got really scared...