Childlike wonder is a feeling you tend to grow out of. Halloween doesn’t always feel the same way it did as a kid the older you become. But, being able to see the children at Morgan Elementary school experience creativity and self expression felt as if I was 8 again.

On Friday October 31st my Careers with Children classmates and I visited Morgan Elementary with Ms. Bravo to celebrate Book Mania, an event where staff and other community members read the children books and create a fun activity for them to do. For example, one classmate read to her students “the color monster”, a story about a monster who is exploring its feelings and identifying them. With that, she created an activity where her students are to make their own monsters and color it with the emotions that they feel.

My partner and I, Evelyn Arteaga, read our 3rd grade students “ Pig the rebel ”, a short children’s book about a disruptive and trouble-making pug that escapes obedience school after his owner sent him there to learn how to behave. In the end, he only learns to behave when he’s found love. Inspired by the book, we gathered materials for our students to make dog masks out of paper plates. They had stickers, feathers, paint, gems, etc. They had all creative freedom in their hands and, of course, their hand made dogs didn’t look exactly like dogs but their creativity and joy was what mattered the most. Our students also had fun costumes like zombies and Harry Potter characters. Some others I saw at Morgan were hotdogs, ninjas, and unicorns.

Book Mania was an exciting event and I had lots of fun hosting an activity with my class and be a part of a community surrounded by people that care about the kids just as much as I do.