May Faire

Saturday May 1, 2010

10am - 2pm

Mark your calendar!

Play Day
Saturday, May 22 , 2010

9-11am

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  What offers children opportunities for physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development?
• 
  What promotes motor skills, fosters the imagination, and strengthens concentration?
• 
  What provides for the acquisition of language skills, number skills, and problemsolving skills?

Pure and simple: play. Unstructured, unadulterated
play. Play offers an integrated experience where the child’s body,mind, and emotions are learning together.
Children boldly venture into life through play. Play serves as amediator between the kingdom of childhood
where imagination thrives and that of our current culture
which is often far beyond a young child’s comprehension. Play is a bridge that connects these worlds. The child, according to his or her innate nature,
crosses the bridge connecting these two worlds as they engage in play. The chasm that separates these worlds narrows with each passing year.  Young children are still in a world where whatever they dream up is possible,
but they are also adapting to a world that has boundaries, expectations and many contrasting realities—happiness and hardship, friendship and conflict, silliness and reverence, loudness and quietness. They are also trying to comprehend both a “material-physical world, as well as a divine-spiritual world” (Lievegoed, 2005, p. 16). The power of the human being to make sense of it all is truly amiracle. Play is
an important vehicle through which children can make sense of what their senses experience.

You and your children are invited to join the RWS Early Childhood Faculty on our playground Saturday, May 22 from 9-11am to explore the subject of free play.

Why Celebrate May Day?

Saturday, May 1

10am - 2pm

     Most adults in the U.S. did not grow up celebrating May Day.  Here is some history behind the festival.  The ancient Celts and Saxons began celebrating May Day as the sacred celebration of spring planting.  Villages all over Europe celebrated in many ways, often using similar images to symbolize fertility and the return of life to the earth.  Games, bonfires and feasting often began the night of April 30th and continued until the next day. 

     Processions and dancing around a gaily decorated maypole have been popular since medieval times.  It is also traditionally the season to celebrate love and courtship.  Flowers and music are time-honored ways to serenade a loved one.

     Different countries have developed their own traditions.  The people of ancient Rome used this day to honor the goddess of flowers and springtime, Flora.  Her temples were decorated and dancers would carry her garlanded statue past a sacred tree decked with blossoms.  In Germany, a boy may secretly plant a May tree in front of the window of his sweetheart.

     Diana the Huntress and The Green Nam were English characters who changed over time into Queen of the May (or Maid Marian) and Robin Goodfellow (or Robin Hood.)  In modern London, children collect pennies from their neighbors in exchange for flowers.  The pennies are thrown into a wishing well and the money is donated to a local charity.

     Greek children begin the day by looking for the first swallow of spring.  Afterwards they go through the village singing May songs which earn them special treats from their neighbors.

Puritans disapproved of May Day celebrations so the festival has never been observed in this country as it has in Europe.  But children may take baskets of spring flowers and secretly leave them on the doorknobs of friends and relatives.

RWS looks forward to sharing this festival with you and your children on May 1, 2010.  We will have music, flower crowns, games, craft activities, a delicious lunch offering and, of course, Maypole dancing. 

Click on the titles below to see video of:

2007 Michaelmas Pageant

2007 St. Martin Play

2007 Lantern Walk