News & Views
The Halloween Parade: A Treat of an NCCS Tradition
A much-beloved annual tradition, New Canaan Country School’s Lower School community (Grade 1- 4 students and faculty) gathered Oct. 31 to celebrate the season by marching in a Halloween Parade around the school’s campus. Led by Head of School Mr. Cooper, adorned for the day in a Tigger costume from the story Winnie-The-Pooh, and Head of Lower School Mrs. Mallin, as Piglet, the parade also included the fifth and sixth grade members of the school's marching band and an oversized paper mache marionette of a skeleton, made and operated by fourth-grade art students.
As part of their culminating year, ninth-graders have always participated in the parade, taking a victory lap of sorts around campus, costumed in a collective theme. This year, they were dressed as characters from the television show Sesame Street.
The marionette skeleton was a new twist on an old tradition. As part of their interdisciplinary study of Día de los Muertos, a three-day holiday celebrated in Mexico between Oct. 31 and Nov. 2 to honor the deceased, fourth-grade art students created the paper mache structure and with the assistance of Visual Arts Teachers Elizabeth Ferran and Chris Lawler, painted and then affixed it atop a hand-made cart with wheels. In addition to Ms. Ferran, those pushing and working the marionette in the parade included students Hannah Burr, James Cardon, Emmie Del Percio, Evan Frey, Piper McClutchy, Piper Owen, Stella Vartagnian and Maintenance Assistant Charles Bogus.
Family members and the rest of the school’s community cheered for participants as the parade snaked around campus; past the Thacher Early Childhood Division, where Beginners and Kindergarteners lined the sidewalk, past Middle and Upper School buildings and back to the Lower School Welles Building where additional festivities took place, including the weighing of the Great Pumpkins. Second grader William Kramer with a guess of 57 won. The weight of all pumpkins together was 57.5.
New Canaan Country School
New Canaan Country School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin and are afforded all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, or disability in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, financial aid policies or any other school-administered programs.
