"That's What's Cool, Teacher Tom . . . Look!"

The biggest social event of our preschool year was always our annual all-school Halloween party, a typically raucous affair attended by most of our 65 or so students, their parents, siblings, and often grandparents. All three classes "practice" our Halloween songs at circle time, which are mostly variations on songs we've been singing together for as long as I've been at Woodland Park.Easily the most popular, for all ages, are a pair of ditties that involve holding up jack-o-lantern faces to our own, then removing them as a surprise ending.The first we talk about as a song for the "babies," one we sing gently and sweetly while thinking of the "little kids" who will laugh and laugh when we sing it for them:Someone is hiding, hiding, hidingSomeone is hidingWho could it be?Peek-a-boo, I see you!The second, however, is for the grown-ups and "big kids" who we intend to scare:Halloween is comingAnd this is what I'll doI'll hide behind this pumpkin faceAnd then I'll say, "BOO!"We practice…