Halloween


Halloween is pure child. Children too young to remember last year will marvel at the colors, costumes, the decorations, the free flow of candy and the time mom and dad spend with him having pure kiddie fun.

Halloween is a great way to introduce children to the idea of “occasion.” It’s both a private and public adventure for which they are the center. Keeping holidays like Halloween safe and fun takes a little before-the-fact work on the side of a careful parent or provider.

Here are some tips from a mother whose children have gone out trick or treating for over twenty – five years. Some of them way into their teens.

* Underwear — Everything under a costume is underwear. Layers if it’s cold are as pitiful as coats over costumes. The best thing under a costume is the child’s ordinary skivvies and a turtleneck to match the costume and a pair of tights or close fitting sweat pants.

Children will be doing a lot of running and they won’t feel the cold. Close fitting hats are also a heat keeper. It never ceases to amaze me how children can be bundled up on Halloween in a winter coat when it’s 45 degrees, and then come to school without mittens and hat or heavy coat when it snows a few weeks later. Perhaps it’s enthusiasm for the first chill of the season.

* EVERYBODY goes to and uses the toilet BEFORE going anywhere. Borrowing or even using a toilet from a friendly neighbor is a real pain when children have literally a cardboard box of clothes tied, pinned, and tucked on. Don’t ask — tell.

* Eating. We don’t eat anything along the way. What do you do with the wrapper? It seems always to fall into the neighbor who’s picky about his garden. And it’s always best to look over children’s treats before the snarf them down.

* Shoes. This is always a battle. Kids who make up their own costumes think it’s fun to put on oversized, too soft, too unsupportive shoes and it is, but allowing them to wear crazy shoes out is a big mistake. Kids should wear their most comfortable sneakers. Think about it. How often to kids take a mile walk today? Answer? Once a year on Halloween.

* Bags for treats. Save the cute bag for display at home and let them carry a sturdy department store bag with handles. Some kids think big and want to carry a lawn and leaf bag. Parents and providers need to explain to kids that it would take at least a week of trick or treating to fill such a bag, and besides, dragging such a huge thing down the road is going to result in holes in the bag and a loss of candy.

* Courtesy. Please and thank you are the opening and closing statements for Halloween. Children who can’t say thank you or please should return candy to the giver. Mom or dad or a thoughtful provider can help with this. Parents should always go to the door with young children, and help them say the right things. Rude children will stop being rude if you take what they want away the first time they can’t say what is expected.

Halloween is a delightful family adventure that begins with the child and ends with the child. We always let our kids empty their bag of treats into a huge bowl and play with it for hours. Halloween is one night of fun you just can’t duplicate — especially if it’s planned ahead with just a little care.

Halloween


Halloween is a wonderful time for kids. It’s a KIDS ONLY holiday, although I think parents are stealing it from kids these days. I hear a lot about parents’ costumes and parents’ fun, but not a lot of kids fun – sometimes kids fun is a chore on the way to having parents’ fun, and that’s not the priority.

As I watch my daughter, Molly, making costumes for her two little ones, I am delighted that she sees how the very young child needs to participate in the whole family’s excitement and delight during holiday season.

Halloween is the first of three very important holidays in our culture and tradition.
Halloween is a children’s holiday, Thanksgiving is family holiday, and Christmas is a religious holiday: Self, Others, God. We must know ourselves, love one another, and then take that to the altar of our God. Anyway, that’s how I see it.

Getting to know self, means letting down the barriers to self. Dressing up as a funny, frightening, or peculiar character allows a child to make believe, to experiment with being someone else just for a while. Going out to show off this other self is always told on the faces of children: they hesitate, they smile hoping to gain the others smile, and then they burst either into tears or laughter depending upon their acceptance.

It’s a big day simply because the inner self of the child is at risk, and making him comfortable and feel loved is a great part of building blocks for real self esteem.

When a little girl dresses up as a princess, do we regard her as beautiful, magnificent, regal? We should. It’s just for a little while, and it is so important to that inner self. To be thought of as beautiful, good, and well worth fighting for are the things that make girls the strong, thoughtful, careful women they should grow to be.

When a boy dresses up as a frightening beast, a soldier, a knight, a warrior, do we respect him, do we give him momentary lauds? We should. He will one day be the warrior king of his family. He needs to know he can do that well – right from the beginning.

There is a marvelous web site about the history of Halloween HERE. It dispels a lot of negatives about the beginnings and the religious or non religious myths surrounding Halloween. It’s also in the links.

Halloween was always one of my children’s favorite holidays. We’ve lived in an actively haunted house for 30+ years, so we live around ghosts all the time. We are the first stop on my town’s haunted house tour. Newburgh is an old town, and LOTS of things have happened here. Our last sighting was in September. I was napping in the Plum room, and I noticed the air conditioner was struggling. Suddenly, the temperature dropped about 25 degrees as the closet door opened….

Saturday’s Child – Halloween


Halloween

With the Eve of All Holies nearly upon us, parents and providers are looking at Halloween options with an eye on safety, kiddie-comfort and wellness, and that’s good.

Whether parents and providers are Halloween buffs or adamantly opposed to reveling in the creepy side of the imagination, any occasion involving very young children means attending to their welfare and immediate needs as a primary consideration.

First, remember what Officer Friendly says, “Trick or treat during day-light hours.” That’s not always possible with parents who work full time, so it’s really important for child care providers to work with parents to insure that kids are “ready to go” when they do leave their child care.

Here are some ideas that might make the very special occasion of Halloween a little easier on families of trick or treaters:

First, encourage children to wear a costume for the day. It’s a special day, especially for little children. A costume is only fabric, so let them play in it. It’s something they will remember forever.

Make sure that costumes are “user friendly,” which means not too long, not too tight, not too heavy, not too fragile, nothing tight around the neck, a pop on hat only, no mask, or shoes the size of coal barges. Costumes should be comfortable and be accompanied by a set of extra clothes. Gym shoes should be worn with socks that fit.

After a day of costume wearing, any costume is going to look pretty bad. So, at the end of the day, when it’s potty time, get out the glue gun and fix as many of the shreds as possible. As a really nice touch, try applying a little face paint just for fun. That way, the child is ready to go out with the parent without stopping at home first.

Food on Halloween is tricky but important for “wellness.” Kids, being what kids are, want only candy and sweets. To help keep little bellies from “yanking” as the teens say, try this:

*Begin the day with a wholesome cold cereal and lots of milk and juice.

*Put sweets up and give cheese and crackers for morning snack.

*Keep soda and coolaid out of reach of children.

* Make the “yellow lunch” as it’s known in child care circles. It’s filling and kids eat it up while it’s kind to the stomach:
macaroni and cheese,
chicken nuggets,
corn,
peaches,
bread and butter and lots of milk

*Keep sweets natural or not at all for the whole day.

It goes without saying, the nicest thing parents can offer a child care are special occasion highly decorated bakery cookies for children’s parties and occasions. These are wonderful, but on Halloween, it behooves the parent and provider to keep them back a day and do something different.

Instead of sweets, at snack time, serve homemade soup, cheese and apples and crackers and milk. This little dinner will let parents skip an extra stop and a dinner delay so they can get a child to his evening activities early.

Have fun and be safe and remember what the Irish say: Ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, Lord deliver us! Hmmmmmm, I wonder if they were speaking of the English?

The Garden School Tattler

It was the day before Halloween
And all through the school
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a ghoul.

The witches were made
With paper and glue,
And visions of ghosty ghosts
Danced singing boo!

The music was scary,
The kids jumped with fright,
To think of what sounds
Are made in the night!

Miss Rachel wore elf ears,
Miss Stacey wore pink,
Miss Judy defrosted
Our fish in the sink.

We had fish sticks for lunch
And bananas and grapes.
We listened to CDs
Novels, and tapes.

And then we played outside;
We ran and we slid
And waited for cookies
Hidden under the lid.

The kids were all good,
Creative and so
We had a good day
Ho, ho, ho.

Monday is party day
Come wearing a gown,
Gossamer wings, pajamas
A shiny gold crown.

Come bringing parents, cousins and friends
There about three
And share with us plenty of cookies
And goblin iced tea.

New York

Getting public and private schools together for anything would be a miracle. I am always frustrated when principal turns me down when I suggest a child needs a certain thing or way of learning at least until the child begins to acclimate to the new school. “We’ll take care of it,” says the principal, and nine times out of ten, the child is forced into a tail spin because public education knows SO much more than private education. Who suffers? Me, them? No, the child, and it’s a scandal.

Preschool Jump-Start Program
MARY ELLEN PEREIRA
Newsday
October 23, 2005

Not having a pre-K program to call its own, the Island Park school district launched a Kindergarten Readiness Program to help local preschools prepare children for the higher standards of kindergarten.

Many children who complete preschool programs do not have readiness skills required by the New York State Department of Education. “We have experienced significant change during the past few years,” said Rosmarie Bovino, deputy superintendent of schools. “What used to be taught in first grade is now being taught in pre-K. In the past, pre-K was viewed as a time for learning social skills, with playtime being the primary activity. That is no longer true.”

The district has met with local preschool teachers to discuss state standards, particularly math and reading, and provided copies of the recently released New York State math and English language arts curriculum materials.

“We outlined the higher standards set by the state,” said Edward Price, superintendent of schools. “Many of the attendees were unaware that these new requirements are in effect, including the standardized testing that begins in third grade.

“Following kindergarten screening in March, results will be forwarded to the preschools for their use to assist the children for the rest of the school year. “One of the benefits of this effort is the creation of dialogue between the private and public schools,” Price added. “There is strong interest on both sides to spend more time together to better coordinate our programs.”

Pennsylvania

(Blogger pictures are down)
What Terri doesn’t realize is that the state is only interested in complaints. There was probably someone down the street with fifty kids, but no one complained. As a home provider for over eight years, I can attest that the numbers really do vary. In the olden times, I had 67 children on my family day care roster because of the need in my town. Sometimes I saw 30 children every day in shifts of fifteen. Fifteen school kids for breakfast, fifteen for preschool, and fifteen more after school.

They were generally not there all together, but sometimes the need was outrageous, and the most I ever had in my big pre-Victorian home was 31, and that was a fluke. I had lots of help, and I never watched babies, and the kids all had a good time. I know that because I still know a few with kids of their own, and they still ask me for recipes. We did all kinds of things including go to the pool every day. I live next to the school, and my home is made for children, so it worked.

What the state is looking for is quality care, and they regard quality care as “all the paperwork filled out correctly.” That’s as far as it goes. I’ve never met a state official who understands what bonding means, or trust between a parent and a provider.

State Should Change Rules on Child Care

This is in response to the letters about child care printed on Oct. 15. I care for children and had the same thing happen to me. A man from the state dropped in one day, and I just so happened to have a couple too many children (he said).

The parents I worked for knew the adult-to-child ratio and never had a problem with it, mainly because I have two children of my own, ages 13 and 16, who helped me when I had more than three. But, according to the state, that does not matter because they were in the same house all together.

I have been watching children for over four years and without major mishaps. The children listen to me better than they do their own parents. But regardless, I am down to just three children to care for because I didn’t have my license. It didn’t only hurt my income, but it also hurt those families I had to release immediately.

I am in the process of getting my license and so far it has been close to a month since I started and the state is taking its good ‘ole time sending me paperwork that I filled out with everything I needed. I guess when you deal with any government agency it is always “hurry up and wait.”

I had thought about stopping watching children and going to work myself, but I know how hard it is to get a good dependable, reliable and affordable person to care for your kids. Frankly, I enjoy staying home and watching children to help someone else out.

The only conclusion I can come to about the rules the state has about child care is this: The rules must have been made up by someone who can afford to send their children to those expensive facilities or they are someone who doesn’t care who watches their children or they are someone who has no children at all.

It is also my opinion that these rules need to be looked at and revised immediately.

Terri Knepper
Chambersburg

North Carolina

Mr. Geeson hits the nail on the head in this plea for more childlike play and less classroom orchestration. What he suggests is what we do at the Garden School. We’ve hired teachers in the past who have come to school ready to teach the line up. “That’s not what we are about,” I lament. “We are about learning by play. We are about making it fun.

“Learning isn’t fun. Learning is learning.”

Then the teachers with GS experience howl with laughter. “Learning is always fun.” These teachers don’t last long.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Parent Connection by Bryan Greeson
Preschool Learning Need Not Always Be Structured

I try to stay off my high horse, but some days I just can’t help myself. Pretty soon, little Bradley will be preparing for the SAT at age 7, and little Susie will be pushed into writing a complete sentence by age 3. Parents all over are enrolling their preschool children into tutoring programs to prepare them for kindergarten. “It’s a highly competitive world,” they say. “We must make sure our children get ahead so they will not be left behind.”

I agree that our culture today does present itself as being highly competitive. Parents are not only concerned with how in the world they’re going to pay for college 15 years from now, but will their child even get accepted? Yes, many colleges and universities are requiring higher SAT scores and classroom performance from incoming freshman. But if college admission is so competitive, I can’t help but wonder why the high school senior in our home has received more unsolicited college brochures than teen shopping catalogues in recent months.

If you have enrolled your preschooler in group or individual tutoring, don’t be offended. Parents have the right to choose what they think is best for their kids. I realize that entrance into some schools is competitive, and I understand why parents want to do what it takes to compete for limited enrollment. But you need to know two things: First, the jury is still out on just how effective preschool tutoring is. Second, you also need to know there are many things you can do as parents that will greatly enrich your little preschooler’s learning. Theses activities are age appropriate, and they will not require you to take out a second mortgage.

Here are a few tips:

• Preschoolers learn through play activities. Make-believe, simple art, creative games that stimulate the imagination, interaction with stories/children’s books and simple toys are all great for growing bodies and minds. Learning does not always have to be a “structured” activity. Preschoolers exploring the world around them is great for learning.

• Let your preschooler help you around the house and in the yard. Don’t make it like work. Make it fun and interactive. Just talking about what you are doing will lead to endless questions from your preschooler that equal learning. However, whether talking in the car or around the kitchen table, avoid making every interaction a “learning experience.” I have witnessed this first hand, and not only is it overkill — it may become annoying to all (including your preschooler!).

• Toys can be simple and not expensive. When I was growing up, I loved building things with Legos and Lincoln Logs (and our daughters did too). Not only is building with blocks good for fine motor development, but it stimulates creative thinking as well.

• Never forget — more books and less TV/videos equal better learning. Read, read and read with your child!Bryan Greeson, a nationally certified school psychologist residing in Gastonia, N.C., will answer your parenting questions. E-mail him at parentconnection@hotmail.com

The Garden School Tattler


The day got off with a bang – literally. Miss Molly was in a terrible car accident, but she and the baby are fine, and so is Jack. Thank God for His blessings, and thank God for the police force and the fire department for INSISTING that children are buckled in properly.

The light was out, and Miss Molly’s car was struck in a busy intersection by a tremendous impact that sent the car spinning through a double circle, broke her axle, bent a wheel horizontally, and pushed her car two lanes over and nearly toppled it over. After the shake up, Jack was able to come to school and not miss the field trip, and Miss Molly went to see her doctor who said she’d be sore, but she’d be OK.

When we see children roaming around in cars, we cringe. I always think of a little girl I went to school with who was brain damaged on her way home from the hospital as a new born. There was an accident and she hit the dashboard. When I think of what her life was like because she had not been in a car seat some sixty years ago, I still cringe.

Children are so precious, so dear, and we are their safety zones.

It was a cool but lovely day, and we were out in most of it. We went to the pumpkin patch and each of the children got a pumpkin. They ran around looking at the pumpkins and had a tough decision as to which one was the most perfect.

Then it was off to Wesselman Woods to play and eat pizza Mrs. St. Louis ordered. The kids ate five boxes of pizza and five orders of bread sticks.

We played at the park and a class from Newburgh School came to play as well. I met some of my children’s teachers from back in the 1970’s who are still teaching. It’s always nice to know that people are still doing a great job.

Back at the school we had an easy afternoon, and ate apples and carrots and dip on the patio. I gave out Fall suns and stars to kids with medals. I have a big box of “hangables” for kids who do a nice job. If I pull out the box, the kids can pretty much have what they want. I fixed some of the crinoids with new gold wires, and Peyton just had to have bell. She also found a ballet slipper set, and Alexa wanted one too, so I gave her a sun instead because I only had one ballet slipper set. I invited the kids to bring little trinkets to hang on their medals, and I promised I’d but a jumper on for durability. Every so often I pass out things, and those wearing medals can get something new. David got a whole new medal, and so did Mayli.

Tomorrow is fine arts day. We will be listening to Handel and making witches.

Australia

Home is always superior to day care until a child is able to play with other children – about age three. At age three, children really want to play with other children simply because they are “their own kind.” They want to move quickly, explore, and find out for themselves, and someone eye to eye who has the same energy is just the ticket.

Good childcare whether it’s a school, a play center, a play group, or whatever adults choose to call it is a world for children and all the adults have a responsibility to not only voice their opinions but make sure the environment continues to be a place where children can learn, because learning is what children want to do MOST!

Here is an opinion from Australia. They have the same problems as we do, only from this letter, it sounds a lot worse.

OPINION
Elizabeth Meryment
Australia

The battle between working and non-working mothers has always been vitriolic, but recently stay-at-home mothers seem to have gained the moral ascendancy. To have a child in long-day care is more often becoming frowned on by the stay-at-home team as a mild form of child abuse.

Partly this has sprung from academic Anne Manne’s book Motherhood, in which she cites research that claims young children suffer increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol when they are in organised care. While many have dismissed her book as pompous drivel, the debate rages on.

This is an emotive argument, if also an academic one, because the reality of today’s society is that women with children work in large numbers, whether that’s because they want to or because they need to. Commentators can argue away about the merits of home-based or organised child care, but long-daycare centres are here and people most definitely want to use them, even many mothers who don’t have jobs.

In The Australian last week, the Clovelly Child Care Centre in Sydney’s eastern suburbs was reported as having 700 children on its waiting list, 400 of whom were younger than two.
“We might offer eight places out per year in our under-two group,” said the centre’s Sally Anderson. “We are a non-profit centre so people tend to flock to us. But supply just doesn’t meet demand.”

That the centre is non-profit is important because the price of child care in many places is becoming utterly outrageous, with some centres charging $105 a day per child.

The reasons child care has become so expensive are twofold. One is because working mothers – most of whom do not work full time and use child care only a few days a week – want excellent care for their children and are prepared to pay for the best available. The other is this Government’s ideologically driven childcare policies.

Family and Community Services Minister Kay Patterson often proffers predictable rhetoric about how well the Government funds the childcare sector. But one of the Howard Government’s first decisions on taking office in 1996 was to slash $500 million from childcare funding. This severely dented the industry and nearly a decade later those suffering for it are the working mothers forced to fork out large parts of their pay for the privilege of being taxpayers, a double insult as they are also denied government benefits offered to stay-at-home mothers.

And it’s not only working mothers who are suffering: it’s their children who are really copping it.
Having spent some time visiting childcare centres in Sydney lately, I can see why some children suffer stress when they are there. Some of these places are soulless, overpopulated institutions filled with often sick children who spread colds and flu to each other. I certainly wouldn’t like to spend time there, let alone place a small child in one. Some of the places I’ve seen have lax security and bricked-in playgrounds, others have inadequate supervision.

At one expensive place I saw young babies left to sleep on their bellies, with pillows and quilts in their cots, in contravention of everything one is warned about for the prevention of sudden infant death syndrome. One baby had been in this dire place five days a week from six weeks of age. Without wanting to get too deeply into the stay-at-home v work debate, this hardly seems ideal; nobody could sensibly deny that very young babies need their mothers to be with them most of the time.

This isn’t to say that organised child care can’t be good for young children, especially a few days a week for older babies and toddlers. As the youngest child in a large family, I remember being stuck at home alone with my mother while my older sisters were at school. Although my mother did her best to amuse me, I remember the loneliness and boredom of days filled with solo tea parties at the bottom of the garden with only teddy for company. My first day at school was complete happiness.

So I’m sure organised child care can be helpful not only for mothers but for children, and there are some excellent centres where small numbers of happy children are looked after by kind staff who clearly adore them. The children, especially first or last children or those from small families, learn to socialise, play and share, are amused all day and give their parents a break.

This is the sort of environment that should be available for all small children in care and the question is why really good care should not be available to all children who use it. Why should children be getting stressed out in overcrowded, underfunded centres? The first step is decent federal funding and childcare subsidies.

Whether children should be in child care is moot. But they are in child care whether commentators think they should be or not. The question should be how to improve the care children receive and make top-quality child care affordable for every child using it. After all, it is the children who are the ultimate winners or losers.

DVD Report – Madagasgar

Here’s the DVD release report from Debby Peters. I think parents will like this movie more than the kids, but the activities listed seem like fun.
Madagascar

From the studio that brought you Shrek and Shark Tale…. Go wild on November 15th when MADAGASCAR, the hit family movie debuts on DVD and VHS from DreamWorks Home Entertainment. This must-own DVD release of the year’s #1 family comedy captures the film’s blend of humor, adventure and all-out fun with an array of engaging, interactive bonus programming that delivers tremendous entertainment value.

More than a movie, the MADAGASCAR DVD explodes with over 100 activities, interactive games and creative projects that will have kids and adults alike roaring for more, including an all-new I Like To Move It, Move It music
video specially-created for the DVD release featuring the Madagascar zoosters and assorted jungle locals in a wild dance celebration.

Available for $19.95, the MADAGASCAR DVD also includes Behind The Crates, a hilarious tongue-in-cheek look at the making of the movie, a commentary by the film’s breakout characters ­ the prodigious penguins Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private, an entertaining Learn To Draw program from the film’s animation team, an extensive array of downloadable activities and customizable projects, and much more.

MADAGASCAR tells the story of four Central Park Zoo animals who find themselves shipwrecked on the island of Madagascar. Stranded, the native New Yorkers ­ Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) must figure out how to survive in the wild and discover the true
meaning of the phrase It’s a jungle out there.

The design of the four main characters began with the basic features of a lion, zebra, hippopotamus and giraffe. Influenced by classic cartoons from the 1930’s and 40’s as well as children’s picture books, the teams at DreamWorks Animation and PDI/DreamWorks then used state-of-the-art computer animation to achieve an old-fashioned cartoon look that pays homage to such animation legends such as Chuck Jones and Tex Avery. In keeping with Madagascar’s cartoon comedy style, the animators carried this look over to all of the film’s elements. As the designs dictated that this world be slightly askew — not overly caricaturized — the team began referring to it as the “whack factor.”

PENGUIN COMMENTARY
– Those four plotting penguins ­ Skipper, Kowalski, Private and Rico ­ who set the entire story in motion with their planned escape from the zoo to head for the wide open spaces of Antarctica reminisce about their on-set antics.

FILMMAKERS’ COMMENTARIES
– From classic cartoons and children’s books to the paintings of renowned French artist Henri Rousseau, in this commentary the Madagascar filmmakers reveal the design influences that helped shape the fantastical island of Madagascar. Filled with fun anecdotes about the production process such as the individual hurdles each of the characters presented to the animation team, ranging from Alex’s mane, to Melman’s neck, to Gloria’s rather rotund
girth and even Marty’s particular talent for shifting from being a quadruped, walking on all fours, to a biped, and how the off-screen friendships of the voice talent added to the character’s relationships.

MAD MISHAPS
– A montage of the most amusing technical goofs that occurred during the Madagascar production.

CRACK THE CODE
– Always popping up out of nowhere, the wildly hilarious Penguins intermittently invade the menus, leaving behind random foot prints. Each foot print reveals a mysterious code that allows viewers to eventually Crack the Code. Once cracked, users are in for a delightful surprise!

MEET THE WILD CAST
– An entertaining introduction to Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo and Melman the Giraffe, and the talented actors that brought them roaring to life.

ENCHANTED ISLAND
– Sponsored by the Madagascar Conservation Organization, get an exciting location-by-location tour of the beautiful and exotic island of Madagascar!

BEHIND THE CRATES
– Led by writer/directors Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath, the teams at DreamWorks Animation and PDI/DreamWorks reveal how they used state-of-the art computer animation to bring Madagascar from storyboards to the big screen.

THE TECH OF MADAGASCAR
– A behind-the-scenes look at the technical expertise required to create this animated film.

DREAMWORKS KIDS: THIS WAY TO PLAY
– Designed just for kids, this menu option offers a variety of fun-filled, engaging interactive games and activities, and is loaded with non-stop fun and entertainment.

-I Like To Move It, Move It Video
The premiere of the I Like To Move It, Move It music video featuring the vocal talents of Sacha Baron Cohen as King Julien and the entire Madagascar crew in a wild dance celebration.

Set Top Games:
An exclusive version of the Madagascar bEqual game only on the DVD! Have fun with your whole family while you learn more about the wild side of the animal world!

– Learn To Draw
Learn to draw your favorite Madagascar characters with this step-by-step onscreen guide.

– Matching Lemurs
In this memory game, kids need to help control a wild group of dancing lemurs by matching up them up with their more sedate twin, but with all of those dancing lemurs it will be tough to spot the twin.

– Marty’s Birthday Wish
Find the hidden birthday gift and view a different birthday fortune each time.

– Madagascar Symphony
This game will challenge viewers to replay sounds they hear in the correct order.

– Fossa Wack
A hilarious take on the age-old Whack-A-Mole game.

DVD-Rom Activities
– Printables
The fun continues long after the movie ends with a collection of Madagascar inspired creative activities that allow kids to unleash their wild side: Make a Madagascar fashion statement with a selection of printable iron-ons; download frames for your favorite photos; be irresistibly drawn to customizable magnets; become a true party animal with an assortment of invitations and decorations that can be personalized for any occasion; transform your room into a zany zoo filled with posters of your favorite characters; and more.

CAST AND CREW BIOS AND PRODUCTION NOTES

PHOTO GALLERIES

VHS Price: $19.95 (M.A.P.)
DVD Price: $19.95 (M.A.P.)
Street Date: November 15, 2005
Running Time: 85 minutes, 53 seconds
MPAA Rating: PG for mild language, crude humor and some thematic elements
Audio: English 5.1, English 2.0, French 5.1, French 2.0,
Spanish 2.0
Subtitles: English, French and Spanish
Closed Captioned