HISTORY LESSON: Kids study Silver State

By TIFFANNIE BOND

VIEW STAFF WRITER

Through the years, transplanted children to the Las Vegas Valley have relished the idea of having Oct. 31 off school for Halloween.

They think the holiday is for Halloween, anyway.

When the Legislature decided last year the schools should celebrate Nevada Day -- also on Oct. 31 -- the last Friday in October instead of the actual holiday, students all over town collectively grumbled.

However, Vanderburg Elementary School pupils benefitted from the change by celebrating Nevada Day and Halloween as separate holidays.

At the beginning of October, they began studying Nevada by learning songs, reading books, constructing state maps, studying pioneering individuals and history of Nevada's "Battle Born" birth.

The first-grade teachers on Track 4 spent most of their time teaching the difference between Las Vegas the city and Nevada the state.

"Developmentally, that's a pretty hard concept for a 6-year-old to understand -- the difference between a city and a state," said Nancy Pacey, a first-grade teacher.

The culmination of the first graders' studying came Oct. 25 when they celebrated Nevada Day with western- and Nevada-themed activities, such as cookie decorating with state colors, panning for gold and decorating homemade picture frames.

"I believe activities like this should reinforce concepts and skills students learn in the curriculum," said Vanderburg principal Carolyn Reedom. "It's just a fun way to bring closure to a unit of study they're involved in."

Reedom passed the idea of separating the holidays onto the teachers so the children would understand the nature of Nevada Day and think of it apart from Halloween.

"The children get confused as to why this is a holiday, and we have to make sure they understand," Reedom said.

Millie Pregman, a parent volunteer and New York native, liked the idea.

"It's a bad message in a way because you miss your state holiday," she said. "It takes the emphasis off Halloween."

"It was a more educational way to approach Oct. 31," said Karin Suhadolnik, a first-grade teacher.

With the first-graders, studying the state as a whole provided an interesting look at how the desert topography of Las Vegas and the lush area and cooler climate of Lake Tahoe can exist in the same state.

"All the prior knowledge a 6-year-old is going to have is if they have a relative who perhaps lives somewhere where it snows," Pacey said. "When they're in the first grade, they're like sponges, and they absorb anything you say. ... They want to add what they know."

Prior to this school year, children were home on Nevada Day. This year, being at school gives them a more educational activity.

"A lot of these children are from other places," Pregman said. "For a lot of them, this is the first time they've got to celebrate where they live (now)."