august 2023
On July 31st we celebrated Halloween in July. Part of this celebration involved listening to a scary sound CD, to our surprise this turned out to be the best part of the day. Their favourite sound was a particular scream and each time they heard it the children burst out laughing shouting “SCREAM CHEESE”. This made us want to learn more about where the idea of “scream cheese” came from.
Over the next week, we continued to play the CD during mealtimes and play times listening to the children’s conversations as they worked. Malcolm explained that Scream Cheese is a character from the movie Hotel Transylvania. Malcolm began to identify different screams, he identified 3 different types: Scream Cheese, Bear Scream, and Bat Scream. He further explained each one. “Scream Cheese” is funny while “Bear Scream” is the really creepy one, a sound you make when a bear scares you. “Bat Scream” is a medium creepy one and the sound you make when a bat scares you. As Malcolm was explaining the different screams to me, he was describing/remembering scenes from the movie.
It was interesting to observe how much listing to sounds can provoke feelings and images from our experience. To further extend this experience the children were sketching images they imagined while listening to the sounds
Jen Tervo, RECE. AECEO C
Paige Cameron, Educator