Small Adventures

So though the Halloween Event is over ... we only seem to be getting busier as Graduation starts to loom around the corner.  As I have a 7-year old class, I will also be participating in graduation.  Progress reports are also due soon and there is so much I need to do.  I believe my parent meetings went well.  Sadly I am falling behind in my Korean class.  I have no motivation to study after work and I am recently busy on weekends with stuff I want or need to do.  Oh well.  At least I learned how to read the letters ... T.T

So first off, I want to say that some of my students participated in a national speech contest and placed.  Earlier I had fixed and recorded their speeches for them.  Thomas, from my 6th grade class, placed 4th in his competition, and Richard, from my 3rd grade class, placed third.  A bunch of other students from our school placed in this national competition and one or two even got first place in their divisions.  I am so proud of them.  They all work so hard.... well most of them.  I also have a very shy girl and though she didn't do the speech contest, she has been volunteering to read her essays in class.  It is a big improvement because before she wanted to volunteer but any time she did, she'd end up crying instead. 

So Michael's dad goes to Japan often.  His family has spent a lot of time in Japan and know that I have interests in Japan.  They were nice enough to send me a nice package of Japanese sweets which I shared with the other teachers and some of my students.  But the gift that I got recently that I will definitely always remember was Clara's. Clara, from my morning kindergarten class, went home and told her mom that Jessica Teacher was sick and had lost her voice. The next day she brought in medicine. Thinking the medicine was for her, I sent her to give it to the Korean teachers (they give the sick kids their medicine at lunch time). During my prep time, the Korean teachers got ahold of me and said the medicine was actually for me.  Her mom had sent me medicine and a wish that I remain healthy. It was one of those moments where it makes me glad to do what I do.  It is also something that would never happen if I worked at a school in America. 

 

Next we had Michael's birthday party (the last birthday party I will have until the new school year starts again).  Sadly a lot of students were out that day so there were only four of us, but that is okay.  It was fun and they enjoyed the food.  Also, this week we took the professional pictures for graduation and another group picture of all the teachers.  Sadly my hair would not be controlled on the first day so I only left my hair down for the second.  I wonder how the pictures turned out.  Guess I will see when the pictures come in and another huge wall scroll goes up.  T.T Hopefully I don't look too bad in these pictures because I happen to know they will likely be up all of the next school year and possibly on the buses again driving around town. O.O

Other than work and my Korean class, I went with Hayley and did a double feature at the movie theater.  We watched Gravity and Thor.  Now I have to say it is so nice to be able to watch English movies that I want to see.  Gravity was really intense and I think I spend half of the movie with tears rolling down my face .... I kid you not. T.T  I really enjoyed Thor as well (besides the fact that Thor is cute), though it was a bit different than I expected.  As the third in the series (I count Avengers as Thor 2) I expected it to be more series like the other two movies, but though it had serious undertones, a lot of it made me laugh.  I wouldn't be surprised to see another movie come out considering the way it ended (I won't say so I don't actually spoil it for anyone).  Other than that, I am looking forward to Hunger Games and Hobbit coming out in the next month or two.  I am also getting very excited for my special plans for Christmas.  Christmas Countdown

 

Halloween Spirit Week

 

So I apologize for the late post .... I've been sick and lazy.  Not surprising ^.^ So hopefully I'm not forgetting anything important.  So Halloween Spirit Week Schedule: Monday - Crazy Hair Day, Tuesday - Sports Day, Wednesday - Backwards Day, Thursday - Pajama Day & Pumpkin Carving, and Friday - Halloween Event.  Thankfully, my parents meeting was the week before, so I could have fun for spirit week. Also since our theme for the month was taking care of the earth, we made a monster out of recycled trash.  It looked like a weird flying pig. ^.^ They had a lot of fun with the project.

 

So Crazy Hair Day on Monday was fun and my hair was quite a mess and wouldn't stay up.  Basically I just randomly put pony tails and bobby pins in my hair and worked with it. Most of my kids weren't very crazy but I really liked Clara's braids.  Daniel had a pink hair piece in which I believe he borrowed from a sister or something.  Brittney's hat was adorable .... I kind of wanted it.  ^.^  Sadly though my hair didn't last the day.  It kept falling out and just giving me a headache so I gave up on it after morning kindergarten was over.  Clara won the Best Crazy Hair of our class.

Tuesday was Sports Day and just like last year, I wore my Uncle Jon's hat .... well technically it is mine now.  I did successfully steal it from him ... with permission of course ^.^.  I had some soccer outfits, Taekwondo, swimming.  It was really cool to see all the different outfits and the students posing based on their sport.  One girl, I think her name was Cindy, from Megan's class was a belly dancer and really worked with the outfit.  She was my favorite by far .... and I kind of wanted a similar outfit of my own .... maybe in the future ^.^.  June and Britney won for our class and June won the top three outfits for Sports Day.  The next day was Backwards Day which really isn't that interested to be honest.  Basically kids wearing a lot of backwards hoodies.  Amy won for my class that day.

 

 

Thursday was Pajama Day.  I really liked the picture we took with all of us laying on the ground in our pajamas.  Michael won for our class that day.  We also carved pumpkins which was a lot of fun.  Our pumpkin was pretty short, so I couldn't do much but give it a square mouth.  I have to say I have come a long way.  I remember a time when I would be too grossed out to carve a pumpkin.  Some of my kids reactions reminded me of that.  A tiny piece of pumpkin on them and they were squealing.  Haha, but they had fun, don't let them fool you.  We also decorated the school that evening.  I helped out mostly with the big gym.  My classroom theme was black cats (since that was my Halloween costume this year).  I even made a giant black cat for our wall.  It was fun and we even turned the kid's pictures into black cats.  I didn't win the classroom contest, but I wasn't really trying to either.  Besides, a lot of the classrooms looked really cool this year.

So Friday was the Halloween Event.  Let me first explain my costume.  I wore a wig and dressed up as a black cat.  Sadly the ears I wanted didn't arrive in time so I had to make due with what I had with me.  But that is ok.  But all the kids loved my costumes.  They were all wide eyed and like "Look, Jessica Teacher."  It was quite fun.  My third graders had fun bending my tail in all sorts of shapes and the kids loved feeling it.  I guess they thought it was soft.  Thankfully, none of the kids pulled on the wig.  I had a lot of bobby pins in to keep it from falling off though it was quite messy by the end.  One of the afternoon kindergarten parent's (not even one of my student's parents, but another one) insisted on me posing for a few pictures.  She really wanted a lot of pictures of the teachers.  And one of my co-workers (who was nice enough to take a picture for me as well) wanted pictures of me to show her son.  She said something about if the teachers had a costume contest, I would have won.  Though I personally liked a lot of the costumes, especially Chris' Ariel costume that she made herself.

 

So like last year I was in charge of face painting.  Though unlike last year, I got to draw more Halloween stuff.  Many kids wanted cutesy stuff last year, but I was happy to see more kids letting me draw bats, pumpkins, ghosts, coffins, and cats this year.  It was a nice change and good for Halloween.  After the face painting, I took my kids trick or treating where they got candy from Ben and Nathan Teacher's classes.  After a lunch break, we had the awards for best classroom and costume.  Daniel from my class won the best costume with his adorable Iron Man costume.  By the way, my student's costumes were as follows: Amy - Pink Witch, Britney - Pumpkin, Clara - Orange and Black Witch, Daniel - Iron Man, June - Thor, Mellisa - Rapunzel, and Michael - Gold Ninja.

After all of the awards, I was the Master of Ceremonies for the Song Contest.  I seem to be MCing more often, but that is okay because I actually like MCing for the most part, especially Song Contests.  Anyway, there were a lot of good classes this year.  My class did Witch Doctor and we did get some votes but we didn't win.  But that is okay because my normally shy class sang nice and loudly and danced well.  So can't complain at all.  ^.^  As it won't let me upload the video here, you can see my students singing Witch Doctor on my Facebook.  After Song Contest was over, we packed them up with all their candy and finished.  We stayed in costume all day so the other students could see it.  But because I had afternoon kindergarten, my Halloween event wasn't done yet.

So after giving a test to first graders, I got to redo Halloween with my afternoon kindergarteners.  Chris and I kind of combined our classes for the day to make it easier.  Otherwise, I don't think we would have finished.  Also, there was Sarah's AK class too.  So first we did the Haunted House with the students.  A few were to scared to come in but most of them liked it.  I basically crawled around the floor hissing or swatting at them.  They liked it and shrieked.  Some of them tried to attack me .... brave kids .... though the really brave one's were my afternoon kindergarteners .... but then again, they always attack me. ^.^

After that, I face painted for Chris' and my class while she made the candy bags with them.  Then both classes made paper pumpkins.  T.T I'm sorry for my kids because Jessica Teacher was really bad at making the paper pumpkins.  After that, the three classes (Sarah, Chris, Jessica) switched and sang Trick-or-Treat for candy.  Then we got to send happy kids home.  It was a long day and thankfully I only had my third graders after that.  Still, I had a lot of fun and Halloween will always be one of my favorite holidays.  It is a pity that I didn't do anything for actual Halloween day.