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.

Field Trip, International Fireworks Festival, Birthday Party, and Korean Classes

So, I have been quite busy the last few weeks as the title says.  First off, I am attempting to decorate my classroom for Halloween on top of everything else I have to do.  I decided to go with a scary cat theme for my classroom since I will be a black cat (if my costume arrives in time) or at least be wearing a cat suit (if my costume doesn't arrive in time) for the Halloween event that my school will be doing on October 25th.  I am excited as I love dressing up (*sniffle* I miss being able to cosplay and go to anime conventions).  Anyway, at school we are busy getting ready for Halloween and I will be doing face painting again this year. 

As we did around this time last year, we took the kindergarteners hiking at the Gwunggyo Mountains (not sure if I spelled that right).  My students were the leaders and boy did they seem to be in a hurry.  I had to keep telling them to slow down so that the other classes could keep up.  There was one point where even I started having trouble keeping up with them and even grabbing their hands just ended up with me getting dragged across this mountain.  They were really excited to see a caterpillar on the ground and a squirrel in the tree.  That may have been the first squirrel I have seen in Korea, which is odd considering I see them daily at home.  Granted .... we did use to feed them at my house.  Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun and we collected leaves for them to take home.  The hike was a good idea because our classes were also learning about how we can take care of the earth.  So a perfect tie-in with the class work.

Something cute that happened with my new boy in afternoon kindergarten happened when I was teaching first grade.  Louis (my new boy) kept peeking into my classroom as I taught first grade so when they were copying stuff down off the board, I went to see what he needed.  So I go down to his level and he leans in to whisper in my ear.  "Teacher.  I don't know which classroom."  He was confused because he is usually the last to arrive in my afternoon kindergarten and there were kids he didn't know in each of the classrooms because first grade hadn't ended yet.  It was so cute, and it was hard not to laugh until I got him where he needed to be.  So I whispered back to him, "Don't worry.  It's classroom 3, but it's not time for class yet."  And then led him back to the front area where he could wait until it was time for class.  Then I promised to keep it a secret from the other afternoon kindergarteners.  ^.^ It was adorable.

Anyway, back on things I did in the last two weeks or so.  I went to the International Fireworks Festival in Yeouido (I think this is the place) where I met up with Kyle and Matsuko from the recent Japan trip (Matsuko actually spent the weekend at my place) and Chris and Ashley.  It was like a Japan reunion plus Chris.  Anyway, it was really crowded and it took a while to find Chris and Ashley because all the phones had horrible reception so even when we finally got ahold of Chris, we lost her before she could find us.  The train stations were packed like I have never seen them before, even in Japan.  They estimated that 1 million people went to that event.  It made the PSY concert I went to a while back look tiny. 

Anyway, Canada, Japan, France, and South Korea performed amazing firework shows.  I just wish I had a better camera to take pictures with.  Oh well.  My favorite was Japan because of the animals and this waterfall like firework.  But Korea setting the bridge off with fireworks (the entire bridge had fireworks lit and dripping into the river) was pretty cool too.  The only reason I didn't like France more and Korea wasn't my favorite is that they had a lot of low water fireworks that we couldn't really see from where we were sitting.  Canada was my least favorite, mostly due to a lack of color in the fireworks and there was no wind at that time so there was a solid smoke barrier in which the fireworks were being displayed in.  Since it was so crowded, we stayed and played Never Have I Ever until some of the crowd cleared out.  We ended up literally catching two last trains and the last bus to get home but we did make it without having to walk or take a taxi home.  Barely.  But it was a really fun night regardless and I hope we can all do it again sometime.

Hmm, the last big thing that I can remember doing is starting a Korean class on Sundays.  Though I've only gone to one class (my second class is tomorrow) I seem to like it.  The main part I don't like is it means more work as I have to study.  I HATE studying T.T and I tend to fall asleep when studying.  Plus it means that the little bit of free time that I do have is being cut down again as I do bring work home with me to do most weekends.  Oh well, I figure I've been in Korea a year now, so I should start learning the language.  Besides, I love being able to speak Japanese and understand people, so I bet I will enjoy being in Korea much more once I learn Korean.  Plus, from what I understand, Korean grammar and Japanese grammar are very similar so that should help.  But at the same time, I have a feeling that I will be mixing them up as well.  T.T  Oh well.  I like to learn so I might as well enjoy it as much as I can and take the most out of it.

 

 

One more school thing that happened was that Britney and June had their birthday party this week.  There was a lot of fruit and the kids enjoyed it.  If June told me right (he sounded a bit confused when he told me so I'm not sure) his actual birthday is on Halloween which I find to be cool.  ^.^ I love Halloween.  Look forward to pictures from the Halloween event in the upcoming weeks.  Also, the weather is cooling down and soon it will be cold. T.T Why can't it just stay this temperature forever?