As a youngster Halloween was absolutely my favorite holiday. I started thinking of my costume a year in advance and started putting it together shortly after. The idea that I could be WHATEVER I wanted for an entire night tickled me pink. The candy was obviously a nice bonus but the only real draw back was the spookiness involved. I was quite the wimp as a child (some would say that hasn’t changed) and having people jump out and scare me was not high on my priority list. It probably ranked somewhere close to eating my vegetables and brushing my teeth. Well I can honestly say this Halloween takes the cake when it comes to frightfulness.
Monsters, spiders, zombies and mummies are terrifying; don’t get me wrong. But 40 screaming Korean kids is by far the most bloodcurdling sound on earth. Last Friday our school put together a Halloween party for the kids which was a lot more work than I anticipated. Halloween is not nationally recognized here in South Korea but I work at an English academy which means it’s important to participate in holidays that western countries do. The Korean teachers at the school asked for input on what to do for the party…which turned into us (my co-teacher Heather and me) planning the entire thing.
So we came up with mask making for the little ones and Halloween bingo and mummy wrapping (using toilet paper of course) for the older kids. That seems simple enough but when you add candy, costumes, glitter and glue to kids who are already hyped up it’s a formula for disaster. And it was. In every sense of the word. I’ll just put it this way; I’m still finding material from the party wedged in small spaces around my classroom. Now that it’s over I can retire the devil costume (and the horrific facial hair I grew for it) and look forward to a more relaxing, less terrifying, stateside Halloween next year.
Sounds like you had fun and had some excited kids. Some info about some of my experiences on Halloween. Where I taught, Halloween became All Saints Day, which meant we dressed up as a favorite person in the bible that became a saint. It was fun and educational as we researched the saints historical life. So therefore no scary events except we did incorporate animals associated with Halloween, such as spiders, cats, bats, rats, crows, and owls[terrific science lessons]; which some may be scary to some. So that added some screams to the occasion. Of course you have to have food to top the celebration. Yum! Yum! So that's my ideal Halloween Day Festivities from years passed. Hope you enjoyed my version.
ReplyDeleteSpenser it sounds like you are an official teacher now..... BTW nice devil
ReplyDelete