It's begining to look a lot like....Halloween

I love October. It is the start of Fall, and that means it is that much closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love the holidays. My school is gearing up big time for Halloween. The Korean teachers have been hard at work decorating the halls of our school. It has been a lot of fun teaching my kids our new Halloween song. We are singing "This is Halloween" from the nightmare before Christmas. The kids are really enjoying the song. Coming from a family that loves music/musicals/performing....I am practicing patience, and the art of understanding that things don't have to be perfect. No matter what I say, korean children will always sing in a high pitch voice and add an "a" to random words. It the way that English is translated to them. They will say, "I am going to sleep in the a bed. I took a soup to a mom." I have yet to figure out a way to break them of this habit.

 Graduation. Personally, I don't remember it made such a big deal when I was moved up from Kindergarten to first grade. They were so cute in their outfits. The school year ends in March, ,so if I stay in Korea past March, I will get a whole new set of kids. It was rough coming into the school mid-year. It was really hard on me because I felt like people thought I was replacing the teacher before me...like I wasn't my own person. It was also very hard on the kids because they had built a bond with the other teacher, and given her their trust. We are adapting quite well however =)

 I taught my kids this. I was feeling silly and we were making faces. I told them to squeeze their cheeks together, and then try to smile. They all got a big kick out of it. It may not show it through the photos, but this kid is Danny...he is the smartest kid in my class.

 This is Erin, she's my favorite.

 Friday was a fun day for us because it was birthday party day. Any kid in the school who has a birthday in the month of October receives a gift from each kid in his class, and all the classes make cards, and we take pictures and set up a feast. On the left we have Korean pizza (no where near as good as American pizza) Next we have gimbop....sort of like a mild sushi roll. I love these! Then fruit, delicious cake, and seyon-pyoung. It is like a rice cake cooked with honey inside....gross! The crackers on the right, I was told they are just like vanilla wafers.

And now it is time to sing Happy Birthday to the kids

 Here is Zack teacher trying to teach the kids to sing in opera. It was really funny.

Here is Erin (my favorite) again. We are makign Halloween hats. Her birthday is in November, and I overheard her telling the kids "ok hey hey pay attention. My birthday is November, and you can give me clothes! Hear me, I want clothes"

 Haha. This kids just doesn't have a clue. His name is Barry. God bless his little heart, but he is so slow, and just doesn't understand anything I am trying to teach. He has started to hit the other kids, so now we have major issues. I think he is sad that he is so different because he can't do things as well.

We had a major issue with this one. This is a review of what we have been working on for the last 2 weeks. Since it was birthday party day, I decided to skip all lesson plans and do a serious review. I asked them to write the word in plural form, and then make the 2 words on the left into 1. It took about 40 minutes, and some kids didn't get it at all. Some of them really did. I think I will continue to re teach these lessons, until it is embedded in their minds.