Halloween

Ok, so I know that this post is supremely behind the times, but I thought I would at least get it online so that anyone who cares can see the cuteness (and immense amount of work) that was Halloween at our school.  I do apologize for the lateness, but our computer power cord died, and so we didn't have access to any of our files for about two weeks.  It's also been a crazy time for us, because we had two sets of Parent's Days here, once for current students, and one for prospective families.  Add to the mix writing and grading midterm exams for the older kids, and writing report cards, and we were pretty dang busy.  Thankfully, now that November is finally coming to an end, we can actually come up for air and catch up on life.

So Halloween - where to begin?  The decorating process was intense.  Both the us and the Korean teachers decorated the school.  Here are our kids being silly after lunch.  Sadly (never surprisingly) this is the best picture we could get of all of them.

 Here are some shots from Taggart's vampire themed room, and some of my spider themed room.

 It was actually really fun to decorate, even though we went a little crazy.  Taggart even exacto-d an awesome Dracula castle scene for his window.

 I went crazy with a trash bag spider and giant webs.

 Heather decked her room out with witch themes.  I loved her little magic touches all around!

 Our kids had the big job of performing twice for the parents - once doing their dramas that we've been practicing for the last two months, and once doing a Halloween presentation.  They rented costumes for the drama, and brought some from home as well.  They were hilarious.  Jeremy was throughout the day a pumpkin ghost, Spiderman, and a firefighter.  Sometimes a Spiderman firefighter too.

 We then did a cooking/science activity where we made mummy hot dogs and slime.

 

 It was really fun to meet some of the parents and see them with their kids.  Taggart's kids both have really nice moms.

 We couldn't pass up an Elsa-Elsa photo, nor a menacing Dracula shot.  

We did have time to get some "cast" photos with their teachers.  

Here is the Enormous Turnip, sans the cat who went home early (check out the paper turnip I made!):

The Pumpkin Ghost class (note Jay's Spiderman pose):

 Finally, the Princess and the Frog class:

I'll close with a shot of the kids enjoying their spoils of candy after trick-or-treating from classroom to classroom.

School Pics

So I couldn't figure out how to categorize our pictures from school, so here is another hodge podge post, but this time limited to our school experiences.  So here's an inside look at our Hagwon!

DANIELLE'S CLASS

This is my classroom.   We are Mickey class (Taggart is Daisy), and I must say I've become the teacher who is slightly obsessed with our room mascot.  Everything is Mickey(ish).  haha Oh Well, at least my kids will have a sense of identity.

These are some window clings I made.  The kits come super cheap from Daiso at like 3,000 won.  I havent even used all the paint yet.  The right picture is an example of the kids dressing up, in this case for our speech contest (videos to come).  The following should give you an idea of what it was like:

Those poor kids were so dang nervous.  I think they are slowly becoming more confident, but the speeches were scary for them.  My class, being the youngest, did speeches called All About Me.  They were short and basic, and I got sick of doing them REALLY quick.  Donna's dress is so ridiculous!  I bet her parents bought it for her specifically for this day.

A big part of our lives are spent in the playroom, so obviously after bribing my kids with the prospect of playtime, we went after their speeches were over.  Note that one girl, Jean, wore what are essentially pajamas as her "formal" dress, because they had Elsa on them.  haha.  Here are shots of the boys and of the girls.  This is before we also got a new student named Sarah.

My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE to play dead, or dying.  They also love for to me to be a vampire (more to come on the Halloween post).  They play dead really well, and it's so creepy (and morbidly fun) for me to fling them around the room as if they were rag dolls.  I'm sure the CCTV loves that.

I also thought I'd include some pictures of some of my older students, because I totally love them (for the most part :P).  They are bright and eager to learn, and they have begun to grasp complex concepts about life, which makes me so proud and feel so fulfilled as a teacher.  Cheese much? haha.  They also frequently sing, including (but not limited to) Michael Jackson, Pavarotti (Nessun Dorma, I kid you not), One Direction, and a special edition of "Til the ceiling can't hold us" in particular.  They also love to play Uno together.

Left: my M,W,F class playing cards.  Right: my J4 girls, Kate, Jihyun, and Alice (my problem child).  She's brilliant, but a pill.  Getting better every day, though!  She refused to smile in this picture because she couldn't sit in the middle.  She looks so pathetic!!! hahaha

Ahh, the smiles are much better!  Here we are playing with our mascot, the Mouse himself.

TAGGART'S CLASS

So Taggart's kids really crack me up.  We've been lucky over the past month because we've been working with each other's kids for parent's day (more to come soon on that!), so we've really gotten to know the other classes.  His kids are so smart, it amazes me.  He only has two kindegarteners:

This is Jay.  Jay loves spiderman, he can write in full sentences, and he has the funniest voice ever.  He always likes to show everyone what he does, and we quote him by saying "_____, Look at THIS!!!"  This is him with his shoe bag on his head, and on his birthday.

This is Yeriel.  Yeriel is shy but sweet and so smart.  She thinks Jay is funny and that Taggart is a baby teacher.  They frequently draw pictures where Jay and Yeriel have big houses and Taggart has the baby house, and then giggle incessantly.  The two of them are best friends - they even take swimming lessons together outside of school. We (just me, really) think that the two of them should get married.  And then Jay can pop the question by saying, "Yeriel, look at this *shows her the ring*!!!!!!" ^_^

Here are the pair after our open market garage sale day, where the kids earned dollars and brought in used toys to trade and "buy" new ones.  This is the two of them sliding down holding hands.

Taggart says they draw and play hangman a lot, especially with the new hard words they learn.  They are seriously like a billion levels above my kids, I'm so jealous haha.  Taggart has drawn some pretty rockin' hangman robots so far:

I've since taken a time-lapse video of our beautiful walk to school, but I thought I'd show you an idea of what our immediate neighborhood looks like.  We live right next to a Korean elementary school.  The weather here thus far has been absolutely gorgeous (once the insane heat backed off, of course!)

Well, as per my new MO, I will be giving you a few short doses of blogging every couple of weeks.  October was so crazy - now that it's over, we can both breathe again (literally and figuratively, we were both sick as well) and get back to work on updates and adventures!!!