Halloween week at school

Important posters...just not sure what they say because they're in Korean:)

This poster shows lessons from English teachers. Can you spot me in some of the pictures??

These were part of the display for the guests that came to our school. I found out that we are the "mother school" for the welfare program. For the past year, the students and teachers have been preparing for this presentation by having many special programs that the welfare students, special education students and students taking English as a foreign language participated in. These included field trips (like the first one I took to a small mountain learning about Mt. Halla), and making crafts such as these above. I was also part of a poster which displayed many pictures demonstrating steps in lessons I had for my classes. You can see this above and also see me playing b-ball with my students during my after-school b-ball camp. The crafts shown above are incredible! I can't believe our students made these. I would love to learn how to make these...like the ship, the little yellow chicks, the jewelry box, the clocks, and the toothbrush holders. The display and presentation that my school held showed ways in which we went about supporting the welfare program and ways to improve our students' education with hands-on and authentic learning experiences.

The Japanese teacher at my school with a 3rd grade student (8th grade). They were both impressed with the Halloween masks we hung up on the wall so wanted a pic with them.

Giving candy to the students....if my students said trick-or-treat. This was difficult for them; like a tongue twister (they all laughed when they tried to say it).

Here you can see the masks Koreans wear when they are beginning to get sick or to prevent getting sick from others. The student and my co-teacher in the back is wearing one.

Bart Simpson!! The students all LOVE the Simpsons here. They all have Simpsons pencil cases:)

You can see mask ideas that I put up on the screen, along with Halloween music as the students created their masks.

Carving our pumpkins after school to present in the hallways for our important guests and to show the students jack-o-laterns.

One student trying on my costume! She looks so cute!!

The pumpkins I helped carve with the English teachers:)

My students getting creative and working so hard!

One of my boys' class with the huge dice we used for the Monster Mash board game that we played as a class.

The scary masks my students made!!

Ahhh!!!

My students watching The Monster Mash video and listening to the song. I was proud that they knew most of the monsters!

This week at school, I am teaching a Halloween lesson each day....so for five days I am dressing up like a witch and listenening to the Monster Mash song probably around 25 times! It has been a hectic but fun week so far at my school. My co-teacher sewed me this wonderful halloween skirt and witch's hat. I think it turned out great! She's very good at crafts! And my school is very busy because special teachers/administrators are visiting this Thursday, which means we are decorating our school with jack-o-laterns (pumpkins that my teachers and I carved out the other day after school), masks (that my girl students are making in class), and posters filled with various pictures of English teachers (me this year and past foreign English teachers to demonstrate lessons and how we teach).

Last week I had asked the students to guess the name of the popular Halloween song in the US that has to do with monsters (The Monster Mash). I explained to them how they can search on the internet on google. I was impressed that so far, about every other class I have had a student find the right answer! Those winners received a Spongebob lottery ticket, which will be put into a basket and I will draw a few winners for big prizes at the end of their school year (beginning of December). I have not decided the prizes yet; however, I think that maybe the students would be excited about a US dollar...and I still have some in my wallet luckily!

Anyways, my lesson started with finding out if anyone guessed the right song, then playing for them the song and video on youtube. Then I asked them what they think "Monster Mash" is...and most said a monster dance or party. Then I went into quizzing them about their monsters to see if they know the correct names to all of them (pirate, vampire, mummy, zombie, ghost, werewolf, witch). The students did great with this activity and had fun seeing the pictures on my powerpt. of the scary monsters. Next, for the girls' classes I had the students make masks, while I played halloween music and put some picture ideas up on the screen. The students surprised me and were all very artistically talented. I had some creative masks, like Bart Simpson, Frankenstein, Mickey Mouse, and The Joker from Batman. You can see some of them in the pictures above. For my boys' classes, I had a Monster Mash board game, in which I divided the class into two big groups and gave out the game boards to about every 4 students to share and look at, while we played as a class and my co-teacher and I kept score on the front board. The object of the game was to roll the huge dice in the center of the room, move to that space, name the correct monster (there was either a description or a picture or other Halloween ?s), and be the first team to make it to the end, which was the Monster Mash party. The boys always get so competitive, so you can imagine how loud and excited they were to play this. And they got even more excited when they saw that there were a few "Start Over" spaces, even on the space before "Finish".

The kids all screamed when they saw my costume and were very excited for the candy and to be able to celebrate Halloween. I made all the students say trick-or-treat before I gave them a piece of candy, and it was funny to hear them say this because it's very hard for some of them to say. It's like a tongue twister to them.

Well, I still have 2 more days to dress up and celebrate Halloween at my school and then we have a huge cultural festival here in the city this upcoming Saturday that all of the EPIK teachers will be volunteering at to represent one English country that we are all from. Since there are so many teachers from US, I am representing Australia. We will have many games, food, and other activities set up at our booth. I will be working at my booth for a four hr shift in the morning being a passport officer since the kids will get a stamp at each country's booth they go to for a big prize after going to all of them. Luckily, all the EPIK teachers get an extra 2 days off of school for volunteering too, which is definitely nice! After my shift, I will be judging an adult English speaking contest for an hour, which Mrs. Hyun (the head of our Enlglish department) asked me to help with, and we get paid which is awesome:) The rest of the afternoon I will have to stay at the festival but will be able to see the other booths and enjoy the day with friends. Then at night, one of our friends is throwing a Halloween party at his place. Should be fun....just have to think of a costume to wear.