Halloween Adventures

I can't believe that Halloween is almost a month ago, it seems like it was just yesterday and sadly I haven't gotten to writing about it. I will just highlight some of the parts. Natalie and I had decided to do every class about Halloween stuff. One of my favorite things that we did that week was I taught the kids "If You're a Ghost and You Know It," it's to the If You're Happy and You Know It. It was so cute, I had found it online, it goes as follows:

If you're a ghost and you know it, then say boo. BOO!
If you're a ghost and you know it, then say boo. BOO!
If you're a ghost and you know it, then you really ought to show it, if you're a ghost and you know it, then say boo. BOO!

If you're a cat and you know it, then say meow. MEOW!
If you're a cat and you know it, then say meow. MEOW!
If you're a cat and you know it, then you really ought to show it, if you're a cat and you know it, then say meow. MEOW!

If you're a bat and you know it, flap your wings. FLAP, FLAP!
If you're a bat and you know it, flap your wings. FLAP, FLAP!
If you're a bat and you know it, then you really ought to show it, if you're a bat and you know it, then flap your wings. FLAP, FLAP!

If you're a skeleton and you know it, jingle your bones. JINGLE, JINGLE!
If you're a skeleton and you know it, jingle your bones. JINGLE, JINGLE!
If you're a skeleton and you know it, then you really ought to show it, if you're a skeleton and you know it, then jingle your bones. JINGLE, JINGLE!

The cutest part was that the kids would start off behind their chairs, hiding, and when I would say "then say boo" they would all jump up and yell "BOO" and then go back behind their chairs, when we got to the cat part they would come crawling from behind their chairs and say meow. Then they would get up on their knees to flap their wings and stand up to jiggle like jello for the skeleton. I wasn't sure how it would go but the kids still really like it and they ask to do it sometimes still.

I also taught them five little pumpkins:
5 little pumpkins, sitting on a fence.
The 1st one said, my it's getting late.
The 2nd one said, there are witches in the air.
The 3rd one said, but I don't care.
The 4th one said, lets have some fun.
The 5th one said, lets run and run and run.
Oooh went the wind, and out went the lights!
And the 5 little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Again the kids thought that it was really cute and they still like to ask to do it, they especially like the actions that we do with it.

Another thing that I found that I really liked was a version of Brown Bear, instead it was Brown Owl.... Brown Owl Brown Owl, Who do you see? I see a White Ghost looking at me...Purple Bat....Green Witch.... Black Cat and finally Pumpkin pumpkin what do you see? I see a Jack O Lantern looking at me.
I love the all the fun and cute things that you can find on the internet that people have created or made up. Strangely my favorite things that I did in my classes that week were all the things that I did in the morning classes.

Ok now to really talk about what you are interested in (if anything), Halloween day. A couple of weeks before Halloween each student was measured for what size costume they should get and then one at a time the teachers took a kid and had them go through the costume catalog.The catalog had probably close to 300 costumes for kids and 100 for adults, but because the kids were allowed to pick their own costumes we saw a repeat of many costumes. First of all when you are this young it is still cool to be in the same thing as your friends, but there were also other factors. Ben had wondered if their were only 4 costumes in Taiwan to be had, I would say that the one that you saw the most of was the Snow White costume, I am not 100% sure on this but I am guessing that Snow White showed up a lot was because all little girls want to be princesses and Snow White is the princess that looks the most like them, she has black hair and the same kind of hair cut as a lot of Taiwanese people.

Friday morning (Halloween) most of the kids showed up in their costumes (several parents had sent their kids in normal clothes in hopes of keeping the costumes nice and clean), they were all so excited and were almost literally jumping off the walls. I couldn't believe how cute they all were. It was interesting trying to keep class in order and to get things done, but somehow we did it. By lunch time most of the kids had changed back out of their costumes into normal clothes for nap time. For some reason Natalie and I decided to wait until only like 15 minutes before we had to head downstairs to get into our costumes (not the smartest idea), so we were rushing a little bit in getting ready, but we were able to get ready. We rushed downstairs with all of our stuff (and sadly with all of my rushing I forgot to grab my camera card out of my computer- luckily Natalie had hers), we started class and the kids decorated their candy bags with stickers and stuff. When we were finished everyone met outside and Yuling did a lot of talking (for which I understood zero of :D). I kept on getting told to go to the office, but everytime I went no one followed and so I was really confused, but finally the other teachers came too and we were given candy. Each of us was given an assignment of where to go, Natalie got placed inside the toy house because she was the smallest and I got put in the green classroom with Teacher Michelle.

The 3 year olds were each teamed up with a 5 year old and off they all went, running around in circles eventually going to each of the trick or treating places and getting a piece of candy from each place (we had the teachers and a couple of parents there to help also), they didn't get very much (which I guess in the long run was better anyway) but they were all happy and were even willing to share. When we were done with class Yuling informed me that my tutor group had been canceled for the day and was wondering if i wanted her to cancel the Chou family, there was a Halloween activity that was going on downtown that I thought would be fun to go to but wasn't planning on going because of tutoring, but because Yuling suggested it I said sure. I tutored Kristy and then had a couple of hours to just relax (which was a really strange feeling for a Friday) and then Allie came upstairs to get us because we were leaving. Yuling and Allie drove on their scooter while Natalie and I rode our bikes.

When we got there we saw a group of kids from Owl Preschool going trick or treating to different businesses, we quickly joined up with them and watched as they finished their trick or treating. When that was done they had a program of teaching the kids to dance, then for some reason they had decided that our school should get up on stage and sing some songs, so the kids went up and we had to lead them in like 4 English songs (they were awesome if I do say so myself-- of course I'm not biased or anything :D), once they were done with that they had some other random singing and dancing, basically just the kids having fun.

We stayed there until the end and then Natalie and I decided that we were hungry, we had seen a place on the way that we thought would be good but because it was later at night the place was closed, so we headed over to our old trusty friend McDonalds. We decided to eat on the 3rd floor, we were part way through our meal when Natalie had to go downstairs for some reason, she passed Allie on the way down, she was by herself eating, she kept on popping back upstairs to say hi but that was it. When Natalie and I were done eating we went downstairs (which had been like 20 minutes since we had originally seen Allie) and she was still by herself, we were not comfortable leaving her by herself so we sat down with her and started talking to her. We had been sitting there for maybe like 5 minutes when her mom came back, I was still a little concerned but because her mom was there we were able to leave.

We stopped off at a bakery and then headed home. I would say all in all it was a good Halloween, I loved seeing the kids in their costumes and how excited they were. It was particularly cool to see how many of the kids showed up at the downtown Halloween event (it was put on by Leslee's grandma). Now that I have caught up on my Halloween I will wish you a belated Happy Halloween! Love you all and have a great day!

~Betherd~

P.S. Sorry that this post was so long.