This is Halloween! This is Halloween!

Hello peeps! And Happy Halloween from Japan!

~*No photos included in this post. I'm not allowed to take photos of my students for safety reasons.*~

Today's high was a chilly 59 degrees Fahrenheit, or 15 degrees Celsius, perfect for a heart-stopping day of freaks, shrieks, and sweets.

Here in Japan, Halloween is a bit of a non-holiday. Schools may sanction a part of a day for Halloween celebrations, or English classes converted to monster education and games, but that's really about it. Between my two elementary schools and my attached kindergarten, I had one entire-school Halloween (English) event, one combined classes (K, 1st, 2nd) event, and maybe 6 Halloween-inspired lessons over the course of two weeks. Neither of the big events lasted more than an hour and a half. Completely different from our Halloween days in American elementary schools, where a good chunk (if not, all) of the day is dedicated to celebrating Halloween.

Now, let's be honest, I didn't plan the events or classes. This year, I am essentially 'downloading' the class schedule and school functions. I go to school, teach what I am given, and do peripheral things as needed. Other English teachers are more active in the planning than I am right now.

With that being said, here's how the events went down (boy, was this week busy for me!):

Tuesday was my entire-school Halloween event at my far-away school (an hour's travel time away). Normally I am scheduled at the school all day on Tuesdays and Fridays, as opposed to switching between that school and another school.  However, here in Mito, we have city officials from the Education department scheduling class observations grade our teaching and class execution. Of course, my class observation at my close-to-home school was scheduled for this past Tuesday morning, meaning I had taught two periods in the morning, traveled with costume in hand to my far-away school during 3rd and 4th period, ate lunch at the second school, changed into my costume, did the Halloween event, change out of costume, and end the day with teaching 6th period 2nd-grade English. Of course, I tend to be a mouthpiece/ teacher's assistant at my second school, so eh. That's how my day went on Tuesday. It took two bags to carry my costume, by the way.

Anyhoo, at the Halloween event, the students were treated to a cute music and dance introduction by the five 5th and 6th graders involved with the school's daily announcement team. They acted as the emcees for the event. The students played a teacher's costume Trick-or-Treat bingo. Each student (in costume) had a bingo worksheet with all the teachers' names in a bingo square and had to go up to the teachers, asking us "Who am I?". We would guess until we correctly guessed their costume, to which they would reply, "Yes, I am ~. Trick-or-Treat!" Then, we the teachers would circle or stamp the bingo square with our names in it. When the kiddos got a bingo, they would go to our principal, showing him their cards and would receive a treat (which immediately would be collected by the homeroom teacher for later). After that, they played a Collection/Train Rock-Paper-Scissors game. This game starts with everyone finding a partner and playing Rock-Paper-Scissors (R-P-S) against said-partner. The loser will then 'attach' themselves to the winner, creating a line/train/conga line. The winner will then take his train to find another winner and battle it out in R-P-S. Whoever is the winner in that round gains the loser and his train. The game continues until there is one winner who has collected all the participants in the game, creating one very long train. I and another one of my colleagues participated in that game. I joined late, so I only got three rounds of R-P-S, but, I was the final loser, giving my decent-sized train over to a 1st grader. If it had been a sixth grader, I would have tried to win, but since it was a 1st grader, I tried (and successfully) lost. My cute little first grader had to give a winner's speech, which was 'It was fun.'. Then the kiddos lined back up according to their class and were led into a series a photo ops, first with the entire school, then as individual classes. Some parents and grandparents came with their cameras and took photos of the classes and school. The party lasted just about one period, so 40-60 minutes. It was fun, but settling the 2nd graders down for English class was near to impossible. On top of that, my head English teacher had to go to the city department for a meeting, so I was team-teaching with my school's curriculum coordinator. That was interesting, but fun. Unfortunately, the kids were zoned and my curriculum coordinator was concerned about how I was not engaging the kids. I tried explaining to her that this was unusual, but she was still a bit concerned in the end. Truth is that....the kids were unusually quiet and not their usual excited selves. No lies on my part. :P

The second Halloween event of the week was at my nearby school. I had been asked about 3 weeks ago to have a story ready to read to my students at the party. Well, long story short, I wrote my own Halloween story and, due to a series of events and some stupidly over-determined choices on my part, I didn't start the illustrations for my story until late last week. It took me the course of 5 days to ink my illustrations, and I couldn't finished coloring the work. Yet, the teachers were impressed by what I did get done and the kiddos seemed to enjoy the story, though, admittedly, it was a bit too lackluster and cute for a Halloween story. Back to the event, it took place on Thursday morning and lasted 2 periods (including clean-up). The kiddos were taken to the school's Audio Visual Room. Since  Japanese kindergartens are not part of elementary schools, my 1st and 2nd graders had to wait for their kindergarten counterparts walk from the neighboring kindergarten next door. Just for clarification, my kindergarten and that particular elementary school are partners. Kindergartens tend to be logistically, though not physically, attached to a neighboring elementary schools, as opposed to nursery schools, which are private and are not partnered with a particular elementary school. In short, my kindergarten is a feeder school for my elementary school.

So, at the party, the kindergarten students were led to the AV room by designated 1st and 2nd grader 'big brothers and sisters' (Japan's a bit title-happy and will use the terms 'big bro' and 'big sis' casually for people just a little older than one's self). Then, the party got started. Two of the elementary students acted as emcees. They kicked off the party with introducing our Halloween song- 'Ten Little Pumpkins'. Ya know 'Ten Little Indians', right? 'One little, two little, three little indians, Four little, five little, six little indians'? Yeah, same song, just with counting pumpkins. Personally, I have always enjoyed this tune and still love it to death (Oh, Agatha).

After the song was storytime with me. The emcees had two students introduce me and I went into the story. It's about a cute little magical kitten named Kouki who wants to play with his human friends, but can't do so. Even when he turns himself into a human, he retains his cat ears and tail. However, on Halloween, he gets to join his friends in their school events and personal Halloween party and fun, since he fits in with everyone who is wearing a costume! At the very least, the kiddos got a taste of American Halloween fun from the story. They loved the eye pasta, witch's finger wieners, and spider cupcakes I threw in. :D

After that, the kids broke up into two groups by age/class levels. One group made Halloween pop-up cards and the other group made jack-o-lantern headbands. I spent time in each group, since they were in different rooms and on different floors. In the headband group, they had to come 'trick-or-treating' to me for the actual headband. I had them knock on my desk (just like Kouki the cat did in the Halloween story on the neighbor's door) when they for their headbands. Afterwards, the headband group did a monster-esque dance together and took a group photo with me. And then, we sent the kindergarteners back on their way with waves and smiles and cleaned up.

It is important to note that all the elementary students had made their crafts prior to the party and were responsible in helping the kindergarteners makes their own. So, it is a bit hands-off for the teachers. We merely are supervisors and directors. This is very Japanese, mind you. Anytime there is an event at school, a group of upperclassmen are leading the event. Teachers assist as needed and make sure the rest of the kids are behaving.

Thus was my party week. I'm done. Barely crawled out of bed a little after noon today...barely cleaned up in mid afternoon. So glad that I have Monday...Oh wait, I have Monday because I have school next Saturday! YAY!...It's an open house, where the parents are able to see their kids learning in class. In other words, it's a parent observation day. I will be teaching two periods of sixth graders in the morning that day. One thing that is nice is that (at least in elementary school), the school week is strictly five days a week and any school event on Saturday will include one normal day of class canceled either the week before or after the Saturday event....Yes, I learned this the hard way (Thank you, Last Saturday's event to which I was late and had to take a half-day's worth of vacation time to cover my lateness...).

Welp, that has been my Halloween week. Hopefully next year will be a bit more eventful and hands-on on my part.

Until then, later peeps!

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By the way, I dressed up as Pokemon Trainer of my own design. I was known as 'Satoshi' that day. Satoshi is the Japanese name for the Pokemon anime series' hero, Ash....It is (apparently) also the generic name for a Pokemon Trainer. Later.