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kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

About a month ago, I started preparing some art projects for the month of October in honor of Halloween. I mentioned to some of the other first grade teachers that it might be swell if we could organize a party and/or let the kids go trick-or-treating from class to class. Nobody seemed too enthused, but that's okay. We're still having a party in my class and our room is festooned with holiday decor (just wait till Christmas!)

Yesterday (October 27th), my co-teacher "came up with" the idea of having a Halloween party and wondered if I could organize something. I told her to shove it up her . . . wait, no I didn't. I just told her that it was too late and I reminded her (gently) that I suggested it quite awhile ago to her and the others. I told her that we'd do our thing on Monday and maybe we could start planning on a Christmas party instead. She seemed keen on the idea.

You gotta feel for these kids. I only have first graders but it seems like work, work, work all the time and no time for the fun things in life.

oprah · Joined: 26 Apr 2003 Posts: 382

Who finances the costs of a Halloween or Xmas party???

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

At my school, I'm buying a cake for our "party" and we made Halloween masks to play with. As for decor, the school paid for the art supplies. When it comes to the Christmas "thing", I'm sure we can convince parents to provide snacks and other stuff.

vikdk · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 1676

Festivals and holidays are viewed by the typical Chinese English teacher as a source of yet another mindless list of words to memorize � lets try and get them to see that these periods of the year are something to do with fun � and not another drip in that Chinese water torture called the English lesson.

I like the feeling you put into your post Kev � not many people think about what the kids have to go through � BOYCOTT AFTER HOUR CLASSES - LET THE KIDS BE KIDS

voodikon · Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 1363 Location: chengdu

i'm teaching college (学院) freshmen and sophomores, and the chinese english teachers said that we should dress up on halloween. i'm not exactly enthused by this idea (especially since i have to take two extremely crowded public buses there), and it always seems to happen to me that when everybody agrees to dress up, i'm the only one who ends up doing it. besides that, though, i'm wondering to what extent i should address the holiday in class. i see each class only once a week, so doing anything halloweeny would eliminate or shorten one of the lessons for the two classes i have on tuesday. i was thinking it would be nice to bring them some candy and perhaps tell a ghost story, but i don't really know. suggestions, anyone?

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

Imagine my surprise upon visiting my local Carrefour this past Thursday and seeing a huge stand outside loaded with Halloween crap! Costumes, decorations, even pumpkins ready for carving. I bought some orange and black Halloween balloons and a little "Lone Ranger"-style mask to amuse my kids.

I know Christmas has sort of caught on here, but I was shocked to see so many people (Chinese) milling about and buying things. Pretty cool, actually.

oprah · Joined: 26 Apr 2003 Posts: 382

I also loaded up at Carrefour.. but I have 20 classes so that would mean 20 cakes for my students ....

voodikon · Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 1363 Location: chengdu

20 classes all on the same day? i think only my monday classes are getting any halloween goods.

tarzaninchina · Joined: 16 Aug 2004 Posts: 348 Location: World

Not sure if I posted this before or not, but anywho.

For the past three Hallowe'ens, I've done some basics at the primary school level and some interesting stuff at the college level. For both, I wore all black, red nail polish, red lipstick, a large star on one cheek, a large first-quarter moon on the other, messed up my hair, and brought a self-made jack-o-lantern to class.

For the youngsters, I taught them about five words, including trick-or-treat where I gave them some candy if/when they said it correctly (and they all did) plus masks, whereafter I had them make one of their own. For the words, I had them draw pictures next to it. That 40 minutes goes fast.

For the college students (both first- and third-year), I give them some background on the holiday and let them ask whatever questions they have about customs. Then, I move on to describing witches, vampires, werewolves, and zombies (lotsa diffs between eastern and western ideas of zombies, so that's fun). Afterwards, we go on to talking about similar holidays celebrated in China. I make it a point to look overly shocked when they say they burn paper money on ghosts' day (i.e. think it's real paper money). Exclamation

The strange thing that happened to me this year was, upon seeing my face and its decor, they asked, "What's wrong with your face?" or, "Are you ok?" They didn't ask, "Why did you do that to your face?" After a few hundred times (literally) of being asked that, it can get to you, but they all know now. I've been told by other teachers who simply want to meet me because their students are always talking about HouWang LoaShi, me!

Babala · Joined: 28 Jan 2005 Posts: 1303 Location: Henan

At my training center we had a Halloween party for those students who were interested. We also encouraged them to bring their children. We carved pumpkins, bobbed for apples , took the kids trick or treating to all of the offices and had a costume contest. Most students made an effort to make a costume. Everyone had a great time.