Scary Jack o' Lantern!

Check out this Jack o' Lantern I carved at my school's Halloween party.
I Google'd "scary jack o' lantern" and found one I liked and made improvements on it.

Happy Halloween!

Morning Glory

"A case of the Mondays" can be defined as this: You wake up on a Monday feeling tired and cranky, and have to drag yourself to work or school, bitterly staring down another five days before the weekend, treating each task and each person as if they personally came and handed you another set of weekdays.

Unfortunately in my line of work, coming down with a case of the Mondays will not guarantee you very much job security. I wake up extra early so that by the time I get to school, I'm not resenting every moment that my eyes are not closed. Once I've arrived at school, I can get ready for this...

Each week we follow a (somewhat) structured rotation of the foreign teachers for who will lead the entire kindergarten in Morning Warm-Ups for the week. A sell-out crowd can be around 100 students, ranging from age 3 to age 7.


Assignment #1: Exercise (led by foreign teacher)
Duration: 5 minutes
Foreign teacher leads the kindergarten in a series of stretching, short cardio activites, and general mind and body stimulation to get blood flowing through the small bodies of the kids (and teachers). Can include Star Jumps (aka jumping jacks), running in place, touching of the toes, Iroquois Twists.

Assignment #2: Dance (led by Chinese teacher)
Duration: 5-10 minutes
Each week a Chinese teacher teaches a new song, complete with dance moves and phrases to act as cues to remember each dance move, i.e. "give me money," "so happy," "show me cute." Following the new song, we also dance one song from a previous week. Classes with the most power* are invited to the stage to dance with the Chinese teacher. Can include Barbie Girl, Sorry Sorry, and the Ninja Song.

Assignment #3(Mondays only): Life Lesson (led by Foreign teacher)
Duration: 5-10 minutes
The foreign teacher needs to organize a short role-play with a clear moral/rule the students can remember, relate to, and follow. To help with the role-play, the other foreign teachers can and will be asked to do improv acting. The moral should come in the form of a short, easy sentence that can be repeated over and over again. Can include "Be patient, please," "Happy Thanksgiving," "Throw the trash into the trash can," "Don't be lazy."

Assignment #4(Tues., Wed., Thurs.): Performance (foreign teacher's class)
Duration: 5-10 minutes
The foreign teacher who is leading exercise and Life Lesson also needs to show everyone what their class has been working on. In each class' syllabus, we have 5 role-plays which need to be taught and acted out. These are typically shown during morning warm-up weeks.



[If you haven't already clicked on all of the links I've included, they will take you to my school's YouTube account. Here you can find just about every significant thing that happens at my school, from Halloween, to Christmas, the Life Lesson from EVERY week, or even the Squirrels' International Day presentation and dance!]

*power: a combination of attentiveness, volume, and enthusiasm.

Ni Hao-lloween

Trick or treat!


Halloween is a very cute time of year to be working at a kindergarten.

In the morning, each class takes turns going through a decently elaborate haunted house set up in one of the classrooms. There were a few scare-stations built into it where Mike and I hid out and waited for the kids to come through. Escorted by the Chinese teachers, the kids came through in groups of about 4 or 5. Upon entry, the Chinese teachers would say the names of the kids loud enough for me and Mike to hear so we could adjust our scare level (ranging from doing nothing, to a spooky laugh, to reaching out from the dark to grab arms and legs). Given that the maximum age was probably 6 years old, and the average age was about 4, tears were inevitably shed.

Next stop: trick or treating! On a regular basis, my class, as mentioned before, is full of angels and princesses. To nobody's surprise, that's what they all were for Halloween. Just about every girl was wearing a long sparkling dress along with some girly accessory, along the likes of a tiara, wings, a wand, etc. The boys showed up as Batman, Superman, a knight, a pirate, and a pumpkin. And off we go...

Sticking close to school, we stopped at 5 pre-determined and pre-supplied shops around Shijr to sing the two Halloween songs we had been practicing for what seemed like the better part of my tenure here. Leaving my pride and shame at home that morning, I led my class around wearing a big diaper, a bib, and a pacifier dangling from my mouth. At around 11:00 on the morning of Friday, October 30, life went on as usual in Shijr, except for the costume parade making its way around town.



To cap off a great day, I "volunteered" to host the Halloween parade back at school. This involved me addressing the 100+ students in the kindergarten, and introducing each class and each student so they could show off their costumes.



Cute by day, but when the sun goes down, Halloween is just as it is back home: An excuse for girls to dress as slutty as possible because (they think) nobody will judge them.

Dave, Natalie, and me disguised as Bruce Lee, the Queen of Hearts, and a swimmer.



[special thanks to T-Chellie for the pics. My camera is, as one might say, "over the wall."]