Halloween

November 13, 2013 by Sarah 2 Comments

A big shout out to Amy (fellow PCV) who let me use her adorably spooky leftover decorations from our PCV Halloween party the week before. Click on the photo to check out Amy and Will’s blog.

You may remember from last year that I held a Halloween party with the only class I taught on October 31^st. Well this year it was practically expected and I was excited about it. I had two classes and English club on Halloween since it fell on a Thursday. That meant three back-to-back parties which is a whole lot of celebrating for the holiday that I actually like the least (when I’m in the States, anyway…it’s much more fun here when I get to plan the celebration without stressing over a costume).

We asked all the students to bring a mask to class as a way of dressing up. Costumes were out because all the students wear uniforms and masks are easier, anyway. A lot of students opted to buy pre-made masks (I’m curious where they found them…) but some were really creative and made their own. We had a contest for the best homemade masks and the top three winners got cash prizes! (all less than $1 but still).

Class started with our “word of the day” which I do everyday to teach students a new word or phrase in English. I teach a lot of idioms, common phrases, and some slang (for example: take care, fine by me, costs an arm and a leg, cool, etc). The word for October 31^st? Spooky.

Then we split the class into groups and gave each group a short paragraph to read about the history and traditions associated with Halloween. I’m completely indebted to HowStuffWorks for all my information. I learned a lot that I didn’t know before, and I was most interested in the Celtic holiday that preceded Halloween, the Celtic New Year known as Samhain. Read more about it here.

Each group read their paragraph and then had to explain it to the class using bahasa Indonesia. After that we gave a short oral quiz to check if students had paid attention. The students with correct answers got candy, naturally.

We finished up the day with a round of Halloween bingo (taken gratefully from this website). Students learned the words for all our ghosts and ghouls and learned how to play Bingo in the process. It was lots of fun and they begged to play longer but class time was over and I told them that all ghostly things have to come to an end. (Though not before trick or treating…an activity the kids loved so much that they tried it the next day too, but I told them, “Halloween only comes once a year.”)

But a party is never over until you take group pictures, right? Note my counterpart’s creative witch mask that she made herself (and used for the second year running). And I was a little proud of my own cat mask creation. 🙂

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