Pease On Earth: Halloween Comes to the Village!

On October 30th, 24 of my students, 2 of my site mates and I celebrated Halloween at my village school. While most of my students have read about Halloween in the holiday chapter of their 6th grade English textbook, it was the first time any of them had participated in the event. Students wore either costumes or masks, and participated in a series of Halloween-themed activities. We started by explaining the cultural aspects of the holiday (which ended up being a bit more difficult than I thought ie. answering questions like why do we have haunted houses?), talking about carving pumpkins, demonstrating trick or treating, and giving examples of costumes. The students then all had a chance to explain their costumes. Other costumes included a hunter, a cowgirl, a ghost, silly glasses, a princess, evil masks and masquerade masks. My favorite was one of my girls, wearing a red-sequined top hat, said her costume was "red hat" which is the literal English translation of the title Azeris have for the story all of my students are familiar with, Little Red Riding Hood. After the presentation, we played fluffy bunnies. One student, with 3-4 marshmallows in his/her mouth, had to say one of the new Halloween related words. The other students, in groups, had to write on their mini whiteboards, the correct words. My site mates and I got a kick out of a few of the responses. When the student with a mouth full of marshmallows said trick or treat, one group wrote out trick or threat. Another time, the student said cowboy, and one of the groups wrote out callboy. Both of these times, I really appreciated having my site mates their to appreciate the hilariousness of these teaching moments. Next, we played pin the face on the pumpkin. One blindfolded student had to listen to their classmates' instructions, guiding them to stick the eyes and mouth on the correct area of the pumpkin. This game had the kids laughing. We then divided the class into groups and they did a mummy wrapping competition. The objective was to be the first team to have a fully mummified "mummy" without leaving gaps or dropping toilet paper on the ground. After that, because I couldn't find any pumpkins in my village, students made mini luminaries out of their snack bags and lined them along the desks. Finally, students made Halloween friendship bracelets out of black and white yarn. In order to leave the classroom, students had to trick or treat their way out! I stood in the hallway, while students, one by one, knocked on the door, shouted "Trick or treat!", and went on their way with a piece of candy and a whole new understanding of this American tradition.