Fall Festival 2011

Our school has an annual Fall Festival, which most kids just refer to as "Halloween." (See last year's post about the Fall Festival.) Most kids aren't sure as to when the exact date of Halloween is, so they were quite happy to believe that Halloween this year fell on Friday, 7th October. I was quite happy to spend a week with a "Monster" theme, an evening doing Halloween activities, and then to have it over with.

During the week, we listened to the song "Purple People Eater" and other songs I have on a Halloween CD. We made monsters from some worksheets I have of various ghoulish eyes, noses, and mouths. The next activity was to write a descriptive paragraph about those monsters, of course.

This year, I was assigned an activity for the Fall Festival--the Cake Walk--along with a co-teacher. This turned out to be great. There was little prep work--parents brought in cakes--and the event was so popular that we ran out of cakes in a little over an hour, leaving us with almost hour free to explore.

I didn't have a costume idea, but my co-worker's haircut looks like Justin Bieber's, so she went as Justin Bieber and I went as Justin Bieber's fan. She printed out a photo of him; I cut it out in a heart-shape and glued it onto the back of my hoodie. (I learned that Justin Bieber likes hoodies.)

Every activity at the Fall Festival is free; however, food was being sold, since it was dinner time. Kids came dressed in different costumes--Sophia wore an Indian dress; cat costumes were popular for girls (easy to make, I think); boys came as various superheroes.

Since there are so many activities, at first it was hard to get about 10 people for the Cake Walk. We did the Cake Walk as a variant of musical chairs & cake walks that I've done before--we had ten numbers on the floor in a circle. Everyone walked around the numbers while the music played; when it stopped, they stopped on a number. I stood in the center with my eyes closed and called out a number. Whoever was standing on that number won a cake.

We showed off a fancy-looking cake to entice people to play. I saw my 9-year old Korean boy (with very limited English) and dragged him into the circle. He was completely confused, but when I yelled out "3!" he was standing on the 3, so I shoved the cake into his hands. He ran off excitedly to his mother.

Later, in class, he happily told the events, with plenty of expressions and hand gestures--"Cake Walk! Three! Cake! Yay!"

The high schoolers put on a haunted house in the room above the cafeteria. This proved to be rather popular. It was neat to see what they could do with little time and space. They managed to create a spooky atmosphere with spooky music and little light, to make rooms by hanging dark-colored sheets, and to do a good job with make-up.

Overall, it was a fun night. The kids seemed really, really happy. It rained outside and to walk from the gym to the cafeteria you had to go through puddles, but no one seemed to mind.

And maybe next year, I'll finally have a real costume...