The last time I went to the Kindergarten, we did a huge Halloween party. We explained the origin of Halloween and the Jack-o-lantern (I even told part of the story in Japanese from memory – yay for me!) and what Americans did on Halloween and then the kids said trick or treat and got some candy, and we made paper jack-o-lanterns. It was a success. Here are some pictures of that.
Today however, I went to the Kindergarten alone since Marisa is at a conference in Tokyo. All yesterday I had planned out doing this Harry Potter game. It was going to be awesome. First I would have about 14 cards with pictures of different animals on them, and would teach the kids the name of the animals in English. Then we would play charades (what they call the Gesture Game) with the different animals so the kids could get familiar with acting like the different animals because they would need to do that for the Harry Potter game which would be next. So then, the kids would have rolled up newspaper wands and 1/3 of them would be Voldemorts (sorry for mentioning his name), and the other 2/3 would be Harry Potters. The Harry Potters would get 10 seconds to run away, and then the Voldemorts would chase them down. If a Voldemort caught a Harry Potter, then they would wave their wand and say an animal at the Harry Potter who would then have to act like that animal. The only way that Harry Potter could be human again would be if another human Harry Potter came around and waved their wand at them and said the animal that they were acting like to break the spell. And then game would go on. What actually happened at the kindergarten was craziness. The first two parts of teaching the names of the animals and charades was fine, although the kids kept shouting Harry Potter and waving their wands sporadically. When it came to playing the game, because it was raining we had to keep it inside, which meant cramped space with 40 kindergarteners running around shouting and brandishing newspaper wands. The English names were forgotten almost instantly as kids just tried to run as fast as they could and hit as many other people as possible with their wands, lol. As the game went on, they got the idea more and you could see more and more kids acting like certain animals (gorillas, snakes, rabbits, frogs, etc), but they were using the Japanese names for the animals instead of the English. That’s ok though. They are only Kindergarteners. It’s mostly just supposed to be fun for them anyway. So in all the chaos, lots of things happened. Kids were slamming into each other, being thrown onto the floor, tripping over each other, knocking heads, etc. I even saw them corner an adult with a baby in the corner of the room and start attacking her with their wands shouting animals. At one point a kid ran up to me in the middle with a bloody hand raised. He started shouting at me asking if there was really blood on his face and if I could see it. He had a little stream of blood coming down and when he showed me his head I could see a little hole there where it looks like he was somehow punctured. Luckily he seemed in control of himself and wasn’t crying but more in shock. So I led him out of the fray and one of the teachers took him aside. Apparently he had been hiding under the piano and when he went to get out he stood up too early and hit his head on the corner of it. So then he sat in the corner with his wand and a towel held to his head. Poor kid. Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun and other than the bloody kid and one that hit his head on someone else and started crying, there were no other injuries. Anyway, then I went and played with the kids for a half hour and had lunch with them and played this playground game that I kind of got the idea of after having played it outside with the kids last month. One kid is sitting with their head down and the others hold hands and circle him singing some song. Then they stop and start pushing the kid on the floor around and ask him a question at which time the kid answers saying they are going home. Everyone asks why and he says its dinner time and they ask what he’s having, and he answers with something like curry and everyone says “thank goodness” (except in Japanese of course) and starts again. But if the kid answers with “snake,” then everyone runs away and the kid has to catch someone. (or something like that). So we played that game after which the kids saw fit to climb all over me like monkeys and have me drag them around. Then I returned to the office where I am now. Pretty crazy.
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