Whoo wee...

Halloween has come and gone.
And while usually this is one of my favorite holidays (Christmas is number one, without a doubt), I had never wanted to gouge my eye out at seeing another jack o' lantern so much before in my life.

Because of the rotational basis of my schedule, I was visiting at least all four of my schools in the two weeks leading up to Halloween. I wanted to allow all of my schools the chance to experience the holiday, so it was weeks of preparation leading up to the 31st, followed by weeks of celebrating it, long after Halloween had ended.

I visit a shogakko (elementary school) at least twice a month. As a result of this, I had to to stretch out the lesson from October 25th to November 7th. Only now, can I finally put away the velvet jacketed costume and not think about Halloween for another year.

I taught them a simplified history of the holiday, how we celebrate it in North America, and then we made crafts.

We made paper lack o' lantern pouches and paper bats from the outline of our hands.

I'm happy this is over and done with, but you know what? The smile on my students' faces reassured me that it was all worth it.