Halloween

The past two days have been full of Halloween activities.  Halloween is an American holiday; so it is not celebrated in Macedonia but the kids know about it.  They do similar things on other holidays. For example, the day before their Christmas, Jan 6th, the kids go around to houses and collect candy; and on April 1 the kids dress up in costumes; but there is no holiday where they carve pumpkins. Irena and I taught all of her classes about Halloween.

Irena and I with our pumpkins!!!  They were the only two orange pumpkins that we could find at the pazar, or farmer's market, last weekend.  I walked up every aisle looking for an orange pumpkin, they had green, greyish-green, and yellow pumpkins.  All for eating, but then I saw 1 small orange pumpkin.  It only cost me 30 denars, less than $1, and the lady even asked if I wanted the other small one because she said it was not enough for eating and not as sweet. But I told her no thank you, I wanted the small orange one.

In the 1st grade class, Maria, the talented artist, drew pictures of Halloween items and we taught the kids the vocabulary words. Then they copied them into their notebooks, because they love to draw, while I played some Halloween music.

In Irena's kindergarten and 2nd grade classes we taught them Halloween vocabulary using flash cards, they made their own pumpkins, and we showed them the pumpkins we carved.  The kids loved to see the faces on the pumpkins all lit up.  We sang the "5 Little Pumpkin" song and listened to Halloween tunes. They all knew the Addams family and Casper the friendly ghost.

In the 5th and 6th grades we read "The Legend of Sleepy Hallow."  I tried to do it in my scary voice, but we all just ended up laughing instead.

At the American Corner in Bitola they had a Halloween party full of costumes, games, a costume contest, and candy.

The ladies that work at the corner were dressed as witches and a pirate. The four PCVolunteers came as the Four Seasons.  I was Spring, Lauren was Summer, Helen was Fall, and Katie was winter.

 Pin the wart on the witch!!!!!
The kids that came to the party did a great job with their costumes.

 This one was the best!!! A rubics cube!!!! After I took the picture I asked him why he did not smile. He said it was because he was "not solved" lol.

 The cutest!!! Uncle Sam!!!

 This is one of the interns that helped out at the corner.  He did a great job on his costume.

The kids had a great time at the American Corner's Halloween Party.

Today Irena and my 6th grade students wanted to carve their own pumpkin.  One of my students, Philip, his family has a farm and he said he had tons of pumpkins; so he brought one in for everyone to carve.

They wanted me to cut it open.

 Getting all the seeds out. It was a very sweet pumpkin.  By the time we were done the room was full of the sweet smell of pumpkin.

 They were very creative about how they wanted to decorate their pumpkins. They had a scalloped top.

 And then we did the traditional eyes and nose and they wanted a zig-zag mouth too.

 Sara and Elena with the finished pumpkin!!!!

 6th graders with Irena and I in the resource library with their awesome pumpkin.  All the kids had a great time with our Halloween activities.  Until next time........

 Happy Halloween!!!!!