We’re a little behind on our holidays. In part because many of my students and English club kids were busy the actual week of Halloween with other extracurriculars and preparing for—
I can’t even remember what it was now.
We did do in-class activities, but I was hoping to make jack-o-lanterns. Then I was away for a variety of reasons: dentist visits, a vacation to the Philippines, Thanksgiving celebrations with other volunteers…
Earlier this week students brought up the jack-o-lanterns again. They asked if we could still make them. Thrilled by the fact that the students were asking me to do this rather than me pushing it, we agreed to meet Sunday. The turnout was low… only four students showed. I was actually anticipating none because I assumed they would forget. Plans such as these always seem a little iffy to me. But lo and behold this morning the students showed up at my house. We went to school, made jack-o-lanterns and it made for a lovely Sunday morning. It was nice having only four students participate, I felt much more relaxed than if there had been more. It also made for much more personal interactions than class time or even English club allow. So here’s a few pics from this morning:
I would imagine this might be a hard tradition to explain. I read that it originated in Ireland with turnips. Carving messy pumpkins is definitely easier and more fun – it looks like they had a great time!
Huh I hadn’t heard that before. That’s interesting. I think I just explained that it’s just one way we decorate for the holidays and we use pumpkins because they are plentiful that time of year. Your explanation is probably a bit more informative : )