Happy Halloween!

Carving pumpkins. Wearing costumes. Trick-or-treating.

I grew up participating in these Halloween traditions (as maybe you did, too). But for Japanese people, these are new and fascinating concepts.

So I've had a lot of fun teaching my students about Halloween and showing off "Kabocha-san" (Mr. Pumpkin) -- my round, orange, permasmile friend -- who I carved on Wednesday night. Here is the "pumpkin family" that the ALT's created...

Aren't they cute!? From left to right: my beloved Kabocha-san, Oliver's pumpkin (Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas), Mayla's pumpkin (named Beth), Liz's pumpkin (named Mayla), and Jemma's pumpkin (which as far as I know, is nameless.)

Kabocha-san was an instant star at Mugyo Jr. High School on Thursday. The teachers there just ate him up! Ooooh, bad word choice! Anyway, they loved him, and everyone wanted to take his picture. I was such a proud Momma. :)

Kobacha-san and I pictured with Atsumi and Kohei from Mugyo. I look like a Mugyo student in my maroon track suit, haha!

After telling my students about jack-o'-lanterns and the creation of my orange friend, I let them try the pumpkin seeds I roasted. Next, I talked about the tradition of dressing up and asking for candy, introducing them to the phrase "trick-or-treat." We then acted out trick-or-treating, and I gave them some American candy. (Yay, Skittles! Thanks, Grandma.) The English teacher, Ms. Ishikawa, quizzed them on my Halloween speech.

Today at Misaki, the students made masks for the mock trick-or-treating. Many of them ran out of time to make it creative and had to resort to using a blank piece of paper with eye holes cut out of it. Oh well. It was still a lot of good, educational fun!


This is the mask I received from Kenji's sister yesterday. (What a nice lady and a nice gift!) It's being modeled by one of the teachers at Misaki, haha.

At school today, Kabocha-san was once again a smash hit. Oooh, and once again, bad word choice! As I write this, the office lights have been turned off temporarily so everyone can see Mayla glow. (Liz's pumpkin, not Mayla the ALT!) It's pretty funny how impressed everyone is. Makes me smile. Like a jack-o'-lantern. :)