Chuseok!

September 19th was Chuseok in Korea. Chuseok ("Chew-sock") was celebrated at my school by the Kindy classes on the previous Tuesday since we had a long break and would not be in school Wednesday-Friday.

I LOVE THIS HOLIDAY. Days off, little Korean children in traditional Korean hanboks, I love it, I love it. There was a presentation in Korean for the kids about how to properly bow to their grandparents over the holiday. We played lots of traditional Korean games and they got to take home some red bean jellies (a traditional Chuseok snack according to my coteacher) that they had made on Monday during Cooking class. I was so tired by the time the day was over, and since it really wasn't a hard day at all, I decided the only explanation was that I was overwhelmed by how cute all of the kids were.

Below are pictures from "The cutest day of the year in Kindy".

First, a few pictures from the Cooking Class.

I remember not feeling well on this day and there being moments that I had to not smell or look at what was happening... so glad the camera was there to capture this moment lol

After making the jelly we helped the kids put the mix into molds.

After freezing over-night.

Final product.

On Tuesday I made sure to take pictures of each of my kids individually. Some of them loved their outfits more than others but they were all so adorable. Watching all the kids get off the bus that morning was definitely a highlight.

Juju

Arum

Daniel

Suyuna

Sally

Kristen Teacher

(I love Daniel in this picture. 100% done before the day even began)

First event of the day was a Bowing lesson for all of the kids. They learned proper etiquette for bowing to different people.

What I was NOT told about this little demonstration was my apparent involvement in this bowing lesson. Our kids were to bow to us and then we were supposed to "say something" to them... Don't we all just love getting put on the spot like that?

Not sure if this was before or after me & Claire's whisper conversation. Claire: "You have to say something!" Me: "Yea so I've noticed... What are you going to say?" Claire: "I don't know! Say something.. Go!" lol

I just said something like "Thank you Donkeys for being so great. I love you so much. Happy Chuseok."

Next we played a bunch of different games.

The first game was 제기 (Je-gi). It was like Korean hacky-sack. The traditional was to do it is very much like hacky-sack, but the way the kids did it was different. They had strings on theirs to be able to hold them and make it easier to kick the Jegi.

Next they played 투호 (Tuho). Tuho is played by throwing arrows into a jug/tube/something with a hole at the top.

And some of my kids were big fat cheaters.

The next game was a favorite among the older students that I have. I never understood what they were doing until Claire explained it to me during the Chuseok event. It's called 딱지 (Ddak-ji). From what I gather, Ddakji is played by putting one playing piece down on the ground and throwing the other piece at it hard enough that it will flip over. I've seen it played with actual plastic Ddak-ji toys with the older kids but from my limited internet research in attempts to explain it, it looks like paper pieces are just as popular.

After that, the kids played a hoop rolling game. I'm unaware of the term in Korean but I've definitely seen it played before this day at the Soellal event that I went to in the winter. It's played exactly how it sounds, and its freaking hard!

Teacher vs Teacher.

Some of the kids would just pick up the hoop and race it around the circle. Cheaters!

The last event of the day was a Tug-o-war.

It was a super cute day and I was so happy to be a part of it :)

I loved this hanbok & love even more this picture of him brushing his teeth in it.

Stay tuned for my next post: My Tokyo trip! Thanks for reading!

I am a website thief.

I recently got my lovely, perfect, amazing coteacher to (re)show me how to look at pictures on our school's website. I was shown how to do this in like March but since I never tried to log in at home and everything on the page is in Korean, I could never find the pictures that I knew were being taken all day everyday.

So I went through all of the pictures last week and found some super cute ones that I thought I would re-post :)

These pictures are from my first field trip to the Traffic Safety school back in March.

Kids in Korea are taught to raise one hand while crossing the street because since they are so short, cars can't see them if they are right up in front of their hood. If they raise their hand, the cars can see them (precioussssss).

Another super fun thing about Kindy is that I pose for pictures pretending to teach a Cooking class once a month. The kids wear adorable aprons and chef hats and I instruct them on how to make simple things. What we make in Cooking class is always a pleasant surprise and I am not told ahead of time what it is. This caused some issues when we made Gimbap and I had no idea how to fold the seaweed.

Instructions on the white board in the kitchen that I have to glance at nonchalantly while pretending I know how to make this stuff.

This was egg salad day. Kids hate egg salad. I heard this dish was a flop in most classes haha.

Another favorite: Birthday parties!

Market Day was a day that students brought in old books, clothes, new candy, new toys, stickers, etc and my school printed fake US money and gave everyone $10. They would go to each classroom, each with a different theme, and buy things to bring home. It was a super cute idea. Very fun for them. The funniest thing for me was after stressing to my kids to save their money because they had 4 shops to go to, some of them came to our class after they were finished and sneakily said "Teacher.... look... many moneys..." and Claire and I would have to take them to shops and explain to them their money is no good outside of school. They were so cute trying to be cheap and save all their money for later.

Kristen Teacher's Toy and Clothes shop.

Song Contests happen once every other month. The kids learn a new song and then perform in front of the other classes. The cool thing about song contests is that we can teach them ANY song. One of my coworkers taught his kids a Bob Marley song haha. My class did this song in June.

"Ah ahahah ahahah ahahah"

"Thank you everyone"

Super cute picture from Children's Day when I got to show off my face painting skillzzzzz.

ZOO FEILD TRIP! (Except Koreans can't pronounce "Z" so it was a field trip to the "Joo"..... awkward.) Super cute day. Super hot day. Ugh I remember how hot I was this day...

My babies <3

Learning about Guinea Pigs.

Field trip to the Memorial museum where we saw an exhibit about the human body. Lots of kids were terrified on this field trip because it was very dark inside the exhibit and there was a sound of a heart pumping and skeletons everywhere. Poor nuggets. The motto of that field trip was "Not scary! Very fun!"

And last but definitely not least, one of my favorites was Water day!

Nugget shield

Soaked

Love these pictures! Hope you liked them too <3