Halloween 2014: Jack-O-Lanterns, Pumpkin Pie and Costumes!

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been so long since my last post! Things have been so busy around here lately! I have been busy with my first year students, but I've also been busy helping the second year students prepare for their class trip to Hawaii! So cool, right!?

Anyway, here's a look at our Halloween at GONAN this year!

First, my second year English Club girls approached me and said they wanted to plan a Halloween Party for English Club. They had a ton of ideas and the ones we liked best were carving pumpkins and making pumpkin pie. Since the girls wanted to be able to display our pumpkins for a while, we started Halloween a little early. We carved pumpkins the week before Halloween.

Since traditional Halloween looking pumpkins are hard to come by in Japan, we bought as many as we could find that looked appropriate and split everyone into tiny groups to carve together. They all worked really hard to make the cutest Jack-O-Lanterns!

Next, on the Wednesday before Halloween, we all took over the cooking room and baked together! I had pumpkin pure and pumpkin spice from America so it made our job a lot easier! Katsumata sensei also wanted to teach the students how to make home made soba noodles. So, us girls baked pumpkin pies, and the boys made soba!

So, that was English Club.

We also had some Halloween fun in and outside of the classroom as well!

I have to say, because of my students, I LOVE Halloween again!

Until next time,
~Dianna

English Club Goodbye Party

After bunkasai in June, it's tradition that the 3rd Year students retire from club so they can focus more on their studies in preparation for University entrance exams. So, two of my 2nd Year girls, Tsukika and Minori, put together a small farewell party for our 3rd Year English Club members. Not everyone could make it, but it was still a nice time to chat and say our thank yous and goodbyes.

We will miss the 3rd Year students a lot, but we will ganbarimasu!

Here are a few pictures I was able to take. Unfortunately, the 3rd Years had to leave before I remembered to take a big group picture! :( However, our fearless former English Club leader, Daichi Yaguchi, was able to stick around for the big photo opp. ;)

Bunkasai - School Festival

I was literally blown away by bunkasai (school festival). This was my first bunkasai in Japan so I didn't really know what to expect. Months of planning and weeks of preparation late into the night went into making this year's "Revolution" bunkasai a complete success. Classrooms were transformed into themed cafes, game and quiz rooms from Disney to Pokemon and everything in between. Every club was represented with performances and displays. Even the English club performed our own version of Pinnochio, called "Pinoccho", live for the entire school. It was a big comedic hit, I think! ;)

Bunkasai was two days. Friday, June 6th was just for GONAN students and faculty to enjoy. I spent most of my time in the gym watching the talent shows, which is obvious because of my love for music. We have so many talented singers, musicians and dancers here! At the end of the first day we all gathered together to watch more performances, like English Club, Brass Band Club and all the 1st Year Homerooms perform their song. Something I was most impressed with was how every student showed their support for every act. They cheered, applauded and encouraged them. I love the unity and genuine support that Japanese high school students have for each other.

Saturday, June 7th was open to the public. There weren't many talent acts that day as everyone enjoyed walking around the school and visiting the different attractions each classroom had. Also, my friend Jill who is the ALT at Gotemba High School came to visit! I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted because I was primarily filming, but I hope you enjoy these few! I'm already counting down the days until the next bunkasai!

                                              

hOppy easter!

Sunday, April 19th was Easter in America, so we had some Easter fun in English Club to celebrate the Holiday!

First, we played an egg relay game in the classroom. Since we were indoors, I told the students to be careful not to drop the eggs because if they did, there would be a big mess and they would have to it clean up! What I didn't tell them was that I had already hard-boiled all of the eggs so if (when) they did fall, it would be ok. The students, however, thought the eggs were raw! They were SO careful not to drop any of them!

The game went pretty well for the first 10 minutes until all of a sudden, a group of girls screamed and jumped back about 5 feet as an egg dropped to the ground off someone's spoon. They paused and there was silence for several seconds while they processed that their dropped egg hadn't splatter. We all laughed. They were so surprised!

After that, we all colored Easter Eggs! When all the eggs were colored, it look as if the Easter Bunny had visited, for sure! This was also the first time the new first year students joined us for Club. I think everyone had a good time in English Club for Easter!